Connect two remote LANs into one network.

RouterOS General
1

Hi everyone,

I need one, easy accessible and fairly secure solution for connecting two remote locations (each router has its IP address from the same subnet)

each of them has its own LAN addressing,

I would like to have the following functionality:

LAN A - WAN: 192.168.1.132, LAN 10.16.5.1/24
LAN B - WAN: 192.168.1.170, LAN 10.16.9.1/24

each WAN connection is operated by MT v3.30.


I want to provide access to network printers and network shares from LAN A to B, and from B to A.

Which solution would suit most?

I thought about PPTP, but since it not secure enough, maybe some other solutions like VPN?

Any suggestions appreciated,

best regards,

Stoned.

2

how are these two networks being connencted? MPLS, Internet, Line of Sight WiFi, ???

3

WAN connection is propagated using optical fibre, and then converted to the 10/100mbit switch.
Those two IPs are connected to one router, which is not under my control. This router provides the Internet using NAT.

Stoned.

4

Okay, so is the wan link just going through a standard bridged network with no routing to get from LAN1 to LAN2?

If so then this will be very easy to achieve.

Since both Routerboards will be linked with IP addresses in the same range, it’s the same as taking two router boards and just runninng a direct cable between them.

I am not at my office/home where I have all my reference notes, but I think you would do this by creating routing tables on each router pointing at the opposite routers link port as the gateway, and using this router as the interface.

LAN A - WAN: 192.168.1.132, LAN 10.16.5.1/24
Dst: 10.16.9.0/24
Gateway: 192.168.1.170

LAN B - WAN: 192.168.1.170, LAN 10.16.9.1/24
Dst: 10.16.5.0/24
Gateway: 192.168.1.132

Give it a try… let me know how it works…

Karl

5

It works perfectly :wink:

Thanks a lot.

cheers,

Stoned.

6

As your solution works fine, I have additional question,
there one little issue I would like to have resolved, I can not access windows resources using normal names, e.g. I can not map a network drive using normal notation: \name\share
instead I have to use ip address notation,
what am I missing?

regards,

Stoned.

7

That is easy…

SMB, the standard used by Microsoft for network, is Layer 7, and thus does not transport through a router.

8

OK,
so for now it is enough :wink:

cheers.

9

NetBIOS on just client machines usually resolves names via broadcasts. Broadcasts don’t cross layer 3 boundaries (routers). You can work around this by either implementing WINS on both subnets and configuring clients to use them to resolves names, at which point name resolution is unicast to the WINS server and works fine. Or implement Active Directory, which uses DNS.

10

yeah… to much PT for me… you only need to install the printer or map the network drive once.

only if you are running software that needs to use the windows names, the I would recommended playing with WINS.