Router behind a router...

[cg49me]

I found a thread that sounded like the same situation as what I'm having, but it was either never resolved or I didn't understand the solution.

So here's the setup - our apartment has a central 8-port switch (Linksys) that connects all the ethernet plugs in our bedrooms, living room, spare room to the internet. I have a wireless access point (also Linksys) in my bedroom that I use for my desktop and laptop.

Now, if I plug my laptop into the wall (so it's connected to the apartment's router), I can LAN with my roomies. If me and my roomies connect to my wireless network (on my router), we can LAN. However, one roommate doesn't have wireless, so here's my question - can I LAN behind my wireless router with my roommates who are behind the apartment's router? I've tried port forwarding and enabling DMZ on my router, and neither has worked. Thanks!

To reiterrate (big word, sorry if I misspelled it, I get points for using it anyway), here's what things look like - I just included the loller... Erm, internet so you can see the full range of things. We're trying to lan, so that's not a big deal. Again, if we're all on the wireless router, we can lan, if we're all on the apartment router, we can lan, but if I'm on the wireless and everyone else is on the apartment router, I can't see them and they can't see me.

http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a140/cg49me/network.jpg

*EDIT*

Yes, I know I have mad Paint skillz.

[CyberShadow]

Hi,

You haven't specified which game are you talking about. In case it's Worms : Armageddon, you can use the Direct IP feature - and if the routing is correctly configured, you should be able to connect directly to whoever is hosting a game.

Either way, most games perform discovery of other LAN games by sending a broadcast UDP packet. If you can configure your wireless router to propagate broadcast packets between the wireless and wired interfaces, games hosted on one subnet should be visible on another.

Hope this helps.

[M3ntal]

Or you could turn DHCP off on one of your routers.

[cg49me]

Sorry - I'm referring to Armageddon.

I tried disabling DHCP, and that didn't work.

Cyber... You've got me a little lost. First off, I'm not sure how to use the direct IP feature - the only place in the game I see anywhere to type in an IP is the config button under the WormNet button in the multiplayer menu, and it asks for my IP, not the hosts.

Second, I did a little poking around in my (wireless) router's settings, and discovered that it's set to "gateway", meaning it thinks it's connected directly to the internet. I switched it to "router", which, in the vague help menus, it was stated that this is how I should set it if it is behind another router. However, as soon as I do, I lose internet access. It asks for a destination lan IP, a subnet mask, and a default gateway - all of which are zeros across the board when the router is set on "gateway". There's a button that brings up a routing table, and I typed in some of the numbers from it, but still no success...

Any further help would be much appreciated!

[CyberShadow]

Hello, :)

You probably don't see the Direct IP feature because you haven't updated your copies of the game to the latest version. Please follow the updating instructions on this site (http://www.nanacide.com/wahelp/) to install the latest software updates. The Direct IP feature will be in the network screen (where you'd normally select between LAN and Internet play, and enter the network configuration screen).

As for configuring the router - theoretically, you could be able to manually specify a rule for the routing table to route these broadcast packets, however I'm not sure about the details as well.

M3ntal: I don't see how disabling DHCP would work here as well...

[cg49me]

Okay, more fun stuff...

I dl/installed the update on my desktop and laptop just fine. For testing purposes, I've got my laptop plugged into the apartment router (with the wireless card disabled, just to make sure) and my desktop running off of my wireless router.

Now, I click the direct IP button on the desktop with nothing typed in, and I assume that makes it host a game, since that's the screen it takes me to. I went to whatismyip.com to get the address beforehand, then typed it into the laptop and clicked the direct IP button... No luck. Just for kicks, I went to whatismyip.com from the laptop, and got a different IP address...

I'm no network guru, but I know that everyone within the house should have the same external IP, unless you happen to have multiple IP's provided by your... Well, your provider (Austin Powers moment), which I'm pretty sure we don't (Comcast cable). So... Any ideas now?

Again, thanks for the help, and please keep it coming!

[Muzer]

I thought you needed the internal IP for that

[cg49me]

While hosting from the desktop behind the wireless router, I tried joining from the laptop behind the apartment's router - I tried using both the (wireless) router's internal IP and the desktop's internal (assigned) IP with no luck.

Continued help is appreciated!

[CyberShadow]

Hi,

You can find the computer's internal IP address by opening a command prompt ( Start > Run > type cmd, click OK ) and typing ipconfig.

The external IP reported by whatismyip.com probably was different because either your ISP uses DHCP to assign a network address (which can vary), or your WWW connection is via an HTTP proxy.

You could try testing if you can access the computers from different subnets by pinging their internal IP addresses. If you are unable to ping a computer from another computer from a different subnet, you will have to configure the wireless router to route network packets addressed to the other subnet to the 2nd interface.

[cg49me]

Okay, that last paragraph... I understand what you're talking about, I just have no idea how to do it. Is it just a matter of poking around my router's settings?

[CyberShadow]

Ah, no.

Open up a command prompt (like I explained above) and type:

ping xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

(replace x's with the other computer's internal IP address).

If you get 4 replies, the connection works fine, and you should be able to direct-IP to that computer and vice-versa.
If you get "Connection timed out" or other errors, there is a connectivity problem (probably because the wireless router isn't forwarding the packets to the other subnet).