3 subnets?

[fr33m4n]

On the ground floor of my house I have a 50Mbps internet connection that I would like to fairly share between all three floors of the house while still keeping each floor on a separate network.

What I think I need to do is connect 3 routers via LAN cable to my ISP modem and place each of the routers on different floors of the house. Then I would like each of the routers to act as independent AP's basically only sharing the internet connection. That would mean that if you connected to the router either wirelessly or wired you would only have access to the other clients connected to that particular router. Then, and this may be the hard or impossible part, I would like to throttle the internet connection on each router to max 15Mbps, but regular LAN that does not connect to the internet should not be throttled.

Is any of this possible? If so how? What kind of routers would I need? How do I configure them? I would like something fairly high performance without completely breaking the bank.

 

[thiggins]

You can do what you want with a single router, using a smart/managed switch to set VLANS to separate traffic and do some rough bandwidth limiting. See Smart Switch How to - Part 2: Security - VLAN and Smart Switch How to - Part 3: Bandwidth Control

 

[fr33m4n]

Thanks for the reply. I have read through those articles but as far as I can tell a smart switch mainly relates to the throttling issue. That is of course interesting however it´s not my main concern.

I think I gave too little information at first. You see each floor is to be considered a separate "appartment" which houses 5 people each. And in each appartment every one of those 5 residents would like to connect either wirelessly or wired to the internet. Also the floors are so thick that the wireless signals hardly pass through one floor so you really need some kind of wireless signaling device on each floor.

Personally I feel like my issue too simple to prompt the kind of reply I really need because it´s basically a simple matter of extending wireless coverage. However I have gone through great lenght in the past to improve the wireless signal on one floor. What I did was I used a LAN cable to connect two routers and then tried all of the possible settings I had in order to get them to work together. The result for most of my effort was that neither router worked at all and in a few instances I could get only the router directly connect to the modem to work. For this reason I´m extremely hesitant about trying anything of the sort I´m here hoping to do without thurough instruction.

I really hope I´m making some kind of sense here, but please feel free to ask clarifying questions.

 

[fr33m4n]

Ok, so basically I need something along the lines of these two guides?

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wire...onvert-a-wireless-router-into-an-access-point

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wire...w-to-add-an-access-point-to-a-wireless-router

But this would make them all be on the same network right? Which is something I would like to avoid. Back to the drawing table I guess?

 

[thiggins]

You can't connect multiple routers to your ISP's modem unless the ISP provides multiple IP addresses.

A Cisco RV042 will provide VLANs and/or multiple subnets and up and down bandwidth limiting.

You would then connect three APs, placing each one it its own VLAN. Those APs can be converted routers if you like.

 

[fr33m4n]

I wasn´t planning on connecting multiple routers to my modem because I don´t need each subnet to have different internet IP adresses. Only the adresse within the subnet needs to be unique.

Basically I was hoping to connect router 1 to the modem and router 2 to router 1 and router 3 to router 2.

I have created an image of what I imagine it would look like.

http://db.tt/7knToytQ

 

[teknojnky]

You just need 1 router, however you probably want a switch (or AP for wireless) for each floor.

Modem > router with vlans

router vlan1 = 1st floor > switch/ap 1 > residents 1-5
router vlan2 = 2nd floor > switch/ap 2 > residents 6-10
router vlan3 = 3rd floor > switch/ap 3 > residents 11-15

limit each vlan to whatever bw you desire

you don't daisy chain each floor to each other, all floors connect to router next to modem

 

[fr33m4n]

You just need 1 router, however you probably want a switch (or AP for wireless) for each floor.

Modem > router with vlans

router vlan1 = 1st floor > switch/ap 1 > residents 1-5
router vlan2 = 2nd floor > switch/ap 2 > residents 6-10
router vlan3 = 3rd floor > switch/ap 3 > residents 11-15

limit each vlan to whatever bw you desire

you don't daisy chain each floor to each other, all floors connect to router next to modem

Ah ok, that clears things up for me. However the reason I was thinking about daisy chaining was because it's kinda a pain to stretch cables that long. But I guess it can't be helped?

I have drawn a new "map" of how my new understanding is of this setup. I'd appreciate it if you looked at it to see if I now have the right idea.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/679318/house-routing.jpg

Ok, then the next step I guess is selecting which router with vlan and which router/AP's I need? Any suggestions for that? thiggins mentioned Cisco RV042 for the vlan router. Is that a sensible choice? What about the AP's. I'll obviously want 802.11N and they should really be incredibly stable and not choke up like my current D-Link Dir-655 does.

 

[teknojnky]

yea thats the right idea.

the reason you need the 3 cables, one for each floor, is because the isolation (the vlans) occur at the modem/router, not the individual floors.

If you can't do individual long loops, one other probably more expensive route is to use smart switches for each floor and vlan the floor ports in the same manner as the router vlans/ports.


ie
router >
vlan1/port1 > floor 1/switch 1 > port 1 > floor 1 tenants
vlan2/port2 > floor 1/switch 1 > port 2 > floor 2/switch 2 > floor 2 tenants
vlan3/port3 > floor 1/switch 1 > port 3 > floor 2/switch 2 port 2 > floor 3/switch 3 > floor 3 tenants

or something like that, so that you can daisy chain via switchs but still keep trafffic isolated by ports/floors

 

[fr33m4n]

Ah, ok, I see. Well your first suggestion sounds much better then. Long lines of cable it is

So what equipment should I buy? I have googled enough to suspect that DD-WRT supports vlan. A friend has the Buffalo WZR-HP-G300NH which comes with dd-wrt preinstalled. Is that a good idea or is it unstable?

 

[teknojnky]

I use dd-wrt myself and its very stable, I haven't used the vlan functionality though.

Unfortunately I can't make any recommendations on which AP's or other specific equipment to use, you will have to make the most out the reviews and/or see if others post anything.

 

[fr33m4n]

Ok thanks. I'll try to read a few reviews but I don't know if there is any one best answer really.

My main concern is stability. I simply don't have the time to run around and troubleshoot. At first glance I have made the following list.

2x ASUS RT-N16
1x ASUS RT-N56U
1x Cisco RV042

Cisco is the vlan switch and then I'm getting a slightly better router/ap for myself and decent (but stable!) routers for the tenants.

I'm hoping someone with experience on asus routers can comment on their stability or if someone could suggest other alternatives.

 

[thiggins]

You don't need to worry about APs support VLANs. That will be taken care of in the RV042 switch.

I have no specific recommendations on routers to convert to APs. I use a NETGEAR WNDR3700 v1 and it has been very reliable and provides the coverage I need. But I don't do any wireless streaming with it.

 

[fr33m4n]

What about the NETGEAR FVS318N?

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/secu...reless-n-8-port-gigabit-vpn-firewall-reviewed

It seems to support VLAN's and it has wireless so I wouldn't need a separate AP for the ground floor right? At my local retailer it's only 10$ more than the Cisco and it also has Gigabit LAN so it appears to be a better option. I'm not sure if it supports any throttling though?

However the ASUS RT-N16 supports DD-WRT which does support throttling so I can resolve that at the AP.

Seems like a win-win, no?

 

[thiggins]

I think you might be happier with the Cisco. The NETGEAR FVS' haven't had as good a reputation. But I don't use either on a regular basis. Perhaps others can comment.

I would not mess with DD-WRT. All you are doing is getting a different set of problems. And the throttling you speak off applies only to routing. It doesn't work for LAN or WLAN traffic.

 

[fr33m4n]

I think you might be happier with the Cisco. The NETGEAR FVS' haven't had as good a reputation. But I don't use either on a regular basis. Perhaps others can comment.

I would not mess with DD-WRT. All you are doing is getting a different set of problems. And the throttling you speak off applies only to routing. It doesn't work for LAN or WLAN traffic.

I think I need to research the reliability of the netgear more at least, but I am kinda put off by the Cisco because it only has 100Mbit LAN. Maybe I also need to explore other options. The Netgear FVS has also been compared to The Cisco RV120W and RV220W. I checked out the review for the RV220W and also read the user comment which were very negative and kinda deterred me from Cisco all together as I got the idea that Cisco had a tendance to release buggy firmware.

As far as my googling has revealed, DD-WRT seems to be rock solid on the ASUS RT-N16 so I'm not too worried about that. Also my friend who has the buffalo with DD-WRT has no complaints.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by throttling routing, but what I want to do is make sure not one subnet is hogging all the internet speed. I know that DD-WRT supports throttling internet usage in it's QoS settings so it seems to cover what I want.

In retrospect it feels like I've blindly fallen for the netgear and asus idea. What should I do to ensure I don't end up stuck with buggy hardware. Rock Solid is the key really.

 

[fr33m4n]

This is probably a stupid question but one think I don't quite understand: The NETGEAR FVS318N is specced as having Gigabit LAN ports however the review says that routing speed is slow and they measure it as around 60Mbps. This is nowhere near gigabit speeds, but is this internet speed only? I want to connect LAN devices that will exchange data at speeds much faster then 100Mbps. Would I be able to do that with the NETGEAR FVS318N. This is also one of my concerns with the Cisco RV042 which is only a 100Mbit device. Wouldn't it slow down LAN speeds?

 

[teknojnky]

the 100m would only slow down the internet (if greater than 100mbit) and inter-floor traffic (which is irrelevant if your using vlans to isloate the floors).

 

[thiggins]

Port speed sets the maximum throughput available.

LAN to LAN traffic goes through a switch in the router, not the routing engine itself. So router throughput affects only traffic to/from the Internet

 

[fr33m4n]

Port speed sets the maximum throughput available.

LAN to LAN traffic goes through a switch in the router, not the routing engine itself. So router throughput affects only traffic to/from the Internet

Thanks. That's very interesting.

However in my experience all Gigabit LAN ports are not built equal. In the past I have tried transferring files between two Synology NASes. They were first connected by a D-Link Dir-655 which only gave me about 10MB/s of transfer speed. I then borrowed a Buffalo WZR-HP-G300NH and used that instead. Now the NASes suddenly gave me 20MB/s. The only difference between the two runs were the router. Everything else stayed the same. So it would be kinda interesting to see whether the Netgear truly is capable of Gigabit speeds. If it's not then that really slams the door on that idea.

On a different not. I have read good things about the Ubiquiti PowerAP N as an AP. The walls in the house is really blocking the signal from my current Dir-655 so I would really be interested in something with a little more power.

I'm currently thinking of combining the Cisco RV220W with the Ubiquiti PowerAP N. I might not even need two to cover the top two floors? How does that sound?