Converting A Router To A Switch
The five steps are:
- [Optional] Put a piece of electric tape over the WAN port so it doesn't get used.
- Disable the DHCP server.
- Change the downstream router's LAN IP.
- [Optional] Turn off the wireless radio on the downstream router.
- Connect an Ethernet cable from a LAN port on the upstream router to a LAN port on the downstream router.
Step 1: Putting a piece of electric tape over the WAN port
isn't necessary. But it is a good way to prevent future problems caused
by someone plugging a device into that port.
Step 2: Log into the downstream router, look for the DHCP
configuration section, and disable the DHCP server. For example, on a
Dlink DI-614+, DHCP server configuration is a menu in the
Home configuration section.
Step 3: Change the downstream router's LAN IP to an unused IP
in the same subnet as the upstream router. Log into the upstream router
and find the DHCP server controls. Figure 3 shows a typical set of DHCP
server controls. You can see that
192.168.3.200 - 250 is the range of addresses that will be issued by this router's DHCP server.
You can use any IP address
outside (above or below) this
range, except for 0 and 255, which are reserved. You also can't use the
IP address used by the upstream router. This is usually 1, which in this
case is
192.168.3.1. But if you log into your upstream router's
admin screens using an IP address with anything other than 1 as the last
octet, i.e.
XXX.XXX.XXX.1, then just don't use that address.
Thus, a safe LAN IP address for the downstream router that isn't used
by the upstream router is an address from 192.168.3.2 to 192.168.3.199.
So I assigned my downstream router a LAN IP of
192.168.3.3 (Figure 4).
Step 4: [Wireless routers only] Disable the downstream
router's wireless function. It doesn't hurt to unscrew the antennas
from the downstream router as well if they are detachable. This gets
them out of the way since you aren't using them anymore. Figure 5 shows
the wireless disabled for a D-Link DGL-4300.
Step 5: Connect the downstream router. Run an Ethernet cable from a
LAN port on the upstream router to a
LAN port on the downstream router. The LAN ports are the ports that often grouped together and not labeled as WAN or Internet.
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