New Owner – Adding Second Router Help

[J1970M2]

Hello,
Just took delivery of a new pcWRT router and I love it so far. However, I have an issue. I bought the router to add to my existing network and to be a second WiFi router that runs OpenVPN all the time (Pia). I was able to add Pia to the router and devices that connect to the VPN router do have the VPN address. Problem is the devices can’t see other devices on the old router. So I can’t share files, etc. I think it’s because of my setup. Here is what I have:

Old router : 192.168.1.1 (dhcp)
pcWRT router: 192.168.2.1 (dhcp)

I think the problem is the pcWRT is on 192.168.2.1 and so can’t see devices on the old router on 192.168.1.x. How do I set the pcWRT to be able to see devices on 192.168.1.x ? And would I need to turn off DHCP on pcWRT?

Finally, if I set the pcWRT VPN to “always” does it auto-reconnect on reboot, etc?

Thanks!

[support]

So Pia is running on the pcWRT router? And the pcWRT WAN is connected to a LAN port on your existing router?

[J1970M2]

Hello,
Yes, pcWRT port 1 -> LAN port on existing router. Pia running on pcWRT. My PC connected to pcWRT can’t browse to file share folder on PC on existing router.
Thanks!

• This reply was modified 6 months ago by J1970M2.

[support]

Please check two things:
1. On your PC connected to the pcWRT router, is the IP address in the 192.168.2.x range?
2. When you log in to the pcWRT router, on the Status page, is the displayed Internet IP in the 192.168.1.x range?

[J1970M2]

Hello,

1. Yes, PC connected to pcWRT is at 192.168.2.130
2. pcWRT router IP address is 192.168.1.249

Thanks for your help with this.

[support]

Thanks for the additional info. With this setup, your PC connected to the old router is on the WAN side of the pcWRT router, while the PC connected to the pcWRT router is on the LAN side. With Pia running on the pcWRT, the PC connected to the LAN side is tunneled to Pia’s VPN server. Therefore, it cannot see the local network on your old router.

You can add this entry to the “Split Tunneling” section on the VPN client settings page: 192.168.1.0/24

And yes, if you set a VPN connection to auto-start, the VPN will auto-connect on router reboot.

[J1970M2]

I see. Thanks! Then Im assuming PCs on the WAN side would not be protected by the VPN? Only PCs on the LAN side will be protected?

[support]

You’re right.

[J1970M2]

Still no luck using 192.168.1.0 /24 in Split Tunneling. Strange thing is, I can get to the web ui of the device, but can’t browse to the shared folder on the device and can’t ping the device from the pcwrt device – it’s “unreachable” with the ping command. Any other ideas? thanks!

[support]

You can get to the web ui via a 192.168.1.x IP address but can’t ping the same IP address?

As a test, you can disable the VPN on the router first and see if you can get to the shared folder. You don’t have to shutdown the VPN connection, just uncheck the checkbox under the “Enable for Network” section and Save. If that works, try with the VPN on.

[J1970M2]

With VPN on or off, I’m not able to access the network share. I have 192.168.1.0 /24 in split tunneling.
Thanks for your continued help.

[support]

Let’s start with VPN off then.
1. Can you ping the 192.168.1.x IP address of the PC with the shared folder?
2. Can you access the Internet from the same PC?

[J1970M2]

Yes and Yes.

[support]

Try mapping the shared drive with the path: \\192.168.1.x\shared_folder.

[J1970M2]

I might now have some success. I was not having any luck with entries in split tunneling window, so I removed them. I then looked at the network shortcuts (point to PC shared folder on existing router) on the PC connected by pcWRT. I edited the shortcut \\MYSERVER\MyFolder to \\192.168.1.x\MyFolder and the shortcut worked!!! So happy that I can now browse the network again. Still can’t ping, but I assume that’s something to do with the VPN. Thank you for all the help.

[Author]

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