Is it possible to connect two wifi routers to same fiber modem

Question

1. My house there is a one fiber broadband port and fiber modem connected to this port using fiber cable.
2. Then Wireless router connected to the fiber modem using CAT6 cable. Now I got another Wifi router and I'm planing to use that to improve Wifi signal strength back side of my house.
3. I know I can directly connect this new Wifi router to the existing router by disabling the DHCP at the new router.
4. But I would like to know, technically is it possible to connect new router directly to the fiber modem? (my fiber modem has extra RJ45 ports)
5. My intention here is to reduce the traffic trough the old Wifi router

Solution 1

But I would like to know, technically is it possible to connect new router directly to the fiber modem? (my fiber modem has extra RJ45 ports)

Yes, your modem seems to be a router as well. If you look at the IP address assigned to your router, if it's not your public IP address, (such as: 10.X.X.X, 192.168.X.X, or 172.16-32.X.X), then you can simply hook you other router into one of the other ports and you'll be good to go without any further setup.

If it is a public IP address, then you may need to get a second IP address from your ISP to allow traffic from both routers at the same time; however do keep in mind that most ISPs will charge you for more than one public IP address.

Solution 2

The answer is yes, sometimes.

Think of the fibre cable as a virtual ethernet cable - from what you have described (and it would be a common setup), thats how its behaving. The question is then "What is the Ethernet cable doing?"

It MIGHT be simply acting as an ethernet cable - in which case you simply need to clone the MAC address of the device its plugged into and you are on your way. This is unlikely though.

Arround my parts, PPPoE is used (PPP over Ethernet) - this requires a login and password, and possibly other tweeks - in my case, knowing what VLAN it was configured on - Once I had this information, I was able to program my Linux box to act as a router - ofcourse, my ISP was quite forthcoming with the details.

(Also, its unlikely you have a fibre modem - you probably find it is a media converter - ie all it does is convert Fibre into something that you can plug an ethernet cable in to - a modem is a very different beast)

Comments

[NetwOrchestration]

Yes, it is. However, If you want your devices connected to both wifi, be able to communicate with each other, I recommend to add the first Wireless router, as the DHCP relay of the second one.

[David Schwartz]

"My intention here is to reduce the traffic trough the old Wifi router" That really doesn't make any sense.

[Tmanok]

@David, it makes sense, he doesn't want to burden clients using the original home router but making it do extra work through it's LAN switch (4 yellow ports by standard). Nayana, this question should probably be in the network engineering. If you have access to the modem's online config interface then you're likely able to connect the new Access Point / Home Router to the extra Ethernet Connection (You're all mistaking RJ45 which is the old system, an argument for a new thread)... So long as your modem isn't overly limited by your ISP (firmware blocking that port) you should be fine.

[Tmanok]

Worst case scenario buy an Ethernet Switch (high end) and plug that into what your old home router was plugged into. Note that most management interfaces are within the original home router that your ISP gave you, so this may mean that they've disabled the addition ethernet connection and made it so that you have to plug into the old home router (or use a switch from the modem, then connect your two home routers to that). BTW en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modular_connector#Nomenclature

[David Schwartz]

@Tmanok I've never seen a home router whose switch wasn't rated for line speed. Splitting it just risks congesting whatever connects the two sides.

[Tmanok]

"I was able to program my Linux box to act as a router" Hehehe May I ask what routing software you used? Beyond NetworkManager there's a couple I haven't tried but I'd be interested in knowing what they're like (assuming I'm thinking of the software you're using).

[Tmanok]

Katiesi.... "I know I can directly connect this new Wifi router to the existing router by disabling the DHCP at the new router." - Nayana (User asking the question)....

[davidgo]

I just use raw Linux (the distro happened to be CentOS, but I've done routing on Linux boxes on everything from Slackware to CentOS to openwrt, ddwrt). I've also helped someone out with Zeroshell, but not explored it too much myself - I think it may use FreeBSD. I generally just us ifconfig and route (but the "ip" command is sometimes required and arguably better.). For PPPoE I used poptop, and I typically use plain iptables for firewalling. I note that under the covers most SOHO routers and many professional routers run Linux and use these tools. [ Look at ZEBRA for dynamic routing ]

[Tmanok]

Neato, ever run into NST? networksecuritytoolkit.org/nst/index.html It's got a handful of tools. I'm new to linux routing (he says after going to school for Cisco-IOS which is arguably linux) I too prefer the ip command via cli. Even HP equipment (procurve level) and Cisco enterprise level use software based on Linux and UNIX. I'll check out Zebra and Poptop thanks!

[davidgo]

@Tmanok Not come across this before - but I expect its designed more for penetrating networks then doing routing. I havn't used Cisco [ as distinct from Cisco Linksys ] devices for many, many years, but last I looked IOS was not linux (also see unix.stackexchange.com/questions/128899/…) - or even unix based or like it - and I would be astounded if it is now. (But if you like that environment, Zebra or Quagga might be more comfortable)

[Tmanok]

Cisco IOS has many features similar to unix however the kernel being monolithic used to be a cooperative multi-threading kernel not a proper multitasking kernel (I believe it's since changed). It actually has a few features that I would prefer to see in Linux (pressing "?" to identify available commands and after typing a command you can do the same to list all the available arguments. It's called context sensitivity). But you're right sorry it's not a fork off of Linux or Unix although I remember reading something about that in the academy. I'll get back to you about that.

[davidgo]

@Tmanok - Totally off-topic - but are you aware of tab expansion in bash (I put to you thats about as close as one can get on a multi-purpose OS, and it does both list available commands and switches/options as appropriate (just use -[tab]) where configured to - and a lot of the time its configured to out the box)

[Tmanok]

It definitely does not do it to the extent the "?" does. Yes you're the nth person to tell me, TAB is identical in IOS, the "?" lists options, tab will autocomplete and on double-tap somewhat list or attempt to resolve possible options. Not at all to the extent of the context sensitivity IOS provides.