[OilerNut]

I contacted my ISP about not getting two simultaneous ip addresses and of course they blamed by switch. According to their records there is 2 assigned ip addresses to my account, and they do not lock them to MAC addresses, so it should work fine. I have a linksys switch (EZXS55W) with the uplink port connected to my modem with a straight through cat5 cable. I have each routers (BEFSR41) WAN port connected to ports 1 and 2 on the switch with a straight cat5 cable also. I assume this should work as I am on the internet fine with either one. I did try switching out the switch with another one and had the same problem. Both routers are set to obtain an ip automatically and have tried cycling the power on all devices about 50 times.
My goal is to have 2 seperate networks, one being my own personal one and one as a test network.

Here is a crude drawing of my network:
http://www.oilernut.com/network.pdf

[TMT]

I'm pretty new to networking, but wouldn't this be the best way to route it:

Internet Modem > Router > Fast Switch > Standard Network Switch 1 > Network 1
__________________________________> Standard Network Switch 2 > Network 2

Shouldn't that then share the IP address from the main connection at the modem?

Sorry if I'm totally on the wrong track, since I'm new to networking,
TMT.

[OilerNut]

What I am trying to do is have a different external network IP for each network and then connect them together through the internet via VPN.

[mestizo122]

So, do you have two modems, two routers and one switch?

[mestizo122]

Okay, I re-read you post and looked at your diagram.

I thought that one modem can only recieve on IP address. Thus the reason why you only have one external IP address. I also am confused as to why you have so many switches and routers on a 5 computer network, I'm sure you have a reason though.

Any way I really think that the network should look something like this:

This is a modified version of your pdf, I think that you could go with out 1 router and 1 switch in you main network though.

[OilerNut]

The reason for so many switches is because, the top one is in a different room where i sometimes had more than 1 computer connected. Didn't feel like running an extra cable to that loction. The gigabit switch in the middle should be fairly obvious. The router WRT54 is wireless, I would of gotten an access point at the time but this was cheaper. And the modem can handle more than 1 ip address. http://broadband.motorola.com/noflash/sb5100.html

[mestizo122]

I figured as much, sorry if I offended you when I asked as to why you have so many routers and switches, it is just that I don't normally see so many of them in a network so small, I mean I have 1 router for 7 computers, and that works very well.

I also took a quick look at your modem's specs, it does not specifically state that it accepts more than 1 IP address (or at least I did not see it). I see that it says it can handle 32 users (31 via ethernet and 1 via usb) but I am not sure if that means that I will get and distribute 2 IP addresses.

I am not sure why you would not be gettin 2 IP addresses if the modem was able to. Maybe somebody else could help.

[OilerNut]

Just to let everyone know, it was on the ISP end the problem. The 3rd tech guy there I talk to ran a quick diagonistic on my modem and found out that it did not receive the update from them when it was set to 2 ips. Quite frustrating, why couldn't the 2 other techs I spoke to do this?