Setting up wifi from an ethernet port

[bkribbs]

Suppose I have one ethernet port and several devices which I want to give internet to.

I have my handy wireless router and need assistance setting it up!

I have to plug the ethernet cord into the internet jack on there.

Then I am confused. What all do I change? IPs or subnets?

One question I know I have, if my router is handing out IP addresses to say 3 or 4 devices, those IPs only really matter on my private network, not the entire one, right?

 

[johnb35]

Confused here... Why don't you hook up the router before your pc so all devices are easy to setup?

 

[voyagerfan99]

I'm assuming you're talking about a campus network.

What I have to do with mine is connect my computer and find out the IP address and subnet that I am assigned. I then take that IP and subnet and assign it to the router. For the DNS servers I just use the Google DNS of 8.8.8.8 primary and 8.8.4.4 secondary.

Can't guarantee my solution will work with your router though.

 

[bkribbs]

I'm assuming you're talking about a campus network.

What I have to do with mine is connect my computer and find out the IP address and subnet that I am assigned. I then take that IP and subnet and assign it to the router. For the DNS servers I just use the Google DNS of 8.8.8.8 primary and 8.8.4.4 secondary.

Can't guarantee my solution will work with your router though.

Yup! Leave DHCP on or turn it off? Also, if my laptop is assigned anything besides a 192.168.x.x I can't assign it to the router I don't think. Are all IP address in this range?

Confused here... Why don't you hook up the router before your pc so all devices are easy to setup?

See above!

 

[voyagerfan99]

Yup! Leave DHCP on or turn it off? Also, if my laptop is assigned anything besides a 192.168.x.x I can't assign it to the router I don't think. Are all IP address in this range?

You can try DHCP first. If it doesn't work, then switch it to static and assign the router the IP address you're assigned (when you check your computer).

You most likely won't get a 192 IP address directly from the wall. It'll be a larger private IP address.

 

[bkribbs]

You can try DHCP first. If it doesn't work, then switch it to static and assign the router the IP address you're assigned (when you check your computer).

You most likely won't get a 192 IP address directly from the wall. It'll be a larger private IP address.

I'm confused exactly what enabling it as a DHCP server does. I'm familiar of the concept of internal IPs and external IPs on a regular network.

Is there another layer of internal IP'ing going on here? Or is it on the same system as the router would be?

I'm just not sure what the difference between enabling and disabling it is.

Also, when I assign the router IP from within the settings, is that the IP for the regular network that everyone else's computer will be on, or is that the "internal IP" or both?

Sorry, I'm obviously confused.

 

[voyagerfan99]

You're configuring the external public IP address. That has nothing to do with the internal 192.168.x.x network that the clients connected to your router will be assigned.

DHCP/Automatic config automatically gets the information from the ISP (in this case, the school) on what the public IP address is. If you make it static, you tell it what the public IP is and it will remain that address until you change it.

For example with my ASUS router:

Automatic IP Config:

Static IP Config:

 

[bkribbs]

You're configuring the external public IP address. That has nothing to do with the internal 192.168.x.x network that the clients connected to your router will be assigned.

DHCP/Automatic config automatically gets the information from the ISP (in this case, the school) on what the public IP address is. If you make it static, you tell it what the public IP is and it will remain that address until you change it.

For example with my ASUS router:

Automatic IP Config:

Static IP Config:

So I should leave DHCP enabled for the router retrieving the IP as well as a DHCP for all the devices on the inside?

If I disable the DHCP server, what happens exactly?

 

[voyagerfan99]

So I should leave DHCP enabled for the router retrieving the IP as well as a DHCP for all the devices on the inside?

If I disable the DHCP server, what happens exactly?

If you disable DHCP then nothing will get an IP address from the router. You can try it and see if it works on or off.

 

[bkribbs]

If you disable DHCP then nothing will get an IP address from the router. You can try it and see if it works on or off.

To clarify- leaving the DHCP server on is something that the University would not be able to see, right? Like it would not influence their network?

 

[salvage-this]

If I understand correctly turning DHCP off will have the devices contact your schools DHCP servers. If you have DHCP turned on you will have the router use NAT and act as the DHCP server for those devices connected to it.

 

[bkribbs]

If I understand correctly turning DHCP off will have the devices contact your schools DHCP servers. If you have DHCP turned on you will have the router use NAT and act as the DHCP server for those devices connected to it.

That sounds right.

So then my only question is: if I leave DHCP server on, can the school tell/ will it show up as a rouge DHCP server or whatever its called?

 

[salvage-this]

If your school has rules against routers that are not maintained by them then they might have a problem with it. I don't really see a problem with it. If you leave DHCP enabled it will only be doing NAT for the devices behind it. If it is disabled you are just making a switch out of your router.

You could also just pick up one of the netgear 4 port switches. School IT should have no problem with that.

 

[bkribbs]

My apologies for not responding. I've been rather busy.

Suggesting my school says NO wireless routers, if I hook up my router with DHCP is this something they can see or since its for a private network can they not tell?

And if I hook it up with DHCP off, is this the same as a regular switch but wireless?

 

[salvage-this]

if they really look hard I bet they could figure out that there are more devices behind the router. If you are not broadcasting wireless, or doing anything illegal on their network I have doubts that they would look into it.

If you configure the router with no DHCP and set default DCHP server for your School, devices connected to the router should still get an address from the school. Not your router.


Here is an example:

School network
10.10.10.0
255.255.255.0

Router with DCHP enabled

Router internal address: 192.168.1.1
255.255.255.0

devices connected to the router would be any address
192.168.1.2 - 192.168.1.254

Router with DCHP disabled would access the school's network so you should get an address in the range 10.10.10.1-10.10.10.254

The router configured without DHCP and no wireless signal, should look pretty close to a switch.

These addresses are made up so look at the schools network for their values when configuring your system.

One thing that I am confused with, are you trying to connect wireless or wired devices?

 

[bkribbs]

if they really look hard I bet they could figure out that there are more devices behind the router. If you are not broadcasting wireless, or doing anything illegal on their network I have doubts that they would look into it.

If you configure the router with no DHCP and set default DCHP server for your School, devices connected to the router should still get an address from the school. Not your router.


Here is an example:

School network
10.10.10.0
255.255.255.0

Router with DCHP enabled

Router internal address: 192.168.1.1
255.255.255.0

devices connected to the router would be any address
192.168.1.2 - 192.168.1.254

Router with DCHP disabled would access the school's network so you should get an address in the range 10.10.10.1-10.10.10.254

The router configured without DHCP and no wireless signal, should look pretty close to a switch.

These addresses are made up so look at the schools network for their values when configuring your system.

One thing that I am confused with, are you trying to connect wireless or wired devices?

Wireless devices. By broadcasting wireless, do you mean broadcasting the ssid or literally any wireless?

Also, if I leave DHCP enabled can the school tell? I thought since it is a private network only I use they shouldn't be able to tell?

And for your second example, would I simply disable the DHCP server and make the subnet match? And everything else it gets from the schools network?

 

[salvage-this]

Any wireless technically. Not broadcasting the SSID would make it harder to find and you would be unlikely to have any trouble with other users trying to hop on to your wireless. Enabling MAC filtering will further protect you from unauthorized access. However, the school can still find the wireless signal with wifi survey software.

It looks like when a private network is behind a NAT, there is also a port number associated with it. That translation from internal IP to external IP is saved in the translation table of the router that is connected to both networks. So yes, your school can see each and every device. They just need to check the port numbers that are using the IP given to your router to access the network.

I got the the info here It is in the NAT overloading section.

I am not really sure what you need to configure for your router but I would think that you would need to set IP address, Subnet, Default Gateway, DHCP Server, possibly DNS as well.

Some of those might be auto filled by having the router on the network, might not. If you have a router that you can ping from, see if you can hit other external network devices. If you can't, try to set it manually. If you can connect a device to the wireless and see if it works. If it doesn't see what values are missing in ipconfig /all or use tracert to see where packets are getting lost.

 

[bkribbs]

So is the most secure least bothersome way to them to disable ssid broadcasting enable security and turn off the dhcp server?

 

[bkribbs]

Ba bump

 

[voyagerfan99]

You might have less issues if you turn DHCP off, yes. But do indeed hide your SSID and set a WPA2-Personal password.