Connect two local networks

Question

I'm trying to connect two local networks together.

Network 1 (192.168.1.1) is connected to 10GBe Internet via router with dhcp. I've added switch Netgear XS708T for more 10G ports (Clients 1 and 2).

Via this switch I've connected a wifi router with DHCP (network 2).

Network 2 (192.168.2.1) is for wifi devices only (Client A, B etc.)

Question 1: Is it possible / How to configure XS708T to connect both networks so Client 1 or Client 2 would see Client A or any client from network 2?

Question 2: Do I need any other device to make it happen?

Thanks Tom from Serwer.io

Answer 1

First, you should disable NAT on you Wifi Access Point. I am not sure if this is possible with NetGear's stock firmware.

Second: clients 1 and 2 don't know the route to the 192.168.2.0/24 network, so they send everything to their default gateway (192.168.1.1). If you add a static route to 192.168.2.0/24 on the modem, everything should work.

Remark: Clients A and B don't know the route to 192.168.1.0/24 either, but their default gateway (the WiFi AP) does.

Answer 2

I'm pretty sure that the reason users inside Network 2 can see the Network 1, but not the other way around is because most SMB routers implement something called NAT (Network Address Translation). Long story made short: NAT is a technology that translates internal addresses - something like 192.168.0.0/24 - to Internet valid ones, like 187.200.145.24/32, and vice-versa, and was a response to the Internet address shortage. One of its aspects is that it also acts like a firewall, so computers from the Network 1 cannot access directly the ones inside Network 2.

So you have two options to solve your problem:

• Buy a piece of equipment that supports routing without NAT, like a MikroTik router or;
• Instead of connecting the two networks using a router and the WAN port, why don't you create a single network, like 192.168.0.0/24, connecting a XS708T port to one of the wireless access point LAN ports, and disable DHCP in it?

Hope that helps.