Network topology question

Speedster

Speedster

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We've relocated to a new office space at the start of the year and I've been tasked with setting up the network stuff. I'm by no means an expert but have learnt a little on the subject over the years.

The building has a loft, where there is some old networking stuff in a cabinet and I have placed the LTE router up there too. The key components are the LTE router, a wifi 6 router, a secondary wifi router, a Mikrotik for the Yealink phone and a HP microserver (file server, adguard home). I've got set it up as follows, please let me know if I'm missing something which will improve the setup.
  • LTE router (in the loft) is 192.168.1.1, with DHCP and wifi turned off.
  • Primary router is 192.168.0.1, DHCP turned on, DNS set to 192.168.0.3. Primary router connects to LTE router via static IP of 192.168.1.2.
  • Secondary router (auto-connected / meshed to primary router) at 192.168.0.5
  • Server is at 192.168.0.3
  • In the loft, the LTE server connects to a gigabit switch which then also has a cable running down to the primary router in the main office.
  • Primary router is in the main office and secondary router is a couple of offices away.
Everything seems to be working as it should (I think), except that when I plug the server into the switch up in the loft it isn't accessible by the rest of the network. If I plug into the primary router it's all hunky dory.

Any suggestions how to get the server to be able to work from the loft, or other ways to improve the setup?
 
Speedster said:
We've relocated to a new office space at the start of the year and I've been tasked with setting up the network stuff. I'm by no means an expert but have learnt a little on the subject over the years.

The building has a loft, where there is some old networking stuff in a cabinet and I have placed the LTE router up there too. The key components are the LTE router, a wifi 6 router, a secondary wifi router, a Mikrotik for the Yealink phone and a HP microserver (file server, adguard home). I've got set it up as follows, please let me know if I'm missing something which will improve the setup.
  • LTE router (in the loft) is 192.168.1.1, with DHCP and wifi turned off.
  • Primary router is 192.168.0.1, DHCP turned on, DNS set to 192.168.0.3. Primary router connects to LTE router via static IP of 192.168.1.2.
  • Secondary router (auto-connected / meshed to primary router) at 192.168.0.5
  • Server is at 192.168.0.3
  • In the loft, the LTE server connects to a gigabit switch which then also has a cable running down to the primary router in the main office.
  • Primary router is in the main office and secondary router is a couple of offices away.
Everything seems to be working as it should (I think), except that when I plug the server into the switch up in the loft it isn't accessible by the rest of the network. If I plug into the primary router it's all hunky dory.

Any suggestions how to get the server to be able to work from the loft, or other ways to improve the setup?
Click to expand...
What is the subnet? /24?
That would probably be your problem
 
What is the LTE server?
You mention an LTE router and an HP server.
Is the issue with the HP Server?

You should have 2 cables to the primary router from the switch.
1 cable for the 192.168.1.0/24 subnet and a second cable for the 192.168.0.0/24 subnet.

Your description sounds like there is only 1 cable?

Otherwise if you are using a single cable that needs to be a sub interface and the switch needs to be VLAN aware.
 
Last edited:
MightyQuin said:
Why is some subnet .1 and others .0 ?

What is the reason for that?

What "switch" is in the loft? Or are you using the router for switching?
Click to expand...

Probably to separate WAN and LAN
WAN is the .1 network and LAN is the .0 network
 
MightyQuin said:
Why is some subnet .1 and others .0 ?

What is the reason for that?

What "switch" is in the loft? Or are you using the router for switching?
Click to expand...
The .1 and .0 is to separate the LTE router from the rest of the network. The primary router (Huawei AX3) requires the internet connection to be on WAN, which can't be the same subnet as the router. Unless I've horribly misundersood the error messages.

It's a netgear switch in the loft.
 
syntax said:
What is the LTE server?
Click to expand...
Sorry, meant router.
syntax said:
You mention an LTE router and an HP server.
Is the issue with the HP Server?
Click to expand...
Yes, issue is with the HP server.
syntax said:
You should have 2 cables to the primary router from the switch.
1 cable for the 192.168.1.0/24 subnet and a second cable for the 192.168.0.0/24 subnet.

Your description sounds like there is only 1 cable?

Otherwise if you are using a single cable that needs to be a sub interface and the switch needs to be VLAN aware.
Click to expand...
That would be the problem then. There is one cable between router and switch, with the LAN router and the server also plugged into the switch in the loft. How would two cables between the same devices work though?

EDIT: Thinking about this some more, I'm thinking I probably need a cable between the primary router and the LTE router, and then another cable from the primary router to the switch which I can then use to add components to the LAN (e.g. server). Am I right?
 
Last edited:
Speedster said:
The .1 and .0 is to separate the LTE router from the rest of the network. The primary router (Huawei AX3) requires the internet connection to be on WAN, which can't be the same subnet as the router. Unless I've horribly misundersood the error messages.

It's a netgear switch in the loft.
Click to expand...

Don’t plug the LTE router into the switch at all, it needs to go directly into the WAN on the AX3.

Then connect a second cable from a LAN port on the AX3 to the switch in the loft where the Microserver is also plugged in and you should be golden.

You’ve effectively connected your Microserver on the WAN instead of the LAN where there’s no DHCP or anything.

If I wasn’t on my phone I would have drawn a picture, but I’m sure the above should make sense.
 
Speedster said:
Sorry, meant router.

Yes, issue is with the HP server.

That would be the problem then. There is one cable between router and switch, with the LAN router and the server also plugged into the switch in the loft. How would two cables between the same devices work though?

EDIT: Thinking about this some more, I'm thinking I probably need a cable between the primary router and the LTE router, and then another cable from the primary router to the switch which I can then use to add components to the LAN (e.g. server). Am I right?
Click to expand...

WAN and LAN are two completely segmented networks opposite sides of the Router.

You could technically have one cable plugged into LAN on the AX3 and turn off it routing function and let the LTE Router do that work, but it’s probably not going to make a difference.

The function of a router is literally to route traffic from all your devices on your LAN and their various IP addresses, ports and protocols and then push them out over your WAN IP address and then work the magic to make sure the traffic coming back goes to the right place.

Which is where NAT comes in and that is what really works the magic and what splits the networks in two.

LAN <> NAT <> WAN

Your Microserver currently lives in the WAN and your LAN has no clue how to get to it.

So you can happily run two cables from the AX3 and technically you could even plug both into the switch and since you have all Static IP’s it will probably work, but there is no logical reason to add that complexity.

Therefore you want this.

AX3 WAN PORT <> LTE Router Directly.

AX3 LAN PORT <> SWITCH <> Microserver

AX3 LAN PORT <> OTHER ACCESS POINT.

I say access point because the moment you don’t use the WAN port it’s no longer routing but just switching.

Now this is why I had the massive question marks when you first told me HUAWEI says plug it into the WAN port because that would mean two routers on the same network and a double NAT cluster****, with any other router setup.

HUAWEI is clearly doing something proprietary to detect their other router on that port and then switches it to a LAN port and turns off the NAT, firewall and DHCP on the second device. It’s no longer a router but just an access point in mesh mode.
 
Speedster said:
Sorry, meant router.

Yes, issue is with the HP server.

That would be the problem then. There is one cable between router and switch, with the LAN router and the server also plugged into the switch in the loft. How would two cables between the same devices work though?

EDIT: Thinking about this some more, I'm thinking I probably need a cable between the primary router and the LTE router, and then another cable from the primary router to the switch which I can then use to add components to the LAN (e.g. server). Am I right?
Click to expand...

I dont know what the interface setup on your LAN router looks like.
Do you have the 2 different subnets on 2 different interfaces or on the same interface?

That determines how you cable and configure this. The "easiest" way would be to have 2 separate physical interfaces on the LAN router.
interface A connect to the WAN router.
Interface B connects to the Switch

You could plug them all into the switch. It is likely you just have a "dumb" switch and it will just forward MAC addresses and each subnet will just communicate within their own subnet even though on a L2 perspective all broadcasts are going everywhere.
You would normally logically separate this using VLANS but that requires some capability on the switch.
It is simplified for troubleshooting purposes to just separate this physically with cables.
 
Speedster said:
It's 255.255.0.0, IIRC. What should it be?
Click to expand...
/24 is 255.255.255.0

but you could really make this whatever works for you and the amount of IP addresses you want to use.
However, for simplicity sake just make all the subnets /24 and ensure your DHCP scope matches this as well
 
Thanks for all the input so far.

Running a second cable to the loft, while possible, is going to be quite a schlep. Would I lose anything moving the HP server (file server, Adguard DNS) to the 1.x subnet, I.e. the same as the LTE.

In other words, LTE and server will be on one subnet with a cable between their switch to the AX3 which serves as primary router for the rest of the office running on .0.x

Am I missing anything?
 
Speedster said:
Thanks for all the input so far.

Running a second cable to the loft, while possible, is going to be quite a schlep. Would I lose anything moving the HP server (file server, Adguard DNS) to the 1.x subnet, I.e. the same as the LTE.

In other words, LTE and server will be on one subnet with a cable between their switch to the AX3 which serves as primary router for the rest of the office running on .0.x

Am I missing anything?
Click to expand...

You still likely won’t be able to talk to it and will have a double NAT problem.

I would rather recommend forgetting the segmentation entirely.

Turn your LTE router into the main router and let it handle the DHCP and everything.

Then turn off DHCP on the AX3 and plug the LTE into one of the LAN ports.

Now you have everything on one network including the server and they all have one gateway namely the LTE.

****

Alternatively, but this is really unnecessary and the above makes a lot more sense, you can split the single Ethernet into two cables with two RJ45’s on each end and in doing so achieve the goal of having two cables without laying a new cable.

You need someone who knows their **** with crimping or you need to buy a splitter which can be hard to find.

And you’ll be limited to 100 Mbit.
 
Third alternative.

Bring the LTE Router to where the AX3 is and connect it to the WAN with a short fly lead.

Now use the available cable up to the loft to connect the LAN part on the AX3 and thereby the switch up there with the server and everyone is on the same network.
 
Speedster said:
Thanks for all the input so far.

Running a second cable to the loft, while possible, is going to be quite a schlep. Would I lose anything moving the HP server (file server, Adguard DNS) to the 1.x subnet, I.e. the same as the LTE.

In other words, LTE and server will be on one subnet with a cable between their switch to the AX3 which serves as primary router for the rest of the office running on .0.x

Am I missing anything?
Click to expand...

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SauRoNZA said:
You still likely won’t be able to talk to it and will have a double NAT problem.

I would rather recommend forgetting the segmentation entirely.

Turn your LTE router into the main router and let it handle the DHCP and everything.

Then turn off DHCP on the AX3 and plug the LTE into one of the LAN ports.

Now you have everything on one network including the server and they all have one gateway namely the LTE.

****

Alternatively, but this is really unnecessary and the above makes a lot more sense, you can split the single Ethernet into two cables with two RJ45’s on each end and in doing so achieve the goal of having two cables without laying a new cable.

You need someone who knows their **** with crimping or you need to buy a splitter which can be hard to find.

And you’ll be limited to 100 Mbit.
Click to expand...
The problem going this way (which is the way I had it originally), is I lose the meshing. I couldn't get the AX3 to mesh with the B618, only the ws5200 picks up the b618.

100mbps isn't really an option. We're throwing around pretty big raw video files to the file server.
 
SauRoNZA said:
Third alternative.

Bring the LTE Router to where the AX3 is and connect it to the WAN with a short fly lead.

Now use the available cable up to the loft to connect the LAN part on the AX3 and thereby the switch up there with the server and everyone is on the same network.
Click to expand...
Internet speed is much faster up in the loft.
 
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