Setup for Asus RT-AC68U as Home + Guest WiFi, Other Router for Wired?

[AzJazz]

Hi -

I wanted to improve the WiFi coverage in my household.

In the past, I have always had my WiFi routers in my office, which has resulted in dead zones and poor WiFi data speeds (probably due to the cornucopia of other electronics in the area).

A few weeks ago, I had the idea to pull out my old Netgear R6300v2 and use it strictly as a firewall/router/DHCP Server (WiFi shut off) connected to my cable modem, and reposition my Asus RT-AC68U on top of one of my kitchen cabinets to act as the only WiFi source for the household.

The RT-AC68U is directly wired to the Netgear R6300v2 via a CAT5 run I had put in a few years ago. I have the RT-AC68U connected via one of the LAN ports, not the WAN port. (I think this is called a "Wired Bridge" connection)

For the most part, this has worked as nicely as I had hoped. I now get 60 Mbps over WiFi all over my house, with no dead zones (well, there's dead one spot I've never figured out - A couple of feet in any direction from that spot gets back to 60 Mbps again. Maybe I'll attack that in another SNB thread.)

So, here's the gotcha - I want to turn on the Guest Network on the RT-AC68U, and have it isolated from the rest of our household network. When I had the RT-AC68U in my office, this worked fine. However, now that I moved the RT-AC68U away from the cable modem, the Guest Network doesn't assign an IP address to the client, and never connects to the internet.

I'm assuming that this is because of how the RT-AC68U has been moved away from the cable modem and is not the actual DHCP server anymore.

Is there anything I can do to modify my architecture or configuration to get the RT-AC68U to support the Home Network as well as the Guest Network (with isolation)?

Thanks,

AzJazz

 

[L&LD]

That is a real weakness of Asus' firmware.

Unless you want to delve into writing code, there is no way to have both a main network (with full access to all devices) and a guest network (isolated) when the router is in AP mode.

 

[AzJazz]

Hi, @L&LD - My RT-AC68U is configured a little differently than you described.

This is a picture and some basic settings for my two routers:

The Asus RT-AC68U is in "Wireless Router Mode" instead of "Access Point Mode", so I don't know if that makes a difference.

Let me know if there are any other settings that may help clarify my setup.

Thanks,

AzJazz

 

[L&LD]

Hi, @L&LD - My RT-AC68U is configured a little differently than you described.

This is a picture and some basic settings for my two routers:

The Asus RT-AC68U isn't in "Wireless Router Mode" instead of "Access Point Mode", so I don't know if that makes a difference.

Let me know if there are any other settings that may help clarify my setup.

Thanks,

AzJazz

Um, it is or it isn't in Wireless Router mode? The text and the diagram contradict each other.

 

[AzJazz]

Oops, I was tired when I typed that earlier today, now corrected.

The RT-AC68U IS in "Wireless Router Mode".

 

[L&LD]

If you're connecting the two routers LAN to LAN, I don't see how anything is working? Puzzled.

You will need to connect from the main router to the RT-AC68U's WAN port for any of those features to work.

 

[AzJazz]

Hi, LD&D - To be honest, I was kinda surprised this worked in this configuration as well.

I originally planned on going into the WAN port first, but the guide I found on the web suggested otherwise. I couldn't find the original site I referenced, but this one from dd-wrt provides even more details than the other site: http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Wireless_Access_Point

The dd-wrt diagram also shows the two router LAN ports being connected together. In that drawing, my R6300v2 is the router on the right (but, with WiFi disabled), and the RT-AC68U is on the left.

The reason I went with the LAN <=> LAN wired connection was primarily so that my wife's laptop (on WiFi) can access the printer that is wired to the R6300v2. The original instructions said that going through the RT-AC68U WAN port would isolate any WiFi network connections from the main network.

As I was writing this post back to you, I think I figured out why this configuration works ... but also why IP addresses aren't getting assigned on the Guest Network.

So, here it goes:

My impression is that the RT-AC68U is acting more like a switch here, where the main data is being transmitted through the single RJ-45 port to the R6300v2 in my office (and cable modem). WiFi on the RT-AC68U is just another bunch of "ports" available for transmitting the frames to/from the R6300v2. The R6300v2 is handling all the heavy work here being the DHCP server and acting as a router.

If the RT-AC68U is purely a switch in this configuration, then it can't assign IP addresses or manage routing / isolating the data for the Guest Network - those would be router functions.

Go ahead and laugh at my n00bish ignorance.