Connect two networks to share NAS, but keep networks isolated

[lleo19]

Hi All!
I am looking for your advice on the following:
Given are two adjacent single-family homes, each with its own home network, one actually being connected to the internet through cable, the other one via DSL.
The first home has a dedicated open-source firewall with a dedicated mail/web server in DMZ, and a NAS, media server, HTPC, asterisk PBX, wireless AP, HDHomeRun and several clients on a gigabit smart switch.

The second home has a simple wireless router, with a wired and a wireless laptop and a wired PopcornHour. The wired laptop acts as storage and serves media.

In the first phase, the objective is to connect the two networks with wire, giving access to the NAS storage with separate share/space while maintaining the isolation between the networks.

In the second phase the goal is to create failover access to the internet, such as when the uplink for one home goes down, traffic would be directed through the other one.

Pulling one or two Cat5e wires between the homes is easy. Can you please make suggestions how to maintain isolation between the two networks?
Many thanks in advance. If usable solution is found, I certainly will be willing to write it up as some kind of howto, guide for others to share.
Cheers, Lleo_

 

[teknojnky]

#1 is easy, just get a nas with dual nics and make sure each network is a different subnet.

ie, 192.168.1.1/24 and 192.168.2.1/24


#2 is alot more complicated, and I don't see it happening without involving routers that are alot more expensive than the typical consumer gateway.

 

[lleo19]

thanks for your reply!
I thought of this as well, my NAS is samba based, and has two NICs, but...
this way all shares are visible on both NICs I think. Some of my current shares are world readable, just to avoid authentication issues with some clients, which conversely will make it readable to both networks.

 

[thiggins]

thanks for your reply!
I thought of this as well, my NAS is samba based, and has two NICs, but...
this way all shares are visible on both NICs I think. Some of my current shares are world readable, just to avoid authentication issues with some clients, which conversely will make it readable to both networks.

Yes, you're correct. Dual-NIC NASes don't have the ability to assign shares to subnets.

For failover, you want a dual-wan router. You can bring the modem connection from the second household over via Ethernet and return a connection from the router. You'll probably want a dual-WAN router with VLAN capability to keep the networks separated.

 

[westek-consulting]

Which brand/model NAS's are you running?

I am in need of a quality dual nic NAS for a client of mine that has 2 separate networks in their office. I need to be able to share the data between the networks, but only use one NAS.

Thanks!

 

[mackintire]

option 3

Use any network switch that supports Vlan as your primary switch. Should cost you less than $100

 

[stevech]

can you do this with two subnets and static routes?