Home Network Help [2 Routers, 1 Modem, 2 Net Connections]

[Zack.]

Hello XS!

I need some help, my mate and I are both pretty good with PC's and your general networking however with my latest project we are both pretty stumped. I'll take a minute to explain to you my setup:

Bigpond Cable Connection -> Cable Modem -> Asus RT-N16 Router
TPG ADSL2+ Unlimited Connection -> Dynalink ADSL2+ Modem/Router

So I now have two routers in my network, with the MAIN connection and MAIN router being the Asus RT-N16 and the cable connection being the main connection to the house. The RT-N16 is also in control of all DHCP requests.

So at the moment everything is working fine, my computer is connected to the RT-N16 and is using that net connection. There is no conflict between the routers which is good.

However what I want to setup is I want certain programs (uTorrent and JDownloader to be specific) to only connect to the internet using the TPG Router which has the unlimited downloads. That way I can download as much as I want without giving a sheit and also upload back into the community, with Bigpond you want to steer clear of uploading.

How do I do this? Is it software based? I don't think I need another NIC.

A few notes:
- I can't connect either router directly to my PC. Our whole home is networked.
- My PC only has 1 NIC (Asus P6X58D-E).

Cheers for any help

[yngndrw]

You can use net.bind_ip AND net.outgoing_ip in uTorrent to bind it to a specific IP. Make sure that IP is on a the subnet that the TPG router is using.

I believe that should work.

[madman2233]

may be able to setup an alternative ip address with a different gateway in windows and hope that the programs you use are smart enough to be able to choose between the two ip addresses.

You could setup a second nic that goes to a virtual machine and do all your downloading from there.

[Chickenfeed]

You could setup a second nic that goes to a virtual machine and do all your downloading from there.

This is honestly the easiest guarentee when using a single machine running windows.

Assuming the programs you are using support native NIC binding this isn't necessary but given many don't it becomes more difficult. I did something similar with steam and firefox for a short time. I had one isp ( cable ) on 1 nic ( the system default ) and I had a second isp ( adsl ) on a 2nd nic. I wanted my gaming traffic to use the lower latency cable connection with its low bandwith cap ( fail canadian isps ) and for firefox (netflix) and steam ( the bandwidth hogs ) to use the adsl.

I used this ipbinder program (just mentioning it here for discussions sake, its not that elegant in use; uses dll injection so i had to whitelist it on my AV software and firewall so their heuristics didn't freak out) and had some success but given these apps that don't allow NIC binding natively, it was my only choice (that I'm aware of with my limited but expanding networking knowledge) short of linux or a virtual machine. I don't game all that much online anymore so I'm down to just using a single connection while everyone else uses the cable.

[Zack.]

You can use net.bind_ip AND net.outgoing_ip in uTorrent to bind it to a specific IP. Make sure that IP is on a the subnet that the TPG router is using.

I believe that should work.

Yeah that sounds like it will work but the TPG router and the other router are both on the same subnet. If I put it on a different subnet would that affect the potential for other programs to be routed to that connection?

may be able to setup an alternative ip address with a different gateway in windows and hope that the programs you use are smart enough to be able to choose between the two ip addresses.

You could setup a second nic that goes to a virtual machine and do all your downloading from there.

That sounds like the best option. Would I then just manually configure the settings for the VM NIC and make the gateway the TPG router? Thus forcing it to use that connection and then all internet traffic from the VM go through the TPG router? Correct?

PS. Remember my mobo only has 1 NIC and theres no room on it for another, trust me. lol.

This is honestly the easiest guarentee when using a single machine running windows.

Assuming the programs you are using support native NIC binding this isn't necessary but given many don't it becomes more difficult. I did something similar with steam and firefox for a short time. I had one isp ( cable ) on 1 nic ( the system default ) and I had a second isp ( adsl ) on a 2nd nic. I wanted my gaming traffic to use the lower latency cable connection with its low bandwith cap ( fail canadian isps ) and for firefox (netflix) and steam ( the bandwidth hogs ) to use the adsl.

I used this ipbinder program (just mentioning it here for discussions sake, its not that elegant in use; uses dll injection so i had to whitelist it on my AV software and firewall so their heuristics didn't freak out) and had some success but given these apps that don't allow NIC binding natively, it was my only choice (that I'm aware of with my limited but expanding networking knowledge) short of linux or a virtual machine. I don't game all that much online anymore so I'm down to just using a single connection while everyone else uses the cable.

Hmmm yeah, would my method as described above, work fine?

[Zack.]

IT WORKS! Great. I guess VM is the answer.

[yngndrw]

Yeah that sounds like it will work but the TPG router and the other router are both on the same subnet. If I put it on a different subnet would that affect the potential for other programs to be routed to that connection?

A NIC can have more than one IP address and gateway (Actually you'd set it up as one default gateway and a static route for the other), so they would both be able to be used. The VM suggestion is a bit nicer though.

[Apokalipse]

If you want specific servers to be directed through one internet connection, you can setup a static route on your main router

Let's say router 1 (main router) has local IP 192.168.0.1, subnet mask 255.255.255.0
router 2 (second internet connection) has local IP 192.168.0.2, subnet mask 255.255.255.0

If you want all connections to server XYZ with IP xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx to go through your second internet connection

log in to router 1 (192.168.0.1) and setup a static route as follows:
IP: xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
subnet mask: 255.255.255.255
gateway: 192.168.0.2
Interface: LAN

This way, you can keep your PC's default gateway as 192.168.0.1
And whenever your PC wants to connect to xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx, it will still send packets through 192.168.0.1 (it sends all packets outside the local subnet to the default gateway).
However, 192.168.0.1 is now sending packets addressed to xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx through 192.168.0.2 instead of through its WAN port

Routing packets via the WAN port is just the default behavior for packets addressed outside the local subnet.
Adding entries to a static routing table bypasses that default behavior.

On a semi-related note, if your modem is in the same subnet as your router, you won't be able to log into your modem's config page. That's because packets addressed within the local subnet are sent through the LAN ports (default behavior), and your modem is connected to the WAN port.
Your modem should be in a different subnet to your router.