Gargoyle as second router

[boragthung]

Hello, been using Gargoyle on my TL-WR1043ND V1.0 for a couple of years settling on v1.6.2 which I have found to be very stable most of the time (I have a scheduled weekly reboot which helps with DDNS refresh).

Sorry this post seems long but I want to detail as much as possible about what my intentions are and hope someone can pick any errors in the way to do it.

Something that has concerned me moving forward is the future IPv6 rollout with this router as it does not currently (if ever) support IPv6.
In addition another problem I have is running out of ethernet ports for my ever expanding PC/AV setup downstairs.

I have a PC and AV stuff connected downstairs to the router. Then a long ethernet cable upstairs to a switch and PC's, NAS, etc.

I use the OpenVPN plug-in as a server plus I have a free DDNS at no-ip.org. This allows me to access my home PC's (and stream from my satellite card via DVBViewer Rec Service on the upstairs PC) through the openVPN client on my parents laptop when at their house and it works really well.

I have Plusnet fibre 80/20 and have the OpenReach modem which connects to the Gargoyle router. It has been rock-solid with very few niggles.

In order to solve my problems I have got a switch to expand the ethernet ports downstairs. The problem then is I do not have enough electric plug holes spare. So the next solution is to remove the OpenReach modem and Gargoyle Router combo and replace with a new IPv6 compatible router (just arrived) - TD-W9980 (freeing a plug).

This new router cannot currently support Gargoyle or openWRT while using the VDSL modem as far as I have researched so I need to stick with the TP-Link firmware. Also being new I would want to stick with stock initially anyway.

I want to continue using the openVPN server on the gargoyle to connect with my upstairs PC when away from home. So the gargoyle router will be moved upstairs.

I have researched and read various guides most of which deal with openWRT. They are all concerned with the second router being used as openVPN client rather than server.

So my gargoyle router is 192.168.0.1. I think the new gateway router will be 192.168.1.1.

I will connect the new Gateway router to the incoming phone line and then add the switch. From the switch will be the long cable upstairs to the WAN port of the gargoyle. This would be best be set as static IP on WAN as say 192.168.1.2.

So downstairs will be 192.168.1.xxx and devices connected to the upstairs gargoyle will be 192.168.0.xxx.

On the gateway router I need to set a static route such as destination IP 192.168.0.0 255.255.255.0 with a Gateway 192.168.1.2.

I have to then open the firewall on the gargoyle for 192.168.1.0 but the guides I have read use a command line for iptables on openWRT. So I am not entirely sure about this step yet through the gargoyle GUI and this is where I may need some guidance if I don't figure it out myself.

I want devices upstairs and downstairs to see each other and I want to be able to connect to the openVPN from outside the local LAN as I do now.

Are there any additional configurations required? Thanks in advance to anyone taking the time to read this. I am about to now set up the new gateway leaving the gargoyle out of the loop for now so once I get the initial internet running I will check back later.

Cheers.

[boragthung]

Well I set up the new router OK with everything downstairs working fine.

I connected the long cable upstairs to the upstairs switch, connected the NAS to that so it is the same subnet as downstairs and all that subnet see each other.

I connected the Gargoyle WAN to the upstairs switch, set is as static IP and DNS and Gateway as the downstairs router. The upstairs PC is connected to the LAN of the Gargoyle.

I can get internet upstairs and can ping all the downstairs subnet a well as log in to the Gateway router - but the downstairs PC cannot yet access the Gargoyle router interface or ping anything on the upstairs subnet apart from the Gargoyle LAN and WAN IP's.

So the problem I have at the moment is opening the firewall or making some static route on the Gargoyle. More messing about.

[boragthung]

Solved the problem with the gargoyle firewall. Couldn't find a firewall gui entry to accomplish what was needed (with the iptables command I found). Instead I used the webshell feature to append the iptables command to the firewall file and rebooted.

Now I can ping all subnets up and down and map UNC paths to shares.
Messed about to try various options found on the internet to enable 'network discovery' on windows 7 to automatically find the shares across different subnets but couldn't get that to work so gave up on that in the end.

[tapper]

Hi not sure about this but, cant you have both routers on the same subnet?

Main AP DHCP start 192.168.1.100
DHCP end 192.168.148

Set router 2 to a static IP of 192.168.149

I have never done this so i might be barking up the wrong tree!


Then again if you do that i don't no if main AP will hand out IPs out to the devices on router 2.

Seems i am rong! lol

http://www.wikihow.com/Connect-Two-Routers

[boragthung]

I think the only way to share the same subnet would be to connect the routers LAN to LAN - in which case you would then disable dhcp on the second router which is then essentially acting as a switch/AP.

I assumed doing it that way would not allow me to use the Gargoyle plugins like WOL, OpenVPN, etc as I am sure they apply to the router part rather than the switch.

Using the LAN to WAN is what requires 2 subnets with each router routing their clients through the gateway.

Anyway I have achieved what I want (I hope). There is only the VPN and PC connection I need to test once I am at my parents.

The biggest hurdle for me was configuring the firewall on the Gargoyle because it cannot be done through the gui as far as I could see and needed to be done 'internally' - which I accomplished using the webshell plug in.