Extending your home network via the STBs

[asirota]

Read about this on RedFlagDeals from McDealer.

It turns out that the Ethernet port on the back if the STBs has 2 purposes:

1) it's an alternate way to connect to the cellpipe router if there is nk coax available

2) if coax works and ethernet port is empty on the back of the STB it's an extension of your internet connected LAN. The STB acts as a bridge and you can plug in a laptop or PC to the back of the STB and get an IP address from the cellpipe DSL modem. It's like wiring your house for Ethernet near your TVs. In theory any device with an Ethernet port can get connected via the STB.

Now that's a feature.

[lkirkland]

I wouldn't try that. You may interfere with your video performance as it is not a switched port

[Milly]

Read about this on RedFlagDeals from McDealer.

It turns out that the Ethernet port on the back if the STBs has 2 purposes:

1) it's an alternate way to connect to the cellpipe router if there is nk coax available

2) if coax works and ethernet port is empty on the back of the STB it's an extension of your internet connected LAN. The STB acts as a bridge and you can plug in a laptop or PC to the back of the STB and get an IP address from the cellpipe DSL modem. It's like wiring your house for Ethernet near your TVs. In theory any device with an Ethernet port can get connected via the STB.

Now that's a feature.

I tried this out and it does work.

However i have an issue that I was hoping perhaps you could help me out with.

I have a router connected to the cellpipe and use that for my home network. By one of my STBs i have a media player that can connect via ethernet to my home network. Since I didn't have an ethernet cable pre ran, I connected it to the STB and acquired an IP.

It's great however since it is getting the IP from the cellpipe, and not the router that I installed for my home network, I cannot access any PC on the network unless I plug them into the cellpipe rather then the router.

Was wondering, anyways to have computers connected to the router be able to find computer connected to the cellpipe? and vice versa ??

[asirota]

This ought to be possible if you put your separate router into a DMZ zone along with the cellpipe. The basic idea is that you want your own router (not the cellpipe) to run on the same network LAN as the cellpipe. For that you need to access the control panel of your router and find a way to put it into something called the DMZ which effectively puts your router into a bridge mode. Similarly there may be an option to switch your router into a bridge which may perform the same functionality of providing service alongside the cellpipe as opposed to behind 1 IP address that your router is delegated via DHCP from your cellpipe modem.

Hope that helps -- a bit of advanced networking, but I believe this is doable.

[arabinow]

Anyone have any luck with this?
I was also considering doing something like that to extend my network to a hometheatre pc next to my tv.

[asirota]

Do you plan to connect your HTPC to the other machines on a separate router connected to the Cellpipe? Or do you just plan to use the cellpipe router?

[Milly]

This ought to be possible if you put your separate router into a DMZ zone along with the cellpipe. The basic idea is that you want your own router (not the cellpipe) to run on the same network LAN as the cellpipe. For that you need to access the control panel of your router and find a way to put it into something called the DMZ which effectively puts your router into a bridge mode. Similarly there may be an option to switch your router into a bridge which may perform the same functionality of providing service alongside the cellpipe as opposed to behind 1 IP address that your router is delegated via DHCP from your cellpipe modem.

Hope that helps -- a bit of advanced networking, but I believe this is doable.

ok, i have started to play around with this but not having much luck..

so here is the setup right now:

CellPipe assigned static IP 192.168.2.10 to the router.
I have turned on DMZ on the cellpipe to ip 192.168.2.10
The router has the following stats:
IP Address: 192.168.2.10
Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway: 192.168.2.1

I turned on DMZ on the router and put the ip 192.168.2.10

I am still not able to access any device connected to the router, if i try say my laptop which is connected to the cellpipe.

Having a really hard time understanding what I am suppose to do. Hope you can help.

[asirota]

Milly,

There is some confusion here -- do you have both the CellPipe AND your personal router on the same IP address (192.168.2.10)? That won't work since you have an IP address conflict. The DMZ is simply a way to put your personal router into a public Internet available zone so that machines on the public internet can access machines connected to your personal router.

I imagine what you want is to access your machines from the outside Internet. Here's the rough diagram of how I'd set this up if I wanted to use 2 routers.


Alcatel CellPipe Router (configured to be on the DMZ, use the default IP address that it assigns normally) <- connect your STBs to this device
LAN port
|
V
WAN port
Your router (configured as a regular router, make sure it obtains a different IP address than your CellPipe, it should do this by default, place this IP address into the CellPipe's DMZ list)
|
V
LAN ports of your machines via LAN or Wifi


In this manner your router will sit on the DMZ of your CellPipe router and all the machines behind your router should be visible. Remember that you will want to setup a firewall on your personal router because you may not want to make your machines completely visible to the Internet on all ports, recipe for a security disaster.

[url=http://bellent.currentinternet.com/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=21&start=10#p190]See this excellent diagram for more...
[/url]

[Milly]

Milly,

There is some confusion here -- do you have both the CellPipe AND your personal router on the same IP address (192.168.2.10)? That won't work since you have an IP address conflict. The DMZ is simply a way to put your personal router into a public Internet available zone so that machines on the public internet can access machines connected to your personal router.

I imagine what you want is to access your machines from the outside Internet. Here's the rough diagram of how I'd set this up if I wanted to use 2 routers.


Alcatel CellPipe Router (configured to be on the DMZ, use the default IP address that it assigns normally) <- connect your STBs to this device
LAN port
|
V
WAN port
Your router (configured as a regular router, make sure it obtains a different IP address than your CellPipe, it should do this by default, place this IP address into the CellPipe's DMZ list)
|
V
LAN ports of your machines via LAN or Wifi


In this manner your router will sit on the DMZ of your CellPipe router and all the machines behind your router should be visible. Remember that you will want to setup a firewall on your personal router because you may not want to make your machines completely visible to the Internet on all ports, recipe for a security disaster.

[url=http://bellent.currentinternet.com/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=21&start=10#p190]See this excellent diagram for more...
[/url]

The setup you mentioned above is exactly how i have it. The cellpipe and router do not have the same IP. The cellpipe IP is 192.168.2.1, and the lynksys router is 192.168.2.10

I have the IP 192.168.2.10 entered into the DMZ of both the router and the cellpipe.
In the attached file you will see my setup, what I am trying to do is have the laptop and desktop see each other. I assumed this would be possible..

[Milly]

I wanted to add that from the laptop I can ping the desktop (192.168.2.11)

But from the desktop I can't ping the laptop (192.168.1.105)