Help with home network setup

Factual Questions
1

So, for the last year, I’ve had my home network up and running just fine, but I feel there must be a better way to do this.

Right now, I am at my main desktop, a MacPro (Late 2013). I also have a MacPro (2007/8-ish) running is my basement without a monitor kind of as a makeshift server. Basically, I have it filled up with 4x4TB hard drives that I use to backup everything from my desktop on, as well as hosting all my music files and basically all that type of media storage that I’d want access to from other computers. But it’s not running any dedicated server software or anything fancy like that. Just a computer I fileshare or screenshare with.

Anyhow, so my network connection is this:

Cable internet runs into a cable modem/router combination from xfinity/Comcast (I used to have my own modem and router before, but I forget what it was about this set up that I ended up renting it. Maybe it was because we have cable & telephone on it, and there was some complications with that. I forget. At any rate that’s what I have.) Now, since my wireless signal is weak in the basement, I have this router wired with an ethernet cable to the router I have in the basement. That router is also connected to my computer in the basement that is acting as a server.

Does this make sense so far? My main MacPro desktop upstairs can connect to the internet either via Wifi or directly through an ethernet cable plugged into my xfinity router. For my computer to connect to the server in the basement, though, I need to connect via WiFi to the basement router, which that server is connected to. This isn’t really a problem, except when I’m transferring about 100 GB of information at a time, it seems to me that going through a wired connection would be faster and more stable. (I rarely have the WiFi connection to the basement drop out on me, but it has happened before mid-transfer.)

Now, I assume I can just run another ethernet cable down from my MacPro upstairs to the router in the basement, and then have a wired connection both to the server and the internet that way, but it almost seems to me like I should be able to do it with one cable. Does that make sense?

Here is a drawing of it if it helps. Where I wrote “Computers can connect via WiFi to” both routers, I mean that our other computers, like laptops or iPads or iPhone both get internet connectivity on either router (assuming it’s in range.)

So, what I want to know is whether there is a way for me to connect with the server in the basement directly, since I already have a cable going from my upstairs router to my downstairs router? Or do I need to run a second ethernet cable down to the basement router?

2

I am not a network professional but it is a bit unusual to have two separate wifi networks. You might have better throughput by retiring the basement router (more on this later), connecting the basement Mac server directly to the Ethernet cable and investing a few bucks in a WiFi mesh extender. You will also have the desirable side effect of having a single wifi network (easier admin, less signal interference) and removing the bottleneck of an additional router (more packet switching = lower performance).

3

Hmm. I haven’t tried these mesh extenders, just the regular kind which didn’t do much for me. I’ll take a look at them. If anyone has any other suggestions, let me know, but I won’t be back to this thread until late tonight.

4

To answer the question you asked: YES, you **should **be able to connect to the basement server simply by connecting to the upstairs router (either via wifi or ethernet). That’s a basic function of any router. There are a handful of possible problems that could be causing this behavior. I don’t have time right now to walk you through checking each of these (I’m at work, on my lunch), so they may be a bit beyond your skill level

  • Is the cable between the routers plugged into the routers uplink port? The routers need to know that this line leads to another router/switch (as opposed to another computer).
  • Are the subnetworks addressed properly? Basement should be on one subnet, upstairs on another, and the link between them on it’s very own. Putting them on different subnets tells the routers they need to talk to the other router to find an address.
  • If the subnets are setup properly, do the routers know where to find the other subnets? (I know professional gear maps this automatically, not sure about home hardware)
  • Is port forwarding configured properly? (this is too complex to explain right now, but it’s easy enough to do once you understand what’s going on)
  • Are you using some apple-specific software to transfer the files? (I’m probably wrong here, but I seem to recall Apple stuff uses a protocol that can’t go between subnets).

That’s all I have time for now. I’ll come back later with more information and more ideas.

5

Is the ethernet cable on the downstairs router from the main router in the Wan socket or a switch socket? If you put it in the Wan socket you are outside the routers firewall. Flipping it to a switch port should fix it.

Connecting to downstairs wifi would but you inside the firewall, thus easily accessing shares.

6

I’ll let you know in about 8 hours or so. Thanks for checking in!

7

You’ve probably got both routers giving out IP addresses that are not routable: for this reason the you can’t talk to the second router through the first one.

Configure the second (‘server’) router as a ‘repeater’ in ‘bridge’ mode, that is, not AP ‘access point’ mode, and it should all work.

8

The ethernet cable going into the basement needs to be plugged in to the WAN port on the basement router, and then the basement router needs to be configured to AP mode. Then you’ll only have one wifi network throughout the house but your devices will automatically select the router with the strongest signal to them. This way, you’ll be able to skip the step where you connect to basement wifi everytime you want to use your server, because all the devices will be on the same network, both wired and wireless.

Some super cheapo or super old routers may not have an access point mode.

9

Ok. I’m pretty sure the Ethernet from upstairs is connected to the WAN downstairs. That’s the one labeled “Internet,” right? I’ll check when I get home, but I’m pretty sure that’s the set up. I’ll check this business about access point mode as well.

10

Yep, that’s the internet port. Access point mode disables routing, firewall, dhcp functions on the router so that it just forwards wifi and wired traffic to the other router. It sounds like the downstairs router is just in it’s regular router mode, which is why you have a secondary network nested within your upstairs network. If it was in access point mode then there would only be the upstairs network available to choose from.

Not sure which router you have downstairs but it’s usually just a simple bullet choice, here’s what it looks like on mine:

[Album] imgur.com
11

OK, just got home. My router is a Netgear WNDR4300. I have the Gargoyle firmware installed on it, so not the Netgear one it came with. I’ll have a look at the settings. So if I set it up to this mode, the only router name that will be broadcast is the upstairs router? There is no way for me to manually pick which router to choose, it’ll just do so based on signal strength?

12

OK, I looked. It is in Wireless Mode: Access Point. (I should say, this is the mode I’ve had it set to this whole time.) Is that the right one? The options I have are Access Point (AP), AP+WDS, Ad Hoc, and disabled.

ETA: Also, under Configure Device As: it is in Gateway mode, not Wireless Bridge/Receiver. From some other posts above, it sounds like I should put it in the latter mode?

13

ETA2: Here’s a screenshot of the configuratoin screen.

14

no, your setting is correct.

make sure “DHCP server” is off.

15

Don’t use 2 routers, n00b. Use one router and a switch. (sorry for calling you n00b, I had this very problem 10 years ago)

Yes, you can get it to work using subnets or whatever nonsense. But the easier way is :

  1. Connect to your xfinity router as primary, letting it do DHCP and all that fun stuff
  2. If you need more ports or you want to have just 1 ethernet cable going to the basement, down in the basement you need a switch. A switch is dumber than a router and basically splits things like you want. You can get a name brand gigabit switch for $20 these days.
  3. Don’t want to spend $20? You can take a second router and make it work like a switch. Usually you go into the router configuration and disable stuff (turn off the wifi, the dhcp, everything basically), and usually you just connect all the ethernet cables to the main block of ports on the back. That is, the WAN port on the router is EMPTY. Sometimes you can be lazy and just plug everything into the back of the switch part, leaving the WAN port empty, and it will “just work”. Try it.

Also, if you are tired of the unreliability of wireless but don’t want to run Ethernet cables, there’s a solution for that. Power line ethernet. These days, they are just a brick you plug into an outlet, and you plug additional bricks into other outlets. They act like they are all on the same switch. (you can plug in more than 2 bricks). You plug the ethernet cable in from there. They ‘just work’.

Some are even PoE injectors, so you can then just slap a wifi AP powered by PoE onto a power line ethernet adapter in an upstairs room, and boom, 1 outlet is used upstairs, and your wifi is extended reliably. Then, downstairs, you plug a second adapter in and then ethernet into your primary router.

16

But if I understand what you’re saying correctly, then the basement wireless router isn’t working as a WiFi connection point. That was the whole point of setting up a second wireless router down there. There are parts of the house that play well with that router, but not the xfinity one; parts that play better with the xfinity one; and parts that are equally fine with both. (I tried a simple wireless extender, the type you plug in a wall like a wall wart, and it didn’t really help much.)

17

I mean, if I just wanted a network connection with the computer in the basement, I could plug that computer directly into my router upstairs (which is how it was setup in the old house. WiFi was fine throughout the house, so I just ran ethernet between two floors from the router to the secondary computer. Plus [and I forgot about this], I run another ethernet line from that router into my wife’s office in the basement, so she has a wired connection, as well, to the net.) From what I can tell, actually, in most of the house, for some reason the basement router puts out a better signal than the xfinity router, even if I’m physically closer to the xfinity router. Most of my devices actually default to the basement router, but the living room devices are better with the xfinity router.

18

Hmmm… I turned off “LAN DHCP server Enabled” and power cycled the modem, and that doesn’t seem to have done anything.

19

[quote=“dstarfire, post:4, topic:795909”]

To answer the question you asked: YES, you **should **be able to connect to the basement server simply by connecting to the upstairs router (either via wifi or ethernet). That’s a basic function of any router. There are a handful of possible problems that could be causing this behavior. I don’t have time right now to walk you through checking each of these (I’m at work, on my lunch), so they may be a bit beyond your skill level

[quote]

Yes, this is beyond my pay grade. Don’t know too much about networking.

Maybe? The upstairs modem/router combo just has four ethernet ports on it, all the same. The downstairs router has an “Internet” port and four regular ethernet ports. The cable running from the upstairs computer is connected directly to the internet port in the one in the basement.

No idea on any of this stuff. I don’t have any port forwarding set up on the router (the only thing I’ve ever used port forwarding for is torrents, I believe.) There is no apple-specific software I use, other than whatever is built into the OS. I use the Screen Sharing client and just file transfer the normal drag & drop way once I mount the remote computer.

20

WAIT!!! I seem to have done it.

I did what The Library and some others have suggested. After disabling LAN DHCP server I thought, wait, maybe I should move the ethernet line from “Internet” to a regular port. I did that. No dice. Then I thought, wait, maybe I should powercycle so it can grab an address (or whatever the hell it does–like I said, this is beyond my pay grade.) And it works! I can connect from my desktop using the wired connection to the computer downstairs. And accessing the router downstairs through wireless, I can access the internet. So it seems now I have two wireless routers, with two network IDs, both connected to the internet, and I have that direct connection to my computer in the basement. Yay!

Thanks for the help everyone!