Any IT Guys? Help setting up Linksys routers

[Bob Reeves]

Must be guys in this hobby that know about Routers and networking..

Hers the situation.. I have a wired network with a Linksys 8 port router that connects to the internet via a wireless ISP. I just added another Linksys wireless router so we can access the internet in the Gluedobbers club house via a wireless link. I have this all working with WPA/PSK security so it's pretty safe from the outside world.

The problem is any computer that can access the internet via the wireless link can also access my LAN. I spent allot of time disabling Windows firewalls and crap so I can have free access to any computer from any computer (7 of the silly things) on my network. This being a wired network behind the routers firewall was pretty secure even though locally it's wide open.

Now I'm thinking we can now provide a hot spot at the field for guests with laptops but I only want to give them access to the internet not my LAN. Do I need to lock down all the computers again or is there some means in the routers to only allow access to the internet from the wireless link. Both routers have configuration stuff I have no idea about and the manuals assume you already know what they are talking about. As near as I can tell I have all kinds of options on allowing or disallowing internet access but not much on locking down the LAN. Any ideas would be appreciated.

Edit: Just received a call from another club member, he suggested I simply make the IP address of the wireless different than my network router. Like instead of having one 192.168.1.1 and the other 192.168.1.20 assign the wireless router something like 192.168.2.1. Because the IP addresses are different the wireless network won't see the wired network. This brings up a couple questions.. Will this work and how do I get the wireless router access to the internet connection on the wired router?

[Randy Powell]

Bob,

I ran into this in my home network (I use a dlink setup). I just went to my router firewall and set up specific ports to be available to the outside connections and blocked those ports in my setup of local computers. So far it works pretty well, though a MMORPG I sometimes play complains about being forced through certain ports.

[Bob Reeves]

Thanks Randy but this would require using or installing firewalls on all my computers which is what I'm trying to avoid. The router firewall does a good job of hiding/blocking ports from the internet so I am not running any individual firewalls on the wired network.

Doubt you are allowing outside computers access to the internet through your network which is what I am trying to do. Going to play with the IP address idea in the morning, believe the answer is somehow configuring the wired router to allow pass through of the wireless router to the internet.

The DHCP server in the wireless router will need to be turned on so it can assign IP's to the guest computers on that network, running two completely separate networks makes sense if I can get the wired router to allow the second network access to the internet.

[Bob Reeves]

Success, between the hint that Rick gave me and rummaging around on the Linksys web site I was able to get both routers configured just like I was hoping.

The Gluedobbers will now have Wi-Fi available at the field for our guests. This has to be another first  

Oh and... We have a computer in the club house with a memory card reader and internet access.. Bring your cameras, you can shoot and post pictures to the web almost at will. Ain't technology wonderful..

[Randy Powell]

Bob,

Yea, all mine is internal. Glad you got it figured out. I talked to our IT hardware guy at work and he said pretty much the same thing, though I think the guy like VPN to much.

[Bob Reeves]

As usual I was trying to make it much more complicated than it ended up actualy being 

[Randy Powell]

Bob,

You're in good company.

[Steve Scott]

Bob,

Glad you got it figured out cuz, I just passed my Cisco Certified amateur thing Tuesday this week.  I was going to say,  "Step back from that router.  I'm certified!"  Then sheepishly admit, "Well, I certainly don't remember that from the book..."  

BTW,  WPA2 is the current secure-ist of the security protocols available for SOHO environments.

[Bob Reeves]

Thanks Steve..

Seems like nothing I ever do is in the "books" 

[john e. holliday]

What is so  much fun is proving to an instructor that what was in the book didn't work in real life.  DOC Holliday