Using 2nd wifi router as Guest Wifi

[PL]

Long story short. Used to be on SHAW. Modem connected on main floor in bridge mode. Used my own ASUS router. When I switched to Telus they had to connect the modem in the basement. Now main floor and top floor wifi is poor. I then set up 3 boosters which fixed the wifi issues. Now the thing I miss is the wifi guest network. The one on the T3200 isn't strong enough to get a good signal on the main floor. So I was wondering if I could use the ASUS router as just a wifi guest access point. I set up the router on a different subnet as the T3200. I connected from the T3200 to the WAN port of the ASUS router. I then hid the main wifi of the ASUS and set up the guest wifi on the ASUS router. So far everything works except I am still able to traverse the rest of the network on the T3200. Is there a way to only allow the ASUS wifi access?

[NFtoBC · Accepted solution]

Try bridging Lan 1 on your T3200M and connecting the ASUS to that LAN port. This should exclude the rest of your network from access by the guest network.

[PL]

Hi

Sorry don't quite understand. If I do that, doesn't it mean I am using the ASUS as the main router then? What happens to the Boost wifi? Tv's etc?

Thanks for your response

[NFtoBC]

No, the rest of your home network would be on the T3200M Wi-Fi, and LAN 2-4. Bridging LAN 1 simply ensures the two parts of the network can’t see one another.

Search for “creating a sub-network” on the internet for lots of ways to address this. There should be some info specific to your ASUS router.

[PL]

Thanks for the suggestion. Won't work for me. The T3200 is in the basement where the network dist center is. My office and 2nd wifi router is on the main floor. If I bridge LAN1 I use the only network connection to my office to connect to the 2nd wifi router. I have about 10 devices running in my office hard wired, including optik TV so I would lose connection to the rest of the LAN on the T3200.

But appreciate the suggestion. 

For now I think I will just set up the 2nd wifi router as the guest access and though they can get to other resources on the T3200, they can't see them, they would need to know the IP. And for the most part, it's only friends and family who use it when they come over.

T3200 is on subnet 1 and the ASUS wifi router is on subnet 2

Is there a way to put a firewall rule in the T3200 to block resources on subnet 1 other than internet?

Thanks

[zulu53]

If you just want a separate LAN (accessible by "guests" with wired or wifi) then all you need is to connect the ASUS as you did to its WAN port and make sure that is running its own DHCP server and to avoid confusing yourself set a different range of internal IP addresses for this LAN (e.g. 192.168.8.1-192.16.8.50).  Your ASUS will pick up its own IP address from the DHCP server in the T3200 (and this is the one you will use to get to the ASUS management screen).  Effectively all you are doing it running 2 separate LAN's within your space - one run from the Router part of the T3200 and one run from the ASUS router.  The T3200 still uses its modem part to provide connection to the WAN and its wifi to allow connection to its router part.  If you need incoming port connections to the WAN for the guest network then they will need to be configured on both routers.    If you had got the Telus fiber then you would not have needed getting the T3200 at all.  You would have asked for an ONT instead (converts glass to ethernet) and hooked it up with a >cat5e Ethernet cable directly to the WAN port on your ASUS.  But then you take on the responsibility for getting your LAN working - Telus are only providing the "pipe to the internet" - the WAN connection to your LAN.

[PL]

Thanks I have done that now, but what I wanted to is to block them accessing resources on the T3200 from the other router.

T3200 on subnet 1

ASUS router on subnet 2

Even though I can't see resources like the NAS on subnet 1 through network discovery from subnet 2 I can still get to them if I know the IP.

[zulu53]

Sorry, forgot to mention in my first comment that if you need/use the Phone (ethernet to VOIP) or Moca (ethernet to coax) adaptors also built into the T3200, then of course, if you eliminate the T3200 you will need to get other adaptors to do these wire conversions for you.