Using own router with Sky ADSL

esuhl

DavidP24 wrote: »

It is always easier if you explain WHAT you are trying to achieve?

Basically, the Sky router is a piece of merde:

It was the only device capable of DHCP on the network, yet the occasional IP collision occurred. :-/

I added a wireless access point, gave it a fixed IP (in both the AP and router setting), and everything worked fine for a bit. Then a wired device dropped off the network. Ipconfig showed that DHCP had set the DNS of the device to the IP reserved for the access point?! Rebooting the router and PC fixed this, but the issue comes back.

My friend wants "the best" setup. It's a large network (for a home) with lots of devices, long cable runs, multiple switches, access points, media servers, CCTV hubs, etc. and he just wants it to work reliably. I don't think there's any need to have multiple subnets on the LAN side.

He phoned Sky and asked if he could use his own router. They said, "Yes. Just call us when you have it and we'll tell you which ports to forward so that it works on the Sky network."

He spent £265(!!!) on a new router, called Sky to get the port forwarding details, and they told him that it is not possible to use third-party routers because they aren't allowed to tell him the login details required "due to the Data Protection Act" :rotfl::mad::mad::mad: (No mention of port forwarding this time!)

The Sky router does seem to reliably hold an internet connection, so I wanted to get everything on the LAN-side using the new router, with the Sky router just providing internet access to the LAN.

Once that's working, I was possibly going to look at getting the internet set up on the new router so the Sky one can be ditched completely. But I'm having problems with that too. It's different to the original question on this thread, so I've started a new one here if anyone can help:

Using Wireshark to sniff Sky router login details

kwikbreaks

esuhl wrote: »

They said, "Yes. Just call us when you have it and we'll tell you which ports to forward so that it works on the Sky network."

I wonder how the rep came up with that total BS.

I suppose it is just possible that the supplied router has some sort of backdoor so they can modify the firmware and that is why they insist on the use of their kit. As I said earlier there is no way I would ever use an ISP that insisted on use of their equipment. That does exclude VM as I can see why they only allow their own modfems on the network and you can at least put their rubbish hub into modem mode and use your own router with their blessing.

esuhl

DavidP24 wrote: »

I doubt it was the Sky box, first of all what was the first device that had a duplicate IP? A camera or perhaps a printer?

I'm not sure. It could have been a PC, iPhone/iPad, or a HEOS media streaming device. :-/

DavidP24 wrote: »

Many of those cameras have their own DHCP and wireless printers in sleep mode are renowned for waking up and using an IP they had a month ago.

But why would the Sky router intermittently think that the wireless access point is a DNS server, and provide those details over DHCP?! I can't see what else could be at fault other than the router (or possibly the access point).

DavidP24 wrote: »

If you are going to have more than one network device then move the router to 254 and the wireless access point to 253, leave your DHCP range from 10 - 50.

Why set it up that way? Does it matter which particular ranges I use for static and dynamic IP addresses?

marty2be2000

I wonder if there is accidentally more than one single DHCP server on the LAN issuing conflicting IP addresses in the same range, that would make more sense and is perhaps why you had two devices with the same IP.

The reason it makes sense is because after rebooting the device with the duplicate IP, it may have upon restart got the the correct IP from the other DHCP server and worked as expected.

If this happens again and you can get to the network settings, have a look at the DHCP server address and see what it says. On a windows PC you can see that from an admin command prompt and the command: ipconfig /all

I am guessing both the AP and Sky router are acting as DHCP servers and one needs to have its DHCP server disabled.

kwikbreaks

The forum admin on this site seem to be getting worse. I see they've closed the thread specifically about extracting the login details. Why? Who knows - maybe they thought it was in some way dishonest.

In the past I've had posts deleted where I recommended using CEO offices for complaints and pointed to a site that gives CEO emails. They even used the profanity censor to remove that site url if entered. I have personally found that both VMs and BTs CEO office is the best or indeed only way to get technical complaints dealt with because their first line TS staff are pretty clueless and reluctant to involve the next tier up.

You really have to wonder if this site supports consumers or not.

esuhl

DavidP24 wrote: »

That is the point, I can't see how the Sky router could do that by itself,

Nope -- me neither! It's crazy. But that's what seems to be happening.

DavidP24 wrote: »

I would break these things down, remove all devices and add one back at a time, starting with just the Sky router and the wireless access point,

Yeah... Unfortunately it's not easy to do that. There are several switches and long cable runs, and everything is screwed in place.

DavidP24 wrote: »

There is no technical reason to set up IP's that way, it is a human thing which just makes mistakes less likely, all the corporate networks I have worked on are configured that way, even when I worked for a manufacturer they did it that way, I guess it is old school.

A lot of the work I did was with secure VPN's within huge networks, they did it too, just reserved all the network infrastructure for the top end of the range. Made for less conflicts as they counted down from top and up from bottom.

There is no right or wrong really, just makes things easy to remember and less chance of a conflict.

I use a totally different system with 192.168.1.1 for the router, and ~.2 to ~.99 for other static devices, then 192.168.1.100 to ~.250 for DHCP.

I didn't realise there was a universal numbering system. Everywhere I've worked it's all been fairly arbitrary . But if there's no technical reason to standardise the IP allocations, I'll just leave them as they are. It's easier for me to remember.

marty2be2000 wrote: »

I am guessing both the AP and Sky router are acting as DHCP servers and one needs to have its DHCP server disabled.

Oh, crumbs! How embarrassing! I was 100% sure I'd checked that. Just had another look and... yeah... there's a DHCP server running on that AP. Whoops!

I really must remember to double-check the simple stuff first!