Looking for a professional router

[latrosicarius]

Thank you for your advice everyone.

utterly unconnected. you really need to understand more before you make sweeping statements.

I made a mistake when I said this. The route add problem has been resolved, but I believe that was only a symptom of the underlying problem, since even though I had the "-p" in the wrong place, it would still remember the last configuration.

I think my router is timing out and Win2003 cannot see it, so it reverts to the other router. Doing a release/renew wakes it back up for a few hours, then it times out again. And as a result, it screws up DNS resolution and all internet connectivity is lost for the entire LAN except for web pages that browsers already resolved, or applications that remember specific IPs.

[adam1701]

sounds to me like you're just pissed off with cheaper routers (BT voyagers lol) and want a decent router, but are going for a bit of an overkill wanting a "professional" router.

[b0redom]

You still haven't clarified what you're doing. I don't understand what you mean by:

"router is timing out and Win2003 cannot see it, so it reverts to the other router"

You have 2 routers? Is this a home network? Unless you're managing redundant routing, you should really only ever have one route per network segment. This may be the source of your problems. Can you post your routing table? netstat -rn

If your pcs are unable to see a network via their static routing, they shouldn't be randomly trying other routes.

Can you explain what you're actually trying to do? To me it sounds like you're trying to attach 2 routers to one ADSL phone line - this will not work.

[b0redom]

Oh, and as a separate aside. It is almost certainly simpler to have everything to route to your DSL router, and set up the static routing on there. That way you don't need to worry about return paths etc.

[latrosicarius]

sounds to me like you're just pissed off with cheaper routers (BT voyagers lol) and want a decent router, but are going for a bit of an overkill wanting a "professional" router.

Yes. By "professional" I just mean not "consumer-grade" crap.

I just want more reliability (i.e. better processor / bus / ram / etc under the hood), and a well-designed web interface oriented for someone who will actually go in and use it, unlike most people who don't even know what port forwarding is.

[latrosicarius]

You still haven't clarified what you're doing. I don't understand what you mean by:

"router is timing out and Win2003 cannot see it, so it reverts to the other router"

You have 2 routers? Is this a home network? Unless you're managing redundant routing, you should really only ever have one route per network segment. This may be the source of your problems. Can you post your routing table? netstat -rn

If your pcs are unable to see a network via their static routing, they shouldn't be randomly trying other routes.

Can you explain what you're actually trying to do? To me it sounds like you're trying to attach 2 routers to one ADSL phone line - this will not work.

b0redom, I will try to explain:

• All my PCs connect to a 24-port gigabit switch.
• There are 2 routers connected to the switch as well (10.0.1.1 and 10.0.1.2).
• Each router is connected to its own modem.
• One modem is a cable internet 15/5mbps, the other is fiber optic 20/20mbps
• Both routers have DHCP turned off. DHCP is done by the server PC (Win2003).
• Through DHCP, I set 10.0.1.2 as the DEFAULT router for all PCs.
• Then I add a "route add" for the server to use 10.0.1.1 instead.

That means all PCs are using 10.0.1.2 except the server. I tried adding a static route in the DHCP role management thingy, but it did not work. That's why I use route add.

This has been working for me for a long time without any problems, but recently, 10.0.1.1 has been stalling (I think). I have to do ipconfig /release/renew and then it is better for a few hours. Then it stalls again. When it stalls I lose all internet connectivity except direct connections to an IP. If I am currently browsing a website, it will continue to work because the IP for that domain has already been resolved. But all other websites will not work until I do ipconfig /release/renew.

[peterb]

b0redom, I will try to explain:[LIST][*]There If I am currently browsing a website, it will continue to work because the IP for that domain has already been resolved. But all other websites will not work until I do ipconfig /release/renew.

Sounds like a DNS resolution problem rather than a routing one. Are you running your own DNS server? If not, are you relaying DNS from your ISP?

[latrosicarius]

Sounds like a DNS resolution problem rather than a routing one. Are you running your own DNS server? If not, are you relaying DNS from your ISP?

I have the DNS server role turned on, if that's what you mean

[peterb]

I have the DNS server role turned on, if that's what you mean

No, thats not quite what I mean.

Are you specifically running your own local DNS server for the users on your LAN, so they do their DNS lookup from that server. It may be operated as a caching server so that it speeds up enquiries for entries that have been cached. That would explain why your users can access some sites for a few hours, until the cache expires.

You may also configure at as a public DNS server - not really required and adds to your bandwidth load and adds a few security problems. However you still need to resolve DNS, so most demestic/SOHO/SME routers (usually router modems) relay DNS information from the service provider - hence the name - DNS relay. You could test the DNS effectiveness by setting one of the PCs that can only connect using an IP address by configuring it to use something like the Open DNS servers - if it then connects, your problem is a DNS problem, not a routing routing.

I'm not quite sure why you don't just set the default gateway on the server to its own router - in the same away that the PCs have their default gateway set to the other router. Is the fibre connection going to another ISP (as you have implied) or abunch of PCs that need to access it in its server role? Do thos PCs access the internet via the other modem, or do they have their ownn Internet access?

[latrosicarius]

No, thats not quite what I mean.

Are you specifically running your own local DNS server for the users on your LAN, so they do their DNS lookup from that server. It may be operated as a caching server so that it speeds up enquiries for entries that have been cached. That would explain why your users can access some sites for a few hours, until the cache expires.

You may also configure at as a public DNS server - not really required and adds to your bandwidth load and adds a few security problems. However you still need to resolve DNS, so most demestic/SOHO/SME routers (usually router modems) relay DNS information from the service provider - hence the name - DNS relay. You could test the DNS effectiveness by setting one of the PCs that can only connect using an IP address by configuring it to use something like the Open DNS servers - if it then connects, your problem is a DNS problem, not a routing routing.

I don't know, I was just told to set up the DNS role before setting up the DHCP role

I'm not quite sure why you don't just set the default gateway on the server to its own router - in the same away that the PCs have their default gateway set to the other router.

None of the computers are set on the client side to use either router. I set up in DHCP that 10.0.1.2 is the default gateway. They all use that naturally. Then I tried setting the one server to use 10.0.1.1 as the default gateway (both in DHCP management and in IPv4/IPv6 properties) but it didn't work so I used route add instead. That worked.

Is the fibre connection going to another ISP (as you have implied) or abunch of PCs that need to access it in its server role? Do thos PCs access the internet via the other modem, or do they have their ownn Internet access?

The fiber connection is Verizon and only the server is supposed to use it. The cable modem is Optimum Online and all the computers use it, except for the server.

[peterb]

If you do an ipconfig on one of the client machines, what does it show for the DNS address and default gateway?

[latrosicarius]

If you do an ipconfig on one of the client machines, what does it show for the DNS address and default gateway?

It shows:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix: homenet.local (this is my network name)
IPv4 Address: 10.0.1.111
Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway: 10.0.1.2

[peterb]

And what are the DNS settings on the deafult gateway (the router at 10.0.1.2)

[latrosicarius]

And what are the DNS settings on the deafult gateway (the router at 10.0.1.2)

as far as i can tell, the only DNS setting in the router is called:

"enable DNS relay"

and it is checked ON

[peterb]

That all sounds OK, so the router should also be indicating the IP address of a DNS server which is probably your ISPs - and handed down to the router as part of the handshake process. You could try changing that to an open DNS server for testing.

If that works, the ptroblem lies with the DNS server IP address your router is picking up - if it doesn't fix the problem, while it hasn't eliminated DNS, means that the problem lies elsewhere.

[latrosicarius]

thanks, well i bought a new router and i also uninstalled the win2003 server's DNS and DHCP roles, and i'm using the router's DHCP instead.

No problem so far, but i still need some help using both routers, in this new thread. Thanks