Connecting 2 Huawei Routers together

[William1102]

I know this question for other routers has been asked before and I’ve done this successfully on other brands.

This is my setup :

Huawei B612 (Supersonic F-LTE)
Huawei B316 currently using for WiFi as the b612 has poor WiFi N compared to AC

So my issue is , I cannot access devices plugged into the B612 via the B316 WiFi both ways. I have one cat6 cable from B612 Lan to the B316 WAN port

I know this is possible as at the office I have configured an Asus router turned off DHCP and it communicates with the wisps Mikrotik router

I’m probably doing something wrong so please help MyBB pros

 

[newby_investor]

Check your IP ranges. There might be something of a conflict.

The B612, turn off the WiFi completely and set it to one IP range, say 192.168.0.X.

Then the B316, set it to 192.168.1.X, it should get something in the 192.168.0.X range in its WAN port, then the clients should be able to talk to both routers on their respective IP addresses.

If you don't come right I will dig out my old Huawei router and experiment to see if I can get it working. But I'm pretty sure that's what I did previously.

 

[William1102]

Check your IP ranges. There might be something of a conflict.

The B612, turn off the WiFi completely and set it to one IP range, say 192.168.0.X.

Then the B316, set it to 192.168.1.X, it should get something in the 192.168.0.X range in its WAN port, then the clients should be able to talk to both routers on their respective IP addresses.

If you don't come right I will dig out my old Huawei router and experiment to see if I can get it working. But I'm pretty sure that's what I did previously.

Thanks for your input

I did exactly that

B612 - 192.168.0.1
B316 - 192.168.1.1

And yes the B316 does receive a 192.168.0.X WAN IP via dynamic IP mode

I do have DHCP on on both routers tried Turning either one off it didn’t make a difference, what it should do is for example, if DHCP is off on B316 then the B612 needs to assign IPs to each device and it would show up under the B612s “Devices connected” however doesn’t work

I also have previously got what I wanted to achieve back when I had ADSL , had an old Netgear modem and an ASUS router as well treated the Netgear as a modem and switch and ASUS for WiFi and everything worked. Not sure my huawei make it this difficult

 

[newby_investor]

So I have just hauled out my B618 and plugged it via Ethernet into my currently-in-service Asus fibre router. Connected my Chromebook to the Huawei's wifi, it got a 192.168.1.X IP address and I was able to access both 192.168.1.1 (the Huawei's config page) and 192.168.0.1 (the Asus's config page). It just worked. I've done it the other way around as well in the past, using the Huawei to connect to Rain LTE but having my Asus router as the connection point for my devices. Double-NATing like that is not ideal but it kind of works.

I'm not sure how similar mine is to yours, I have only ever used this one Huawei router, so I don't know how consistent they will be. I know it kind of defeats the purpose of the exercise for you in getting better wifi, but have you tried linking them together the other way round?

Also worth checking that you haven't got some kind of IP filter or firewall rule in place accidentally.

 

[newby_investor]

Also, having gone back and read your post, there might be some kind of security settings enabled, such that the B612 might not be allowing clients to talk to each other, only directly to the internet. Sometimes this is a setting enabled on public wifi, for instance, so that you can't just port-scan the other clients on the wifi and look for security holes and other interesting things. The router in other words will only route traffic from a client to the internet, and not between clients. I've never seen this functionality in a home router though, even the Huawei that I have, let all the clients talk to each other.

 

[William1102]

Also, having gone back and read your post, there might be some kind of security settings enabled, such that the B612 might not be allowing clients to talk to each other, only directly to the internet. Sometimes this is a setting enabled on public wifi, for instance, so that you can't just port-scan the other clients on the wifi and look for security holes and other interesting things. The router in other words will only route traffic from a client to the internet, and not between clients. I've never seen this functionality in a home router though, even the Huawei that I have, let all the clients talk to each other.

I can access the both routers via the huawei B316 WiFi which is the only Wi-Fi but the Huawei smart home app only sees the B316 maybe that’s an issue

I did see a part in the security settings (see below) that could mean something on the B612 but it has some supersonic firmware that doesn’t allow me to change the settings for it

I should say that I do have DHCP on both routers on otherwise it freaks out and some devices don’t get assigned an IP address even if the B612s dhcp is on

 

[RonnieZA]

Don't think it will work with 2 Huawei routers. Have you tried setting the B612 to 192.168.0.1 and enable dhcp but turn wifi of. Set B316 as static 192.168.0.2 and turn of dhcp and keep wifi on. Connect the 2 devices with the lan ports and don't use the port that is wan/lan. B612 should then do dhcp and B316 will be your wifi.

 

[William1102]

Don't think it will work with 2 Huawei routers. Have you tried setting the B612 to 192.168.0.1 and enable dhcp but turn wifi of. Set B316 as static 192.168.0.2 and turn of dhcp and keep wifi on. Connect the 2 devices with the lan ports and don't use the port that is wan/lan. B612 should then do dhcp and B316 will be your wifi.

Thanks I will try this but when I tried to set the B316 as 192.168.0.2 it refused due to “IP conflict” which makes sense as the B612 reserved this iP range

Usually on normal consumer routers I’d set 1 router to 192.168.0.1 and the other 192.168.1.1 and turn of dhcp on the secondary router and bam everything works, these huawei routers are making it extremely hard

Not sure what to do anymore maybe because the B316 is on receiving a dynamic IP from the B612 ??