Need solution for bridging network to outbuilding

[Pierat]

I have a home network, which also includes my on-site business in a separate building. I just moved to this house and found that while my EA4500 worked just good enough to broadcast from my house to my shop at our last house, it won't reach from the house to the shop here. Thinking a newer, better router might have better range, I went out today and bought the Netgear Nighthawk X6 R7900. Installed new router rhis afternoon and still don't have strong enough signal in my shop to get better than 0.9mbps ds and even less us. I thought about using a range extender, but my dilemma is that I have a network printer at work that I need to be able to print to from the house and a NAS in the house I need to access from my shop. I may be wrong, but in the past I came to find I need to be on the same SSID for all of these to work, and a range extender would extend my network with a different SSID, making communication between all devices impossible. I have found a netgear article that explains setting up an extender using the same SSID, but it also says there may be issues with that confifuration. I should also say that I have no preference for netgear products. I use them because I tend to shop at Costco and that's what they usually carry.

So, now I have my two routers and am wondering if I can bridge my network from the R7900 in my house to the EA4500 in my shop. It's about 80 feet away, but I have an empty conduit underground already and can pull a cat5 or cat6 cable very easily. My question is, can I set up my routers, either with stock firmware or ddwrt to send my same SSID to a wired bridge router from my house to my shop? And if I do so, will I have problems using the same SSID? Finally, will my portable devices like phones and tablets be able to switch automatically between whichever router is sending the strongest signal and have a seamless hand off between the two routers when moving between them? If not, I see there is also a range extender that's also a nighthawk product, the AC1900. I would consider buying one of these if it would do what I want. Again, netgear has an article that says you can use their extenders with the same SSID, but I have read all over the place that there can be issues with that kind of setup. In fact, I tried it once before when I bought my my ea4500 and setting up ddwrt on my previous router, but I remember getting stuck at some point and giving up. I am more determined and more desperate now, though, as it's causing a delay in getting my business up and running at my new house.

I know that the new mesh devices would do exactly what I want, but I have a problem justifying a higher cost for devices which have proprietary communication abilities and I can't just go out and get whatever new satellite comes out, netgear or not and add it into my network later. At least with standard routers or extenders, if one device breaks, I can replace it with newer technology later and upgrade the other pieces as necessary. I don't want to spend $500 now and know I will need to spend $500+ if I need to change the whole setup with something upgraded later and have that much expensive obsolete technology sitting in a junk drawer. Mesh technology seems like it would save a lot of time with setup and save me from having to use my empty conduit I buried for running extra power lines later. So I am very open to this if it is going to be a lot easier in the long run. I really need to solve this network issue quickly, so I need a sure fire solution here before I start investing a lot of time for trial and error solutions.

Because I need to communicate with my NAS, I am considering running a cat cable to that anyway and using that at my desk for my computer, but I still need WiFi access for phones and tablets for my work.

I am tech savvy, but quite a noob with networking, so any replies, tips or advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[ch33zw1z]

Do you run a PC 24x7? Here's why I ask....my solution to your needs would be(if they were my needs ):

1. Run a cable through the conduit (actually, I would run at least 2)
2. Purchase 2 Ubiquiti WAP's($100-200 for two), and run the controller software on a PC that's up 24x7 (the controller software will provide the seamless WAP switching)
3. Hardware the important stuff like printer, NAS, etc...

SOHO devices setup as standard WAP's will not provide seamless switching, as your sessions will drop.

SOHO devices setup as repeaters may provide seamless switching, but not exactly guaranteed always. Of course, other members here can provide their own experience

If the seamless switching between WAP's is not required, then you can just setup any old router as a WAP out in the workshop.

 

[Ichinisan]

Haven't finished reading the OP, but...

Having a different SSID is not the reason your devices couldn't talk to each other.

If you just put a router behind a router, you typically have both of them operating in NAT router mode, which creates a double-NAT scenario (private network behind a private network). Devices on one can't necessarily find devices on the other. Nothing to do with WiFi SSIDs as this would affect wired connections too.

The router closest to your Internet connection should be in the regular NAT router mode. Any routers behind that should be in bridged "access point" mode. That way, the secondary router doesn't hide its clients from the first router. The first router (the one operating in normal NAT mode) should handle DHCP assignment of IP addresses. All client devices (wired and wireless, no matter which device they connect to) would be part of the same home network. They should all be able to find and talk to each other. Most routers have an AP mode these days. Some even detect that they're getting a private IP address on the WAN interface and automatically configure themselves in AP mode. Still, I occasionally see some that do not have an AP mode. In that case, you can force it to work as an AP. If the main router gives out DHCP starting with 192.168.x.2, change it to something like 192.168.x.10 -- Then set the secondary router's internal LAN IP to 192.168.x.2 and disable DHCP so it stops trying to assign IPs. Leave the secondary router's Internet/WAN port empty and feed the incoming connection into one of the LAN ports. Now, all clients of the secondary router will get DHCP assignments from the main router.

By default, a range expander/extender/repeater does not do NAT, so it should already operate in the correct mode. However, it can't help you reach the shop unless you could place it somewhere between your house and your shop. Many operate in a mode that cuts wireless throughput in half. Do you have the option to run a network cable to the shop and set up a router (in AP mode) directly in the shop?

 

[Ichinisan]

Unless you get a system like Ubiquiti Unifi, you probably shouldn't try to match SSID+security.

I have 2 routers configured as APs that are both fed from a wired router. I tried setting both APs to have the same SSID. No matter where I am in the house, client devices only show one SSID with a strong signal. Logging-in to each AP to list WiFi clients, I still see stationary clients on the other side of the house connecting to the AP that has a weak/unusable signal (and the client reports a full-strength signal since it only shows 1 SSID).

I eventually gave different SSIDs to each AP so I can force those stationary clients to associate with the correct one. I gave them names that are indicative of their location.

 

[JackMDS]

Unfortunately the marketing of Wireless devices and thier capabilities is ione of the "Most Con Jobs" in Tech.

If you can run a cable to it. Then put in the shop the second Wireless Router configure as a Switch with an
Access Point.

http://www.ezlan.net/router_AP.html

Set both Wireless sources with the same security and different SSID.

That is least expensive solution and the best one possible.

 

[Pierat]

Ok, I'm getting an error trying to multi-quote.

Thanks so much for the responses.

ch33zw1z-
Yes, I have a Mac in the house that runs 24x7. That's where my NAS is, actually. It's not really a NAS, but a hard drive conected to a mac which I use as a hub for all personal and business data. It's all there so I have only one hard drive to backup for everything for my family. Ubiquiti "seems" like an easy solution, but it's overwhelmingly difficult to navigate the product line and features. Tried calling them, they only have a chat feature and said I can call a distributor for help, but their distributors are mostly IT pros who provide large commercial sales and installs. I'm trying to see what products they have that would do what I want.

When you say hardware the important stuff, do you mean run a physical line from an AP instead of going wireless? If so, I still need to connect wirelessly to the access point one way or another. I'm on information overload here, so forgive me if I am not following correctly. Maybe I don't need seamless switching, I need to think about my needs more, I suppose. I know portable devices will hop onto whatever network is in range. My main concern is communication between home and office, because my drive is at home and printer is in office. Maybe just easier to have business NAS in office and personal in house. But I know with that I will not be as likely to do proper backups when I have to have 2 online backups and yet another hard drive to have a redundant backup offsite. Whereas now, I just have my online backup from house and I store my HD backup outside of the house. Splitting this up would mean another piece of hardware and more time that I don't have to do backups.

Ichinisan-
When I tried this before, I did set up second router as an AP. It's been a couple years and all I remember is that I gave up, don't remember why it wasn't working. Decrease in throughput is why I am avoiding the range extender option and trying others. Yes, I can run a line. Your description of same SSIS problem is very helpful, I see why that could lead to issues now. Another problem here is that I my wife does bookkeeping, invoicing, etc. for business. The office used to be in the house, but even so, the business PC was always set up in spare room and she accesses it via VPN from here laptop. I seem to remember that her macbook was usually on the 5ghz network and the PC was always on the 2.4ghz, I think because of limitations of the hardware. I don't have the PC set up yet, but I seem to remember that she would always struggle to connect when her macbook would switch itself to the 5ghz because she couldn't VPN to the PC on the 2.4 network. Now that the office PC is even further away in another building, VPN is the only the only way she will run that computer, ever. So if I'm right and VPN won't work when computers are on different networks, it will be a problem. If you are implying that everything will communicate fine, I will go the AP route and be done with it.

JackMDS
I understand what you're saying. They tend to make you feel everything is ancient and obsolete if it's not the newest and best. Heck, I just found out last night that even cat5 is considered old technology and there is a new cat5 and 2 new cat6 types of cables I never even knew about. I do feel that my setup would have seemed easier to do here 10 years ago when the standard was simply 802.11g and cat5. But now all these devices are going wireless and new standards are coming out and I am at a point where I can stick to my old tech and do this cheap and simple, with a little more backend work, or I can adapt to whatever todays tech is, which is apparently 802.11AC and possibly mesh, which again, I just learned about in the past few days doing this. I will likely be buying new computers and printers in the near future and don't want a setup that will leave me in the stone-age. But I also don't have endless funds. Nor do I have endless time and backend router work will likely take me a long time to set up because I am not proficient with it.

Thanks everyone, I'll keep reading. Going on to day 2 of getting nowhere, but you guys have been a help.

 

[slatr]

Is your shop on the same power as your home?

A few years ago I used powerline ethernet adapters. They worked well for about 1.5 years and then one module died. I gave up on them at that point and just ran cable and used wi-fi after that.

I don't know if they are more robust and reliable now, but it might be something to consider.

 

[Ichinisan]

"Hardware the important stuff"

He meant "hard-wire"

 

[Pierat]

That thought did cross my mind. The original garage here had one circuit that fed from the house for lighting. My business uses power hungry industrial machines, so I dug the trench and ran a new power line to a new breaker box in the shop. I threw in the extra conduit, glad I did now, for future needs. So I do have one original power line here for my lighting, but I am not sure what circuit it is in the house and if there is a receptacle in the house on the same circuit where I am willing to install a modem and router. For example, I don't want it in a bedroom. And I don't have any receptacles in the shop that use that circuit, just "hard-wired" (haha) lighting. I could install a receptacle in the shop, though. That wouldn't be a big deal. I assumed those power line adapters suffer a lot of signal loss due to it being a power line with all sorts of interference. Maybe I'll look at those closer though. Thanks for reminding me about that option.

Edit to add: I always thought powerline adapters needed to run on the same breaker. I was so wrong. I always wondered how people had a common receptacle on the other end of the house. Now it makes sense! However, I did learn that you losent a significant amount of signal when it has to jump breakers

 

[Pierat]

Ok guys, I have an update.

I went out and bought the fastest rated powerline ethernet adapter I could find, which is 1Gb. Just plugged it in and checked speed right now. I expected it to possibly not even work, but it's reading and writing at almost 350Mbps. Surprisingly, I am quite impressed. In fact, that's probably pretty close to what I'm used to getting on my WAN at my old house. However, it is subject to interference from my motors running on my shop machines and every device I have in the house running power. So it's possible this is as good as it gets and it may do very poorly at other times. I was really starting to like the idea of pulling an ethernet cable underground and having even faster speed to my NAS, which would definitely be more reliable and help my productivity. So now I have to decide if I want to just be satisfied, or if I should still pull the cable.

One other issue with this power line adapter is that it does not have built in wifi, just 2 ethernet ports. So if I want wifi, I still have to use a second router as an AP anyway. This thing was $90, so the cost compared to pulling a cable is not that different. I suppose I could try another adapter that has wifi, but I got this one because it had good ratings and figured I should try the best one I could find to test the speed with. I now have proof of concept, but not sure if I should be satisfied. The geek in me says return it and pull a cat6 cable rated for 10Gb so I can handle whatever the world comes up with in the near future.

Any thoughts from you guys on my situation with this new information?

 

[ch33zw1z]

Good job giving that a shot.

I'm a nerd, so I'd be pulling a few cables through the trough. If you have power running through there too, then FTP cabling at minimum, STP is best.

 

[Pierat]

I was looking at pulling cat6a shielded. I looked online and could only find bulk in minimum of 1000 ft. I only need around 200ft. I called every outfit in town, and nobody carries it locally either. So I called a friend who has more experience in this than I do. He said that running even a shielded cable with power lines from one building to another is going to be a problem. He said even without the power lines, the cable will build too much static electricity and cause problems. After I told him exactly what im doing, he advised I run fiber optic. I forgot when posting here that I have databases I need to read from that network drive that are in excess of 20GB. I forgot, because I gave up on reading those due to the slow wan speed before I even moved. Whenever I needed those databases, I took my computer to the drive or took the drive to it. It's been so long since my shop was running, I forgot about that. Now that the drive is in a different building, I can't just walk over to it any more.

We found some fiber cables, transceivers and switches on ebay. Price's for older equipment were not really that much more than running new cat6a cable, but would give me 1Gb lan wired from my shop all the way to my drive.

I'm willing to take the advice and go with optical because the price is really not that much more if I shop well. But I'm wondering what you guys think about this as compared to cat6. I can't find cat6a in anything more than a patch cable, but I need at the bare minimum 105 feet, just to get from surface to surface of my conduit, plus more to get from surface up into the wall. So 100' patch cables won't work. Maybe I could find a deal on ebay, but I'm wondering now if I should just continue with optical.

 

[Ichinisan]

I'm no expert, but optical sounds silly/expensive. I think you'd be fine with the shielded cable.

 

[ch33zw1z]

STP does need to get to ground at both sides. Not usually a problem, as ethernet ports have metal around the plug. I would only purchase prefabricated STP, I would not crimp my own.

Fiber doesn't have the susceptibility to EMI, but it has its own issues. Dirt and dust on the connectors can cause issues. Get a fiber clean tool if you go fiber. It's also fragile, pay close attention to the bend radius if it kinks while pulling it.

Fiber comes in different types, multimedia and single mode. You're probably looking at multimedia as it's for short distance

There's fiber to copper converters you can use at both ends to make it easy to get it back to useable on the home network.

Either way you go, take your time and pull more than one of what you choose.

 

[Pierat]

Next update... it's long, I know. If you want to skip to the last paragraph for my actual question, please scroll on down!

I opted for fiber for a couple reasons. Partly because I asked my contractor and he said they buried the conduit literally right on top of the high voltage conduit. The cable supply house said even shielded cable wouldn't have good results running 100+ feet right on top of high voltage. I could have tried it, and it might have worked fine, but I didn't want to waste time and money if it didn't. Also, there is the issue of grounding it properly and the ground potential difference between the two buildings. I'm sure there is a good chance nothing bad would happen, but if I do it myself and a power surge or lightning fries networked devices or worse, I assume I might have a hard time getting insurance to cover any damage caused by my installation. With fiber, there are still NEC requirements, but I'm using the right cable for the application and there is zero conductivity anyway. Worst case scenario, my network doesn't work if I do something wrong. I don't know nearly enough about electricity to be confident I am not missing something, and unless I am 100% sure I am doing it properly, I think that's good enough a reason not to mess with electricity in the first place. Hiring someone to come out and run copper would likely cost as much as fiber anyway, so fiber it is.

I took your advice, ch33zw1z, and bought 6 strand fiber, so I have 2 extra pairs in case I damage it, a connector fails or I need to expand my network later. It was the same price as buying one more 2 strand fiber cable, but half the labor of pulling it now all at once than pulling a second one later. Cable from a reputable source cost me $300 for 150 feet. It will be here in a few days.

I just finished getting my routers set up in bridge mode and tested it with the powerline adapter I still have. Everything works fine, but I have not tried matching SSIDs yet or printing on the network printer. I was going to buy a couple switches for either end of the fiber and connect those to my routers in each building. Same end result as if I was pulling copper. However, I am leaning more towards just buying a couple media converters and plugging those right into my routers, because I don't really need the extra ports on a switch right now and one pair of fiber cables is enough for what I need right now. It's cheaper this way if it will work.

I'm looking at using the TP-Link MC220L.
https://www.amazon.com/TP-Link-Ethernet-Converter-Supporting-MC220L/dp/B003CFATL0
TP-Link says it is only compatible with gigabit devices, and will not communicate with 10/100 devices. I don't think I have any 10/100 devices right now anyway. The spec sheet on my PC says 10/100/1000, but it's very old and I need to make sure a previous owner hasn't changed the motherboard or something. But being in the light manufacturing business, you never know when some older equipment might be cheap and useful, and require a 10/100mbps ethernet connection. So what I'm wondering is, if the SFP media converter requires gigabit connections only, and my router is 10/100/1000 WAN and LAN, will my router "convert" the 10/100 clients on the LAN to a Gb signal that the media converter requires? Or does the router simply pass 100Mbps signals from the LAN to the WAN port as a 100Mbps signal? Tech specs of my Linksys EA4500 on the Linksys website and the Netgear r7900 on the Netgear website both refer to the WAN as a Gb port on the routers, but then in tech sheets or elswhere on the sites, they also call the ports 10/100/1000. That's why I'm confused. I called Netgear to ask the question and the representative said it will work with that router, but I am not sure I got good information.

 

[ch33zw1z]

So what I'm wondering is, if the SFP media converter requires gigabit connections only, and my router is 10/100/1000 WAN and LAN, will my router "convert" the 10/100 clients on the LAN to a Gb signal that the media converter requires

Yes, what this is really saying is that when you connect the copper from the MC220L to a switch port (on each side), like your planning on doing, the switch port needs to be 1 Gbps.

If a device on the network is 10/100, the switch (not the MC220L) negotiates that speed directly with the device. Moving packets over the fiber won't matter and should work as usual at layer 2, you just can't connect the MC220L to a 10/100 switch port (TP link probably didn't build this functionality in because why would you at this point? )

 

[Pierat]

Thanks again for the help. It is very confusing because even within same manufacturers, they seem to offer 10/100/1000 or straight gigabit only. I guess I thought that if you could use the 10/100/1000 just fine for an all gigabit network, why would anyone buy anything that's less versatile? So I assumed you can't have slower clients on a gigbit media converter. But if I'm understanding you correctly, it is more about the UTP port than the SFP port. Is there some sort of trade-off there that you must sacrifice by using the 10/100/1000 media converter as opposed to a gigabit only device? Or is it just a matter of simplifying network devices?

Edit: Confused myself a little and mixed up a discussion I was having on a chat support. But in the end, it sounds like you're saying that even though my router says it is 10/100/1000, as long as it can do 1000, it will communicate with the MC because it knows the MC needs the 1Gbps signal. So there is no reason to choose the 10/100/1000 MC model if the routers on each end are capable of 1Gbps. I can let the routers do all the work of negotiating client speeds and just get a straight gigabit media converter. Am I making even a little sense?

 

[ch33zw1z]

It's more about the TP link converter not being designed to auto-negotiate the copper connection to a 10/100. The more they add to it, the more it costs. Nobody wants the fiber at 10/100 anyways, you won't find any fiber like that out in the field anywhere. Ethernet fiber is 1Gbit or 10Gbit.

 

[ch33zw1z]

one thing I didn't mention. Before you set it all up, it's a good idea to set up everything close together to make sure it works in a small manageable area. kinda like you're doing with the routers already. Once you know it's working, then put the converters in place where they'll stay.

 

[Pierat]

I just chatted with Startech.com about their product. That's who I was on with when I was typing last response and got confused.
https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com...ords=lc+media+converter+multimode+10/100/1000

They advised that to work for sure, I should set my router to only use 1Gbps speeds on the WAN port. I told them it's a consumer grade router and that I don't think I can do that, although I'm not 100% sure about that. Anyway, he said as long as the fiber side is 1Gbps, it will work. He specified the connection needs to be 1Gbps, but he didn't say anything about the fiber, which is 10G, so it's fine. And then I just realized I'm not plugging WAN to WAN, but rather LAN to WAN on router 1 to router 2. Anyway, this Startech product comes as a complete unit with LC modules already in it. This item is sold by Amazon, so if it doesn't work it's probably easier than returning modules to one place and MC to another. Maybe I'll just give this a try and see what happens. Unfortunately, I still don't even know if I have a client that runs anything less than 1Gbps because my PC is still in a box from moving. So I may not even have a chance to try it out. I'll just buy it and report back here. This whole thing is driving me crazy!!!! Thanks again.

 

[Pierat]

Very good idea. Much easier to not have to run building to building or get two people on phones to troubleshoot. I sort of planned on that, but I could totally see myself anxious to complete the project and putting fiber underground without testing it. Thanks for the reminder! Now I need to tie a string on my finger so I don't forget.

 

[ch33zw1z]

Either one will work.

The link speeds building the fiber run should be Gigabit because why not, it's possible and best for the solution. Don't worry about the WAN speeds, as they're a separate factor.

The Startech rep is doing his best, but this is not typically something that home users with little knowledge attempt.

Startech is reputable, those converters will do just fine.

Just make sure that you plug the converters into a Gigabit port on the switch.

 

[Pierat]

I didn't mean to imply that the Startech rep wasn't helpful or anything. Actually, he was quite patient and did a good job explaining what he could. He just couldn't guarantee it to work because it's dependent on 3rd party hardware, my routers. I don't know the company, but if you say they are reputable, I feel good giving them the business. I'm going to order up two of their MCs right now. They cost more than the TP-Link, but they also come with the LC modules already. Fingers crossed this works.

I'll look it up on my own, but just curious if there is a way in Windows or OSX to limit network card to 100Mbps to simulate a 10/100 connection to see what happens with the MCs. I can't wrap my head around if that would work. Seems just throttling down an 802.3ab wouldn't be the same as having a physical 802.3u network card. If there is no way to test it, I can always just buy another media converter in the future if I need it because this one doesn't work. I'll probably never need it anyway. I just like to know my equipment.

 

[ch33zw1z]

Setting NIC to 10 or 100 manually would yield this:

TP Link would get speed mismatched, effectively killing the connection

Startech would try to autonegotiate to whatever the other end of the cable would be. It may work at 100 or 10

A gigabit switch on each end of the cable is best case scenario in any circumstance.

 

[Pierat]

Thanks for your time, so helpful with your quick replies. Just so I make sure we're on the same page...

The two routers I already have, Linksys EA4500-N900 and Netgear Nighthawk R7900 were going to be my "switches". They are gigabit routers. I think I wrongly assumed my wifi router is still a switch, just an unmanaged consumer grade switch. A very quick read before typing this educated me on the subject just enough to know now that a router is not necessarily the same thing as a switch. So now I am finding myself in a confused state and wondering if I wasted my time looking at media converters to connect directly to my routers and I should have stayed with my original plan of getting switches and plugging the wireless routers into those. Originally, I was looking at older enterprise switches on ebay, but then settled on something like a Netgear Pro-Safe GS110TP. Finally, I thought why mess with thoe when I have gigabit wireless routers. So, now that you know either how well or how badly I have done my research, am I on the right track with this? Or do I need to abandon the media converters and go with a real switch for this to work?