Routing traffic, what to do?

[talksr]

This is a personal home question, not work related, but since I do lots of my work from home remotely, hopefully someone can help.

 

To cut a long story short, I have had real woes with EE, and basically get about 256kb for my 'broadband' connection as a down speed. It has been so bad, we have had to move the EE router to right next to the telephone socket, rather than use the extension line up where my workstations are. As a result, I now have to access the internet via my wireless connection as my ethernet cable will not stretch all the way downstairs.

 

My question is, so far so good with the broadband, but I am often accessing my NAS boxes and copying and pasting various large files (such as virtual image files) between my workstations. Wireless is not going to be worth using for this. What is my best way forward for ensuring that my current systems and NAS are able to talk via the existing ethernet, but my internet is provided wirelessly? Obviously, by default, my computers are now using the wifi as the default connection. The NICs for ethernet have all lost their DHCP lease and are on 169 addresses.

 

Would I be best to set each system with a static address on the ethernet such that they can still communicate? But how would the DNS work as effectively, I have two networks? Maybe it would be better to set one system up as a server which shares internet among other things?

 

Any ideas would be good!

[MatthewL]

Get some home plugs or run a network cable from your router to where your workstations are and use a mini switch.

[benjaminstevens93]

I agree with Matthew. Home plugs will do the trick!

[benjie]

Homeplugs are probably the best option. Another option, if you have a spare wireless router around you could flash it with custom firmware, such as openwrt. You could set this up as a wireless bridge, connecting your NAS and PC to that.

[dhicks]

Maybe it would be better to set one system up as a server which shares internet among other things?

 

Your existing router probably already does that - most home routers these days will manage four wired connections and wireless, all as part of the same network. You just need to get a longer ethernet cable (not expensive, a few pounds) and possibly a mini switch if you have several devices to plug in on your desktop.

[SYNACK]

Buy homeplugs or a longer Ethernet cable, anything else will just complicate matters.

[talksr]

Thanks everyone for your help. Will try homeplugs first (recently had entire house rewired, so wiring should be at its best). If this does not work, I will have to do the ethernet cable. Would rather not as I hate having to put the plugs on the end, it is so fiddly.

[Marshall_IT]

Just bare in mind that your electrics need to be in the same ring / fuse box to work with home plus, I've been to a few larger houses where it didn't extend to all the sockets.

[elsiegee40]

I can't work out the wiring in our house. I have two sockets in my living room where the home plug won't work. The home plug is fine everywhere else in the house both upstairs and down... definitely across rings. The socket nearest the sky box is one that doesn't work which is a pain.

[plexer]

Have you checked they are wired correctly? What circuit are they ok?

 

Ben

[plexer]

Or get a wireless acces point with a built in switch that supports client mode most do these days.

 

All your devices connect to the built in switch thus giving you wired connection between workstations and nas boxes the wireless point the connect to your wireless router as a client and your PC get's internet via Ethernet again.

 

Ben

[talksr]

Not sure about the electrics, but know it was done to a very high standard. Only a 3 bed house, so would expect wiring to be quite basic, nothing out of the ordinary in this place.

This has all happened because EE believe I will get a faster bb connection speed if the router is connected directly to the bt socket and not the extension one in my work room. So far, there has been an improvement, but can't keep everything on wireless, not an ideal solution. Also signal is only 2 or so bars. The EE routers are nothing special, don't even have visible antennas on them.

[elsiegee40]

I really would try homeplugs. I have recommended them to people in houses of all types and ages and, so far, the two sockets in my lounge are the only ones that don't work!

[talksr]

Hi there, quick update.

 

Thanks for all of your help guys. I went to currys and got a great deal on a pair of powerline plugs from Netgear for around £12.00.

They are only 200mbps but this is ample for my 500-1mb broadband. I have just set them up now and so far so good. One of them is running off of one of those extension power adaptors with 4 plugs (which really should make the signal weak), but it is running very solidly! I am up and running and my vpn to the school is working very smoothly!

 

Thanks again

[Marshall_IT]

I'm pleased to hear you have a working solution for now.