Help me build my homenetwork - with two ISPs

[Jacob Nielsen]

Hi

First post on this forum, so please forgive me if I placed it wrong.
I need some help to build my home network. Want I want to achieve:

2.4/5GHz coverage at both ends of my house.
All devices that can be connected by cable should be.
Let my two internet connections from different ISPs be available to all of my network but restrict a Synology NAS to only use a specific router for a specific ISP, but still let the NAS be available to all clients in my LAN.

I currently have two internet connections from different ISPs.
One is an ADSL the other a 4G mobile broadband connection.

The ADSL internet connection is delivered by a TDC Homebox SAGEMCOM, V3DK04-02-5Ak042 with a DHCP scope covering 192.168.1*
The 4G internet connection is delivered by a Huawei B315s-22 with a DHCP scope covering 192.168.2.*

Since the 4G ISP is using NAT in their internal network before the traffic is routed to me, I am unable to have a server on this router available to requests from the internet. So the NAS is connected to my ADSL router.
That leaves me with two separate networks in my house, so the only way I can connect to my server from a client, is to let my traffic go over the internet through my 4G ISP to the ADSL ISP to my server.

In regards to what I want to achieve, how can I have both internet connections be available to a single network, routing the traffic from the ADSL ISP to my server and the 4G ISP traffic to my clients, but still make it possible for the clients to connect to the server on my LAN (not over the internet)? Can the two internet facing routers share the other two routers which will then be in bridge-mode only working as switches and access points?

The Huawei router/modem is connected to a Linksys EA6900 in bridged-mode to support my client network.
The TDC Homebox is only used for my NAS at the moment.
I then just bought an ASUS RT-AC68U, to use as my primary router in my internal network.
I also bought a lot of cat 7 S-FTP cables, hoping it is the best way to get a high performance network without interference (avoiding wireless bridge mode).

I am confused about what to do to have a high performing network with all these routers and two ISPs. I hope someone can share some knowledge, best practice and suggestions for my setup.

 

[Nullity]

I would use a single multi-WAN router possibly with a managed switch.

Cat7? Future-proofing for the impending 10Gbit... nice.

Unless you have some other reason (untrusted LAN?), I see no need for separate LANs. A good router like something from Mikrotik, Ubiquiti, Cisco, or something like pfSense or IPFire might be a good choice.

AsusWRT is probably capable, but you would need to do some non-standard, command-line scripting to achieve it.

 

[Jacob Nielsen]

I would use a single multi-WAN router possibly with a managed switch.

Cat7? Future-proofing for the impending 10Gbit... nice.

Unless you have some other reason (untrusted LAN?), I see no need for separate LANs. A good router like something from Mikrotik, Ubiquiti, Cisco, or something like pfSense or IPFire might be a good choice.

AsusWRT is probably capable, but you would need to do some non-standard, command-line scripting to achieve it.

Wouldn't it be possible somehow to route the traffic from the server to the ADSL ISP router only? The rest of the traffic from my clients can use either of the ISP rourters but the must be able to connect to the server.

 

[Nullity]

What is "the server"?

 

[Jacob Nielsen]

What is "the server"?

The server is a Synology NAS.

 

[System Error Message]

I suggest you use a sophisticated router like mikrotik or pfsense as they both can apply selective routing so you can host your server on adsl but everything else can be routed the way you want. Its not easy to do selective routing on these things but they can do all sorts of things. Some have done selective routing like this with RMerlin's firmware so it may also be possible on openWRT and tomato (best to look at the firmwares properly). If you are going for consumer router my suggestion would be RMerlin's firmware.

 

[Nullity]

Wouldn't it be possible somehow to route the traffic from the server to the ADSL ISP router only? The rest of the traffic from my clients can use either of the ISP rourters but the must be able to connect to the server.

From that perspective, I dunno if you even need to be concerned.

With NAT & port-forwarding, you would only need to share the ADSL external IP... I think.


More to the point, are you having problems with your current dual-WAN setup? If so, what?

 

[sfx2000]

I think he's trying to do load-balancing across the DSL provider and the 4G-LTE provider - the 4G folks are using NAT (which is common)...

My suggestion is to do fail-over - let the DSL guys be the primary provider, and the 4G folks be the "spare tire" as NAT is definitely going to be an issue with remote access back into your network..

 

[Nullity]

I think he's trying to do load-balancing across the DSL provider and the 4G-LTE provider - the 4G folks are using NAT (which is common)...

My suggestion is to do fail-over - let the DSL guys be the primary provider, and the 4G folks be the "spare tire" as NAT is definitely going to be an issue with remote access back into your network..

I would like to know what problems he is having.

I imagine that services like Plex, or any service that determines it's external IP with an external site, could inadvertently use the wrong WAN and therefore broadcast the wrong IP.


I wonder if he wants a fail-over multi-WAN, or a load-balancing multi-WAN. Like you say, fail-over would simplify things.

 

[Jacob Nielsen]

I am not having problems with my two separate networks, I just want to merge them keeping both ISPs available to different clients in the network.

I am not even sure if I want to load balance or setup a failover network.

The Synology server should only use the ADSL router, the clients should use the 4G router, but the Synology server should be available to all clients on the local network.

 

[Nullity]

I am not having problems with my two separate networks, I just want to merge them keeping both ISPs available to different clients in the network.

I am not even sure if I want to load balance or setup a failover network.

The Synology server should only use the ADSL router, the clients should use the 4G router, but the Synology server should be available to all clients on the local network.

Well... figure out what you want (load-balance vs fail-over).

Technically, which WAN your NAS uses is less important than which IP you use (when away from home) to access your NAS. The NAS is most likely unconcerned where you are connecting from.



You might think of grabbing a beginners guide to networking, especially if you plan on designing a network. Otherwise, you need to give us more info, like what your current problems & failed solutions are.

 

[Jacob Nielsen]

Well... figure out what you want (load-balance vs fail-over).

Technically, which WAN your NAS uses is less important than which IP you use (when away from home) to access your NAS. The NAS is most likely unconcerned where you are connecting from.



You might think of grabbing a beginners guide to networking, especially if you plan on designing a network. Otherwise, you need to give us more info, like what your current problems & failed solutions are.

Computers on network using 4G router as gateway could not access Synology server on another network even if they were connected through the same physical network (routers, switches and cables). The Synology server was connected to another router using it as its default gateway which was different than the one the computers on the first network used.

I still have it configured like this, but I found a solution so a computer on network A (4G modem/router as ISP connected to ASUS router) to access the Synology server on network B (TDC Homebox Sagemcom ADSL modem/router). I have configured the network cards on the computers that should access the Synology server, with an IP addresse and a gateway for each network. Between network A and B I have placed the Linksys EA6900 as a bridge. So the only was I can access my Synology server on the B network is by configuring my Windows PC to have multiple adresses. This is my main issue I was hoping this forum could help me overcome by configuring the network routers properly, maybe with static routers or whatever works. Described as a simple question: how can a computer on network A access the Synology server on network B without configuring the computers network card with multiple ip addresses, considering all the routers, modems and bridge?

Since I just bought an ASUS RT-AC68U which provides Dual WAN setup, I am thinking of adding the ADSL modem/router to the ASUS router. This way I only need one private network instead of two. A static route can hopefully then be made from the Synology server to only use the TDC Homebox ADSL modem/router as its gateway to the internet. Both of the modem/routers are using static IPs, so it is the ASUS which is the DHCP server. My only problem getting both modems connected to the ASUS router is getting a cable from the ADSL modem to the ASUS router. That is way I want to know if it can be solved with my current setup.

4G modem has a static IP of 192.168.2.1 on the LAN side connected to the ASUS router.
ASUS router has a static IP of 192.168.2.2 on the WAN side (connected to the 4G modem) and 192.168.3.1 (network A) on the LAN side (connected to Linksys bridge), acting as DHCP server for clients in the network.
Linksys bridge gets a DHCP address from ASUS router on the WAN side and connected to the TDC Homebox on the LAN side.
TDC Homebox has a static IP of 192.168.1.1 on the LAN side
Synology server has a static IP of 192.168.1.2 connected to the ASUS router on one of the four LAN ports. Synology server should only use 192.168.1.1 as gateway, but at the same time be available to clients on 192.168.3.* on the local network and not only when the clients access it from the internet.

Im sorry if its confusing, so please ask me to clarify if needed.

 

[Shader]

Been running this "budget" setup to cater for 2 different ISPs at my grandparents house for a couple of years now. One fibre and one 4G connection. No automatic loadbalancing nor failover (failover done manually by changing default Gateway on the device)
I use it for connecting different devices to different IPSs, but still able to connect to them in the LAN, much like your scenario.
Be aware that one of the routers in this setup will be your "main Gateway" where everything normally and automatically connects using dhcp.

You do need to turn of DHCP on the other router or you´ll get exciting clashes on the network...

For devices to use ISP#2 you need to override the default gateway setting on the device and manually enter the IP of the other ISPs router.
for more info look at this, where user Anav describes a similar setup:
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r20047171-2-Gateways-2-ISPs-2-Routers-1-Network

Crude but works...

 

[Jacob Nielsen]

Well, I finally found a solution to my problem. It's called ASUS RT-AC68U.
It supports a Dual WAN setup and lets me restrict the Synology server as well as specific clients to only use the ADSL modem and still let other clients using the 4G modem access the Synology server. In fact all clients and Synology server are now on the same 192.168.2.x network. I found this blog post which in details describes what to do, in case others in this forum is looking for the same solution as I was: http://www.techpoy.com/2014/11/asus-rt-ac68u-dual-wan-set-up.html.

I am amazed that firmware for this router is still being frequently updated, last time was about a month ago. The router was released back in 2013 but still offers much more than my Linksys EA6900.