[EH21]

Hi,
I've got a 5 static IP DSL package from covad that comes with a Briteport modem router and I want to host my website on my old G4 dual and also connect up my new G5, printers and airport. I've been told the most secure way is to go with the G4 Server into one port (and one IP) on the briteport router and connect a second DCHP router to a second port on the briteport (Covad) router and connect my G5, printers and other stuff to that. I have an old Linksys bsr41 switch router and have been pulling my hair out trying to get it to work.

I left the linksys router LAN settings at 192.168.1.1 but set the WAN settings to the next free IP in my package with the Covad DNS settings. Nothing seemed to work.

Am I on the right track? or is there a better way to connect everything up?

Eric

[Krusty]

I'm a little bit fuzzy on exactly what your setup is, but you realize that you can't have two DHCP servers running simultaneously and have them work (only the top level one will work). If the briteport router is serving up DHCP, then you need to go into the Linsys config and turn DHCP OFF. I have a somewhat similar setup with a wired Netgear router and then a second wired/wireless router downstream of it. NOTHING on the second router worked -- until I went in and turned off DHCP (effectively turning it into a simple hub/switch rather than a proper router). Then everything worked great. I'm typing this now from a machine plugged into the second, downstream router.

Honestly, I've never worked with a multi-static IP account like yours. I'm only guessing that it will work similarly.

[EH21]

Hi Krusty,
thanks for the reply. I'm thinking along those lines but had been told that I could enter a static IP from the first router pool into the WAN config and all would be good. I just pulled the Linksys out totally and connected the G5 and found out the briteport had different subnet numbers than I thought so I am going to retry that and see what happens.

I have also tried a switch instead of the Linksys box but that didn't work so well either as I couldn't find the printers through the switch.
Eric

[Krusty]

Hmmm .. sounds like its a bit more complex than I have experience with. So I'll just mention a few more things that tripped me up a bit when I was setting up mine.

1) I thought I needed a separate subnet with the second router ... which ended up not being the case and caused me to lose sight of other devices on the main subnet. Instead, I hard coded my 2nd router to an IP on the main subnet (its 192.168.0.5 on the main subnet and the devices off of it are 192.168.0.x -- same subnet as the main router). Subsequent devices added to the second router are clearly visible (and their IPs are configed ) directly from the main router.

2) Check into the RIP settings. This allows multiple routers to "know" what IPs other routers have assigned or reserved. I'm still unclear whether or not I need to have it on, but I turned it ON on the downstream router and it seems to work fine. I assume that this is what is allowing my main router to recognize devices downstream of the 2nd router and manage their IPs on the same subnet.

3) If your ISP has issued 5 static IPs, look in to the possibility that they have assigned each of the 5 IPs to the 5 actual MAC addresses on the ports of your briteport. I understand that sometimes an ISP will do this. If the do this, you may want to look into MAC address cloning. Many routers have this now and will allow the router to represent itself to the WAN with a spoofed MAC address. Meaning, you clone the MAC address of whatever port the on the briteport the linksys is plugged in to to the linksys and then all your devices downstream of the 2nd router will look like they are coming from the same MAC address (not just the same IP) as far as your ISP is concerned.

Please post back when you get it all figured out. I just recently took the leap from a simple, single router setup to a multi-router wired/wireless setup and still have a lot to learn (especially about this multi-static-IP thing you've got going)

[aaanorton]

Originally posted by EH21:
I've got a 5 static IP DSL package from covad that comes with a Briteport modem router and I want to host my website on my old G4 dual and also connect up my new G5, printers and airport.

Well, 1st of all... Why so many IPs? Did your ISP recommend this by any chance? Can your Linksys be config'ed with DHCP on, but NAT off? If so, you could set it like that and each machine would grab an IP from the Linksys and all the IPs would be static IPs provided by your ISP, assuming the router/modem doesn't do any NAT. The problem with this is that not enabling NAT removes the security of having a private IP. And I have no idea how the printer(s) would function with one of your ISP's IPs (it would, of course, be exposed to the internet, so ANYBODY could print to it, if they had the IP). The other approach, which you seemed to be trying already, is to have the Linksys hand out private IPs like 192.168.1.x. This would provide a level of security, because all devices would be behind a NAT router. It would also put everything on an easy to manage local LAN. However, with this setup, you would be using only 1 (possibly 2, we'll get to that in a sec) IP that you are paying for. Has this LAN been up and running for a while or are you just now setting it up? How many devices (computers, printers, everything) do you want on your LAN? Is this just part of a larger LAN that uses the other IPs? If not, then again... Why so many IPs? If you put all your device behind a NAT DHCP router, then they will all share a single public (paid for) IP. All of what you are trying to do can be accomplished through a single IP to your ISP. You would need to do some port forwarding on the router, so the web traffic would go to the G4, but that is not difficult.
I recommend starting over. List all your devices and describe what you want to to do what. Then hopefully we can help you config it all properly.

[EH21]

Aaanorton: First I like your tag line.
To answer your questions, I wanted to host at least two but perhaps 3 personal websites that don't get much traffic but have a lot of data and cost a lot to have some one host. I decided that my old G4 Dualie could be used as a server since nobody wanted to buy it I lucked into a copy of OS X server and have that running on the G4.

With my ISP there was no option to get just one IP plus I was thinking its better to have one for each website I want to host.

I have a bunch of printers that I want to connect, Epson 7600, Epson 4000, Textronix 740p, Kodak 8650ps and I also want to have wireless internet access points for my wife who uses a G4 laptop. So that's partly why I need to split up the first router.... I need to use a the minimum a switch. But I was told that it would be more secure if I put most of the computers behind another DCHP router. By doing that I would also leave the other IP's free for the websites. When I just used switches I couldn't find any of the printers on the G5.

Now I know that the Briteport router will assign one of the static IP's to anything that's plugged into it. I think its possible to set the WAN on the second router to one of these IP's but maybe I should just let the Briteport assign it?

I could try setting the second router to grab the IP from the briteport for the WAN and then configure the LAN to 192.168.1.10 or something and then tell it to assign IP's to the devices plugged into it over some amount like 192.168.1.100 so that it wouldn't conflict with whatever the briteport configures. But I'm kind of thinking it wouldn't matter since the briteport is just going to assign the static IP's.

Any futher thoughts?