Home Networking - Questions

AsSiMiLaTeD

I've purchased a couple of TiVo boxes, and as a result need to redo my current home network. I need some help, here's what I've got:

I have 3 rooms that I'm trying to network.

In Room A I have the cable modem, a Linksys WRT54G wireless router, and 3 PCs hard-wired into that router. I have wireless PCs that roam the house.

I have an ethernet cable that runs from Room A to Room B, through the wall. In Room B that cable currently just goes to my Blu Ray player. With the addition of the TiVo box in there, I now need to split that connection, into what we'll call the Mystery Box.

Going into the Mystery Box I will have the cable coming from Room A. Coming out of the Mystery Box I'll have 3 cables: one going to the blu ray player, one going to the TiVo in Room B (where the box is also located), and a third cable that I'll be running through the wall into Room C, for the other TiVo.

So now for the obvious question: What does Mystery Box need to be? Can it be a switch, or does it need to be a router? The trick is I need for everything in the house to be able to communicate with each other, so the TiVo in Room C needs to be able to communicate with one of the PCs hard-wired into the router.

What hardware do I need to make this happen, and are there special network settings that I need to adjust?

Zeros

A simple hub or switch will work fine. Your router will give out IPs over DHCP. Just make sure that each device is set to get an IP over DHCP, which is likely the default setting anyways.

thsmith

multi port switch will work.

I have added a few 200mbs powerline devices (trendnet). One at the AP and one in each of my sons room with a 5 port switch to connect PC, BRP and DirectTV receiver. Works great.

bobman1235

Surprisingly, it's almost MORE expensive to find a switch than it is to just find a router sometimes, due to the fact that they're not nearly as common. You might have better luck, cost-wise, finding an old Wireless-B router on eBay, and just turning off DHCP on it so it acts as a switch. Since you won't be using the wireless portion anyway, you can get a B really cheap.

Jstas

http://www.google.com/products/catalog?hl=en&q=netgear+hub&cid=10153401302307641813&ei=qbDyS4iEPYm62ASs7fTfDQ&sa=title&ved=0CAcQ8wIwADgA#p

I used them all the time to basically extend ports at traveling events. I used to use them instead of cumbersome and annoying JetDirect print servers. IP addressable cards in the HP printers would let me put them in host tables. The hub was addressable as well. They just showed up as extra hosts.

That's probably the best option. You're going to have to set up the port on your router to extend it to the hub. That shouldn't be too difficult and I believe your WRT54G should do it. I haven't had to do it so I don't know what the process is for the WRT54G.

Zeros

Here you go, $13 after rebate and free shipping:

http://www.buy.com/prod/netgear-fs105-prosafe-5-port-10-100-desktop-switch-netgear-fs105/q/loc/101/10221960.html

If you need one with more ports and gigabit speeds, here is a 8 port switch for $35 after rebate + $3 shipping:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833156251&nm_mc=AFC-SlickDeals&cm_mmc=AFC-SlickDeals-_-NA-_-NA-_-NA&PID=404255&SID=139663&AID=10440897

AsSiMiLaTeD

What about something like this?

http://www.frys.com/product/5979044?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG

AsSiMiLaTeD

Jstas wrote: »

You're going to have to set up the port on your router to extend it to the hub. That shouldn't be too difficult and I believe your WRT54G should do it. I haven't had to do it so I don't know what the process is for the WRT54G.

That part worries me a little...can you expound a bit?

Zeros

Yes, that will work too. That one has more ports than the netgear I posted, so you have expandability. It does not have the gigabit speed of the Trendnet one I posted though. I'd say it is right in the middle of the two I posted in terms of features. It will get the job done fine for you though.

Zeros

AsSiMiLaTeD wrote: »

That part worries me a little...can you expound a bit?

You wont have to do anything honestly. You don't have to change any of the settings on the router. The switch will just act as an extension of the on board LAN ports of the router. A network cable runs out of any of the 4 (#1-4) ports on the router and goes in to any of the ports on the new switch.

thsmith

that will work if you need that many ports.

I have 2 of these $12

http://www.frys.com/product/5979024?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG

bobman1235

I have no idea what Jstas is referring to with setting up the WRT54G. I have a switch attached to one of the ports of my WRT54G and there was no special setup involved.

Zeros

bobman1235 wrote: »

I have no idea what Jstas is referring to with setting up the WRT54G. I have a switch attached to one of the ports of my WRT54G and there was no special setup involved.

Exactly, see my same post above.

AsSiMiLaTeD

I'm running DD-WRT on the Linksys, not sure if that changes anything...

I know the difference between a hub and a switch, and I know that on a switch all the computers can communicate with each other. My main concern is the ability of one of the computers on the switch to communicate with one of the devices hard-wired into the router, and if there's anything special I'd need to do on the router to get that to work.

thsmith

same here. powerline device connected to WAP, remote/slave powerline connect to each son's room. No configuration or settings required.

Zeros

AsSiMiLaTeD wrote: »

I'm running DD-WRT on the Linksys, not sure if that changes anything...

I know the difference between a hub and a switch, and I know that on a switch all the computers can communicate with each other. My main concern is the ability of one of the computers on the switch to communicate with one of the devices hard-wired into the router, and if there's anything special I'd need to do on the router to get that to work.

Nope, just plug them all in. DD-WRT doesn't matter, I run it as well.

AsSiMiLaTeD

thsmith wrote: »

that will work if you need that many ports.

I have 2 of these $12

http://www.frys.com/product/5979024?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG

Evern better, that didn't show up in my search, thanks for saving me ten bucks

ryanjoachim

AsSiMiLaTeD wrote: »

What about something like this?

http://www.frys.com/product/5979044?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG

That's not a bad choice.

Also try
http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=105&cp_id=10521&cs_id=1052101&p_id=1935&seq=1&format=3#specification

Jstas

bobman1235 wrote: »

I have no idea what Jstas is referring to with setting up the WRT54G. I have a switch attached to one of the ports of my WRT54G and there was no special setup involved.

11 years of network configuration experience. I haven't done anything with the WRT54G in regards to extending ports so I couldn't tell you if anything needed to be done.

I do know that if I was using an HP ProCurve or Cisco switch, I would have to configure that port on the switch to allow it to daisy chain another switch. I rarely ran routers in my remote suites and preferred instead to have the server run the domain info because it was much faster at it than any router I could travel with reasonably.

In order to do that, I would have to configure the switch to address the port and then set up that address in the hosts tables as a host. Allowing it to connect other devices on the extended port and run port security on any ports attached to addressed host.

If the WRT54G handles that automatically then no big deal. But that Netgear I posted is barebones, no fancy software at all. I have the most experience with that type of equipment so that is what I would use if needed.

AsSiMiLaTeD

Easy now, let's not get this one deleted before I get all the info I need out of it.

John is actually right. I don't have much experience with home networking obviously, but if I were setting up a Cisco switch I'd have to tell it if I was going to daisy-chain off one of the ports. I sold all my Cisco equipment a long time ago...I probably couln't even pass the CCNA test if I had to take it again today.

I didn't think this was necessary in a home environment, but wasn't sure. It sounds like I'm okay, so I'm gonna grab one of those little switches from Fry's and I should be good to go.

bobman1235

Jstas wrote: »

11 years of network configuration experience.

It wasn't an attack on your credentials, John, I literally didn't know what you were talking about. My networking experience is limited to that which I've done at home, which pretty much means common commercially available routers.

Serendipity

I'm not very experienced with this, but I think managed switches (like the type in a commercial office building) would need configuration...

A home switch, to a large extent, is just plug and play. It *should* auto-uplink, 10/100, etc. and not need anything else. Some switches do have an uplink button, though again that's not really the ones I've seen for home use.

Jstas

bobman1235 wrote: »

It wasn't an attack on your credentials, John, I literally didn't know what you were talking about. My networking experience is limited to that which I've done at home, which pretty much means common commercially available routers.

I didn't take it as a personal attack. Just relating my background as to why I was following my thinking pattern. Then again, apparently if I was like Lasareath and not a "tard", you would have known what I was trying to convey.

My home network is a complicated convolution of switches, routers and SCSI bridges for my own experimentation. There's a WRT54G in there but everything aside from my main desktop system that needs to access the Internet runs on the wireless signal the WRT54G provides so I haven't run in to the problem that AsSiMiLaTeD is trying to solve.

Serendipity

Just from personal experience -

I also have an HP LaserJet 2430dtn and 2300dtn at home (with the built-in JetDirect card on each or w/e you call it), and both printers auto configure themself across the network. They are connected to a cheapo Netgear switch (2) to a Netgear router, and both of the switches auto uplink and work fine with the 2 printers, HTPC, wireless access points, and router.

fatchowmein

I'd recommend bumping the unmanaged switch up to a 10/100/1000. I have both the 4 port and 8 port version of this switch.

http://www.frys.com/product/4818280

The 8 port is a bit pricey but I think the 4 port was $30 on sale the day I bought it IIRC.

Go with a gigabit because eventually you'll end up streaming a bunch of high def stuff. Sure, 10/100 works fine pushing one m2ts or mkv video in 1080P but I found I needed the higher headroom because multiple boxes were playing movies off the file server while somebody is surfing and/or watching Youtube or Hulu. At least that was the case with the large web I call my home network.

Even if you're not ready to upgrade to gigabit and most of your equipment runs 10/100, might as well start now and slowly upgrade the other switches and routers as time and money permits. I have both 10/100 and gigabit devices running but it's nice to have a big internal highway to handle it all even though the WWW superhighway is rather slow.

Just food for thought.

billbillw

Assimilated,
One thing I can tell you is that the Tivos are a bit picky when it comes to networking. I think for them to see each other, they both need to be hooked to the same sub-network (I think that was the term I found). I had problems when I tried to use a switch along with my router and ended up having to take out the switch. They could both see the network and get updates, but they couldn't see each other. Someone with more networking experience probably could have sorted it out, but I just get by with the basics with regards to networking.

AsSiMiLaTeD

Well I guess I'll know tonight, gonna grab what I think I need on the way home.