How to config Router-2 connected to Router-1?

[Mel_3]

We want to connect an off the shelf router (Router-1) to our cable modem

Then...

- Connect a switch to Router-1 client Port-1
- Connect one set of computers to the switch (student computers)
- Connect Router-2 WAN connector to client Port-2 on Router-1
- Connect a 2nd set of computers to the client ports on Router-2
(These will be employee computers and a peer computer acting as a File Server on a peer to peer network)

Most likely we will use simple Linksys routers from Circuit City or elsewhere

1 - Do we assign a 'fixed ip' address to Port-2 on Router-1
2 - Then setup Router-2 to use that 'fixed ip' address as it's default gateway?
3 - If not will Router-1 assign a DHP ip address to Router-2?
4 - Will Router-1 (if set to do dhp) assign IP addresses to each computer on the switch?
5 - And to each computer on the back side of Router-2?

- We are using Windows XP on all computers.
- Our network is a small peer-to-peer network
- One computer on the emplopee side of Router-2 will be designated a file server even though it will not be running server software... just another peer to peer computer.

One day we may pay the cost of buying and setting up a Windows Sever... but not now.

Thanks for any help with this.

Mel_3

[Suspishio]

The concept works provided you recognise that you are turning the second router into a switch.

Your thinking is basically good. The following should thus work:

1/
Disable DHCP on the second router

2/
Change the IP address on the second router
so that is on the same network (e.g. 192.168.1.x) but assign an IP address that is outside the range of the starting address of the DHCP
server. 192.168.1.101 should be fine on Linksys

3/
Change the range of IP addresses that the second router can assign to be different from the first.

Let us know.