How to: Connect and Configure 2 Linksys routers
Summary: Simple instructions on how to set up 2 Linksys brand routers in order to gain additional ports and run a wireless network.
Ever since I moved to this apartment over 6 months ago, I haven’t been able to get my wi-fi connection to function properly. I noodled with it for a little bit, but never really got the 4 computers and 2 routers to play well with one another, and so I sorta just let it slide. Yesterday, after having spoken with someone (an I.T. professional) who actually knows what he’s doing when it comes to networking, I took another stab at it, and lo-and-behold: everything is working great.
For the benefit of others facing a similar situation, and in case I need to refer to it in the future, I’ll describe the steps I took to get 2 linksys routers working together.
First: the hardware. I have one Linksys Etherfast cable/DSL router with 10/100 4-point switch (model BEFSR41 V.2) and another Linksys Wireless Access Router with a 4-point switch (model BEFW1154). The first looks like the second, but without the antennae. To simplify I’ll use the following notation:
- R1 refers to the non-wifi (physical ports) router
- R2 refers to the wifi router
The first step is to just set up R1 so that it’s working fine. Usually this is pretty easy, and some ISPs actually offer support on this. You simply connect your router to your DSL or cable modem, attach a computer to one of the ports labelled 1-4, and usually it works.(Make sure you aren’t connecting your computer to the port labelled uplink or WAN.The WAN one goes to the cable/DSL modem.) You might have to do some configuring based on your ISP, but this is fairly easy.
Once you’re sure that R1 is working properly (i.e. you can use it to get on the internet), you need to change some settings on the router. For Linksys routers, you do this by opening a browser and going to http://192.168.1.1. Linksys will prompt you for a username and a password. Leave the username blank and enter “admin” as the password; these are the Linksys defaults.
Once in the control panel of R1, turn on DCHP and specify a range of IP addresses. These are the IP addresses R1 hands out to connected computers. The larger the range, the more computers that can be connected to your machine. I set my IP range from 192.168.100 to 192.168.150, which gives me 50 IP addresses to play around with. (You might ask why you would need so many IP addresses for a router with only 4 ports. The reason is that the wifi connection can support a large number of connections, each requiring a different IP address.)
Quickly test R1 to make sure everything still works. If it does, you’re ready to get started with R2.
Connect a computer to one of the open ports on R2 (the wireless router), making sure not to connect to the port labelling “uplink” or “WAN”. R2 should be powered up. Make sure that R2 is connected only to your computer, and not to the other router. Re-set R2 to the factory settings (this usually requires holding down a tiny button for 5 seconds or more. If you don’t have a tiny reset button, but have a tiny reset “hole”, you may have insert a paperclip into the tiny hole to reset R2.) When I reset the Linksys router, I get a steady red light on the front panel indicating that it default factory settings have been restored.
From your computer’s browser, load http://192.168.1.1. You might get prompted for a username and password; if so, enter “admin” for password and leave the username blank. You should pull up a control panel similar to the one before.
In R2’s control panel you need to make a few changes. DCHP needs to be turned off. This is because we only want R1 making the decisions about which IP address each computer gets (from the allocated range you specified above). In other words, one of the routers is the decision-making boss, the other functions as a gateway and doesn’t hand out IP addresses. Be sure to save changes.
While in R2’s control panel you need to give R2 an IP address outside of the range specified in R1. You can’t have two devices on the same network with the same IP address. I gave R2 a device IP address of 192.168.1.2 (which doesn’t fall within the range of 192.168.1.100 to 192.168.1.150, nor is it the same as R1, namely 192.168.1.1). After you save this, navigate to http://192.168.1.2. If you pull up R2’s control panel, you have effectively changed its IP address.
Next you’ll want to change the WAN connection type on R2 to static. The WAN IP address should be the same as you set above (e.g. 192.168.1.2). Subnet mask is usually 255.255.0.0. (I don’t know why). DNS entries are provide by your ISP provider (I think), but if you don’t know it you might still be able to get it to work. I found out my DNS entries by checking my connection settings on my computer once it was up and running and then adding them to R2, so my guess is that DNS entries are not crucial. (Strangely enough, they are marked as “required” in the R2 control panel. Not sure what that’s about).
Alright, so you configured R1 and R2. Now it’s time to get them connected. Connect R2 (the wireless router) to R1 using the uplink port on R2 and an open port (1-4) on R1. Connect your computer to an open port on R2. Your connections should look like this:
- Computer connected to an open port on R2
- Uplink port on R2 connected to an open port on R1
- WAN port on R1 connected to a dsl/cable modem
Now open your browser and navigate to http://192.168.1.2 (the wifi router, R2).If it loads the control panel, you’re looking good. Open another browser and navigate to http://192.168.1.1 (the other router), and load the control panel. Make sure you are loading two different control panels. Not that you would ask, but just in case: you can tell the difference because one has wireless options, and the other doesn’t. Now try to load a page from the internet. It should work.
At this point, you should be able to add other computers to the open ports on R1 and R2, keeping in mind that the “uplink” port often shares hardware with one of the ports, and so you can’t have 4 ports on one router used and expect to use the uplink port as well. Note that I haven’t personally added additional computers to R2, but I have added 3 computers on to R1 with no problems. (A Mac, Linux, and Windows machine, by the way).
All that’s left is to exchange the wire running to the wireless router with a wireless connection. This is usually done automatically by your operating system, which will detect an available wi-fi connection and attempt to connect. You may have to fiddle with a couple of settings (channel settings, security settings, wireless network connection preferences, etc.), but these are fairly easy for an average computer user to figure out.
Again, this works for a me, so hopefully it’ll work for you. Any I.T. professionals who know more about this than I do are welcome to leave a comment detailing where I went wrong or other considerations I may have overlooked.
20 Comments
RSS feed for comments on this post.
Leave a comment
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Very detail and clear explainations. Thanks for sharing you information to solve my problem !
Thanks
Just so you know.. most other guides leave out the “connect to WAN” port part…
Thanks for the information, I have a different model Linksys (wireless) and a D-Link (also wireless, but not in use). I hadn’t thought about making the wan IP and local IP the same. You saved me a headache!
This was very helpful and would like to add that some newer switches use the subnet mask 255.255.255.0 just so some people aren’t confused
Thank you so much! After giving up on the linksys support website, your instructions were very specific!
However, I did reach one snag in that the wireless router would not allow me to apply a static IP through the linksys control panel. it might have just been a bug with my router, but i had to actually view the source code and edit the Gozila.cfg command.
Thank you very much for your nicely explained, sequential, and easy to follow guide. It really helped me set up my connections.
One item of interest, however. For my wireless router (R2), a Linksys, there was no uplink port. After a little research, I found this site (http://duxcw.com/faq/network/uplink.htm) that explained that port 1 is often the uplink port on some routers. I plugged my cable from R1 into port 1 on R2 and the whole setup works.
Thanks again!
DO you have to have a wireless router or can you use 2 regular routers..?? Do they have to be the same brand and model??
Nope, you don’t have to have a wireless router. These settings should work for two landline routers just fine. And they shouldn’t have to be the same model (keeping in mind that my instructions were written with only Linksys models in mind, and some model-specific information might be different.
Hi, great instructions, thanks!! Question: I have an older Linksys 802.11b wireless router (the 11Mbps version). I want to get a newer Linksys 802.3 (”G”) 54Mbps wireless router. But, I’d really like to employ your described technique to use the older router as the “R1″ non wi-fi router, to give me more physical ports. So, do you think it would work if I simply turned off the wireless feature on that older router, effectively turning it into a landline-only box? I’m just confused about the new router (R2) — it will not have an ‘uplink’ port. So, as Dan suggested above, do I just wire R2’s port #1 to an open port on R1, using a crossover cable? Or, do I wire R2’s WAN port to an open port on R1, using a straight cable? (which intuitively seems like it ought to work)…
I have 2 linksys wi-fi whit 4 ports, can i still make this connections?..Thanks
Jorge: Yup, should work absolutely fine… You would still need to physically connect the two routers via a cable, since I don’t think you can “Uplink” wirelessly, but everything else shoud work just fine…
Folks,
Can you ‘uplink’ wirelessly? Please confirm.
I don’t think so, but I’m not 100%…
Finally!
This worked perfectly for me. Great job! All along I was forgetting to turn off DHCP on R2.
thank you – the only person who could really spell it out step by step, thanks!
I have 2 routers, and I’ve done as you suggest and it works fine, but my R2 is a 1gb router, so I want my pcs attached there instead of R1. But I need 1 PC attached to R1 for port forwarding from the R1 router (it has a dsl modem combined). Everything works fine, except the PC on R1 can’t see the PCs on R2 and vice versa. Although both can access the internet.. Can anyone help at all? I’m stumped!
Good. I’ve just bought 2nd router. After reading your words, I know how to connect them together. Hopefully, They should work. Thanks.
Very clear instructions, but my linksys WRT54GS router wont let me apply a static ip address through the linksys control panel (same as comment 5 from Tania Khanna). I dont know how to view source code and sounds like that project is over my head. Any suggestions? thanks
James, I’ve got the same problem. nothing seems to work. I am using the same setup as described initally. But, for some reason, the routers are not letting the different subnets ’see’ each other. Devices with IP’s in the same subnet are cool.
Does anyone have any suggestions? How do you communicate between different subnets behind a common router?
Very detail and clear explainations, god bless you, you are the man.