Help needed with Draytek 2600

Can anyone who understands the workings of the Draytek 2600 give some help
to someone who has almost zero knowledge of setting it up, particularly the
TCP/IP part, so I can get it to talk to another router? TIA


Peter Crosland




Peter Crosland

On Fri, 7 Jan 2005 14:02:21 -0000, "Peter Crosland" <(E-Mail Removed)>
wrote:

>Can anyone who understands the workings of the Draytek 2600 give some help
>to someone who has almost zero knowledge of setting it up, particularly the
>TCP/IP part, so I can get it to talk to another router? TIA

Have you tried the Draytek support forums ? Lots of helpful advice there:
http://www.forum.draytek.co.uk/

There are also useful setup guides and FAQs at:
http://www.draytek.co.uk/support/

Your question is not terribly clear as it stands. Do you mean another
router on the same LAN, or one elsewhere on the Internet (using VPN for
example) ?

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Thanks for the reply John and apologies for not being clear. I will ask in
the Draytek forum. What I tried to say was that I have a Draytek 2600 and
into one of the LAN ports I have plugged an ASUS WL-500g so I can us it for
the USB camera port and indeed other machines in the future. I need the
Draytek to allow PCs attached to the Draytek to get an IP address from it
and also for data to pass to and fro the Draytek's ADSL link

Peter Crosland

On Fri, 7 Jan 2005 16:47:46 -0000, "Peter Crosland" <(E-Mail Removed)>
wrote:

>Thanks for the reply John and apologies for not being clear. I will ask in
>the Draytek forum. What I tried to say was that I have a Draytek 2600 and
>into one of the LAN ports I have plugged an ASUS WL-500g so I can us it for
>the USB camera port and indeed other machines in the future. I need the
>Draytek to allow PCs attached to the Draytek to get an IP address from it
>and also for data to pass to and fro the Draytek's ADSL link

The Asus looks like a wireless gateway. There should be no problems having
that assign addresses to other wireless devices using DHCP as well as the
Vigor, you would of course want to tell each to use a "pool" of dynamic
addresses which did not conflict. Being able to specify a range of
addresses is standard with DHCP servers anyway. I've not used a wireless
gateway myself, but the sort of thing you might want to check is whether it
actually appears as a true router or more of a bridge-cum-gateway. What I
mean by this is that hosts send packets to other hosts either directly
(because they are connected together on the same LAN, physically or via
bridges/repeaters which to all intents and purposes are not there), or they
send a subtly different packet to a router and ask it to forward the packet
on to the true destination. In real life of course, many routers may
actually be involved but you only need to know how to find the nearest one.
If the wireless box is more of a router, then you may wish to put it (and
all the machines connecting to it) into a separate subnet. Two true routers
and attached hosts on the same subnet is usually not a good thing. My
memory of whether routers discover one another automatically or have to be
programmed with this knowledge is hazy.

You will need to tell the wireless box where the gateway to the outside
world is. This will be the IP address of your Vigor, of course. It should
relay this to all its clients when they receive their dynamic IP address.
Likewise any known DNS servers.

Another possible hiccup is that there is a fair chance both boxes will have
the same factory setting for their "local" address. It's usually
192.168.1.1 and you'll need to change one before you connect the other to
start the process of managing it. The Vigor uses an http interface which is
quite simple until you need some help ;-) (The manuals can be found, but
they lag behind the software usually.)

I suspect the good folks on the support forums will be able to better
advise. But what you are doing is quite common and should present no
insurmountable problems. I honestly find that locating and resolving any
problems helps to broaden my understanding of networking, which is no bad
thing.

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Mail john rather than nospam...

Thanks for that John. I take your point about broadening one's understanding
of networking but having now spent some 13 hours over two days and got
absolutely nowhere I am now only interested in getting it to work.
Underatnding why has become of secondary interest! One thing I find very
difficult to understand is the occasions when the two boxes use the same
address and when they go their own way. Likewise it is sometimes difficult
to determine in which context the word WAN is used. The ASUS asks me to set
the WAN IP setting but does this mean the address by which it is known to
the Draytek or vice versa? Neither the Drayek or ASUS documentaion seem to
cater for those, like me, that really don't understand the complexities of
TCP/IP and to be candid don't want to! At least not after the time already
spent.

On Fri, 7 Jan 2005 17:59:40 -0000, "Peter Crosland" <(E-Mail Removed)>
wrote:

>Thanks for that John. I take your point about broadening one's understanding
>of networking but having now spent some 13 hours over two days and got
>absolutely nowhere I am now only interested in getting it to work.
>Underatnding why has become of secondary interest! One thing I find very
>difficult to understand is the occasions when the two boxes use the same
>address and when they go their own way. Likewise it is sometimes difficult
>to determine in which context the word WAN is used. The ASUS asks me to set
>the WAN IP setting but does this mean the address by which it is known to
>the Draytek or vice versa? Neither the Drayek or ASUS documentaion seem to
>cater for those, like me, that really don't understand the complexities of
>TCP/IP and to be candid don't want to! At least not after the time already
>spent.

I downloaded what looked like the right manual for this router and
discovered that by default it acts in "Access Point" mode, at least
according to something near the back of the manual (nearer the front it
suggest a different default mode of Home Gateway !) I would suggest you
stick with Access Point, as this is the mode most likely to work in a simple
fashion along with another router and other machines in the same network.
As far as I could see, the only setup you then need to make to the Asus
itself is its own IP address. This can even be dynamic, so you can let the
Vigor assign all addresses. I assume the Asus will then make further
requests for dynamic addresses for its own wireless clients as appropriate.
If not, then give it a static IP address and configure both the Vigor and
the Asus to do DHCP but with addresses that don't overlap or conflict with
the two static ones.

Having two genuine routers will truly involve some deeper knowledge of
networking. You would almost certainly need two separate logical networks,
static routes from one to the other, and there might still be problems
having all this hidden from the Internet through NAT on the Vigor.

If you run into trouble, I'd recommend perhaps getting the Asus working
successfully as an Access Point using whatever resources on that you can
find. It will then present a whole range of IP addresses down the one link
to the Vigor, but that is perfectly ok, and you will not need to change
anything on the Vigor at all. It will not know, nor need to know, that the
Asus is acting as a second switch (an intelligent repeater).

--
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Mail john rather than nospam...

Thanks for that John. I had spotted the anomaly about the default mode and
it confused me even more! As far as I can see the ASUS and the Draytek
default to an address of 192.168.1.1 and obviously they have to be
different. Since the Draytek is working I shall leave that as it is as far
as possible. I can talk to the ASUS from my laptop so I assume now it is
really a question of setting the default to 192.168.1.100 for example. I am
quite happy to have fixed addresses on the cameras attached to the ASUS as
they will not change very often.

Time for some sleep now I feel.

Peter Crosland

Well I finally cracked it John. After a good nights sleep and having
completed The Times crossword I was ready for anything! Setting the mode to
Home Gateway followed by systematically changing the IP settings at least
has made it work so I can access the internet through it. Having saved those
settings I can now do some tweaking. Your encouragement much appreciated.
Thank you!

Peter Crosland

On Fri, 7 Jan 2005 22:32:46 -0000, "Peter Crosland" <(E-Mail Removed)>
wrote:

>Thanks for that John. I had spotted the anomaly about the default mode and
>it confused me even more! As far as I can see the ASUS and the Draytek
>default to an address of 192.168.1.1 and obviously they have to be
>different. Since the Draytek is working I shall leave that as it is as far
>as possible. I can talk to the ASUS from my laptop so I assume now it is
>really a question of setting the default to 192.168.1.100 for example. I am
>quite happy to have fixed addresses on the cameras attached to the ASUS as
>they will not change very often.

I use fixed addresses on my home network. Of course I often forget what
they are and when randomly choosing one for testing a new machine, all sorts
of problems can and do occur... But on the whole, it's probably easier.
You can still have DHCP enabled on either box just in case.

Further reading of that manual didn't really clarify anything (usual pidgin
English), but I do suggest you stick to setting up your wireless box as an
access point. It's still worth seeking out the Draytek forums for some
sample firewall filter settings, however. I seem to recall that firewalling
is off, by default ;-) You can start by blocking all incoming and allowing
all outgoing (with keep-state) however, and work quite securely from there.

--
Secrecy at my job prevents me from knowing what I do.

Mail john rather than nospam...