Chris G wrote:
Up until now I have avoided using Wireless LANs as far as possible, I find wired ethernet much easier to understand and get my head around.
We have occasionally turned on the Wireless on the router to allow my wife's laptop to connect when she's out in the garden but have always turned it off again after use.
I now want/need to do something a bit more difficult and really don't quite know how wireless will handle it (or even if it can). I'll try and explain what I want to do.
I have two phone lines each with ADSL from two different ISPs. Currently it's all hard wired with a Draytek Vigor 2820n on one and a BT Business Hub (2Wire) on the other. The 2820n provides simple load balancing sharing requests between its ADSL and the BT/2Wire ADSL which is connected to the second WAN port on the 2820n.
What I want to do is do load balancing/sharing in a Linux 'server' box rather than using the 2820n as the 2820n's load balancing is a bit limited and I think that (maybe) I can do better using something like Zeroshell or Smoothwall in a dedicated Linux box.
I'm aiming to try using an Acer Aspire Revo as the 'server' box but it only has one wired ethernet NIC (as do nearly all reasonably priced low power boxes) so I'll need to use its wireless LAN too. I'd like to use its hardwired Gigabit interface to connect to my existing LAN with our desktop machines, NAS etc.
So, I want to use the wireless LAN on the Acer Aspire Revo to talk to both the routers, is this possible? I.e. will they all talk together in the same way as they would if plugged into a switch? Or would I be better off getting the Revo to talk to one of the routers using wireless and then use the switch in that router to get the other router onto the same subnet?
Any all advice welcome (if anyone has waded through this so far!).
Hi Chris,
Instead of using wireless, why don't you get yourself a cheap managed switch (eg DELL Powerconnect 2716) and configure VLAN's. Have the two ADSL modems each on their own VLAN (connected to untagged ports), and have the linux server NIC connected to a tagged port.
I use this setup at home (is having VLAN's at home a sign of the true geek?). Although I only have one ADSL modem. I have my wifi access point in one VLAN, VOIP phones in another, Myth tv stuff in another, etc etc.
HTH
Chris