2 buildings, 2 LANs, 2 internet connections - would like to talk with each other.

[infiniteloop]

Last year, my brother and I built 2 houses for our families.

 

I life in building A, he in building B.

 

We have 2x Cat 7 cables which connect our buildings.

Each of our buildings has it's own fibre internet connection including gateway and a switch.

building A has 20 Network Ports/cables in house - building B has 10 Network Ports/cables in house

 

Now, we would like to hook them up by using the Cat 7 cables, so we both have access to a central server (located in building A).

 

I know that VLAN(s) are required to get this to work. But I have absolutely no idea which hardware to buy, and how this is set up.

I did do some research on the web as of how it works in general. But I am still not sure which hardware would be enough to get the job done - while not being totally overpowered.

 

Maybe someone in this community here could help me find the right hardware and point me into the right direction for the configuration.

 

Edited December 17, 2013 by infiniteloop

[tmcd35]

Off the top of my head I'd say...

 

The two routers (assuming they are configurable and have spare ports for this) need to be connected via the joining Cat7 cable. They then need routing rules set up for each others network.

 

So Router A needs a rule to route 192.168.23.x traffic to router B, and router B needs a rule to route 172.16.254.x traffic to Router B. Both networks will also need DNS correctly configured to resolve hostnames on each others network to the correct IP addresses. All other traffic should then go out through the relevent internet connections as normal.

[twin--turbo]

You just need 1 router. (over and above the internet ones ) or just the internet ones if they can do other routing. Edited December 17, 2013 by twin--turbo

[zag]

Why bother with 2 internet connections?

 

Just join them all together in one network.

 

If you really need 2 inet connections just make assign them different gateway IP addresses and turn of DHCP on one of them. Put them on the same IP range.

Edited December 17, 2013 by zag

[infiniteloop]

Thanks for the replies!

 

The two routers (assuming they are configurable and have spare ports for this) need to be connected via the joining Cat7 cable.

These devices are from the ISP and don't offer any VLAN capabilities - also the ETH ports are just 100MBit

 

You just need 1 router. (over and above the internet ones ) or just the internet ones if they can do other routing.

That is not possible technically - the gateways are in separate buildings - connected to fibre. And the gateways only have 100MBit ports.

 

Put them on the same IP range.

Not possible due to the ISP's gateway. Both our routers have the IP adresses hard set by the ISP. The config option is not available in the routers firmware.

Already took me quite some talking to have them change the adress of one of the gateways.

 

 

Question:

Can't i just replace one of the switches (i.e. the one in building A) with one that offers VLAN, and that one does the routing on the Cat 7 cable that connects the buildings?

Edited December 17, 2013 by infiniteloop

[twin--turbo]

You don't need vlans.

 

You just need a router between the two networks, can sit in either building.

 

Rob

[twin--turbo]

Router has one interface

192.168.123.254 connected to building B switch via the fibre.

 

And other interface

172.16.254.254 connected to building A switch

 

 

 

You then have to specify 192.168.123.254 as the next hop for the 172 network and vice versa...

 

That will need to be done on each client.

 

Rob

[infiniteloop]

You don't need vlans.

 

You just need a router between the two networks, can sit in either building.

That sounds interesting. Can you recommend one for this job?

 

Just to be clear. Would this mean that you connect "building A" to the WAN port and "building b" to the LAN port of that router? or both on LAN?

I do need 1GBit between the buildings.

Edited December 17, 2013 by infiniteloop

[twin--turbo]

Draytek 28xx should easily do the job.

 

Rob

[tmcd35]

That will need to be done on each client.

 

Rob

 

Depending on the clients, that sounds like a messy solution to me. Better to have one gateway and have the routing done from there. I'd be tempted in building two linux boxes, one for each network. Plug the ISP routers into the new linux boxes as modems and have a 1gbps cross-over link between the two new linux boxes, joining the houses. That way it's a do and forget job and clients never need reconfiguring for two gateways.

[twin--turbo]

Depending on the clients, that sounds like a messy solution to me. Better to have one gateway and have the routing done from there. I'd be tempted in building two linux boxes, one for each network. Plug the ISP routers into the new linux boxes as modems and have a 1gbps cross-over link between the two new linux boxes, joining the houses. That way it's a do and forget job and clients never need reconfiguring for two gateways.

 

Bit overkill with two linux boxes,

 

static routes can be pushed out via DHCP if needed.

 

Rob

Edited December 17, 2013 by twin--turbo

[tmcd35]

Perhaps a little, but seems easier than finding a cheap router that supports dual wan and 1000mbps over one of the WANs and has a 1000mbps switch...

 

Just trying to think of the worst case scenario. Would an iPad take mutliple static routes over DHCP? Since we don't know the number or types of devices it's hard not recommend doing the job properly which is a single gateway router on each network connected to multiple external routes and routing accordingly.

 

Sounds like a job for a couple of mid range Cisco jobbies to me.

 

Either that or follow @zag's excellent adivce. Drop on of the ISP's and join the two switches in a single flat network. By far the cheapest and easiest route.

[infiniteloop]

My initial idea were to use the switch(s) in that buildings that have VLAN capabilities to do the routing between the 2 LANs.

 

To me that seemed to be the "easiest" way. Is that a bad idea?

Edited December 17, 2013 by infiniteloop

[twin--turbo]

My initial idea were to use the switch(s) in that buildings that have VLAN capabilities to do the routing between the 2 LANs.

 

To me that seemed to be the "easiest" way. Is that a bad idea?

 

Are you not able to ditch the ISP routers?

 

 

If your switches support layer 3 routing then yes it would work.

 

Rob

[infiniteloop]

Are you not able to ditch the ISP routers?

The fibre is directly plugged to the gateway, and I can't run it in bridge mode to use my own router (unless I pay for a business account, which triples the monthly price :-/ )

 

If your switches support layer 3 routing then yes it would work.

We'd buy new ones for this.

Which brings me back to my initial question of which hardware / switch to buy. Would like to avoid spending too much money on a device that can do way more than I actually need from it.

 

*edit* Netgear ProSafe GS728TS seems to be able to support up to 15 routed VLANs

http://www.netgear.com/business/products/switches/smart/stackable-smart-switch.aspx#tab-resources

Edited December 17, 2013 by infiniteloop

[twin--turbo]

You could manage without a stackable version.

 

Rob

[mikkydoos]

Couple of media converters, and 1 ISP router unless I read the description kak handed.

[twin--turbo]

Couple of media converters, and 1 ISP router unless I read the description kak handed.

 

2 Subnets and no access to the router routing tables.

 

Rob

[mikkydoos]

I indeed did read the description kak handed