Nighthawk CM1100

[CBJason]

I just purchased the Nighthawk CM1100 to get gigabit speeds and dual ethernet links for my own network traffic.

On the one ethernet jack, I have connected my wifi network, and everything is working well enough there with a private internal IP assignment.

On the second ethernet port, I am able to pull a private IP to my laptop, and can connect to the internet through the jack just fine. But, when I try to connect a Layer 2 switch (a trendnet TPE-S44 v3 with 4 PoE ports), everything from the switch down does not get network traffic.  

I can connect the L2 switch to my wifi router and get the traffic to work there, but now everything gets double NATted to the outside world and that's exactly what I am trying to avoid.

Two questions:

1. Is this theoretically possible? I would think so, but maybe my brain is missing something obvious...

2. One of the options in the CM1100 is to set up Port Aggregation - that's bonding two ports together for double throughput, right? I wouldn't want to do that if I am trying to create 2 separate networks (wired vs WiFi) right?

Any help appreciated 🙂

[FURRYe38 · Accepted solution]

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@CBJason wrote:

I just purchased the Nighthawk CM1100 to get gigabit speeds and dual ethernet links for my own network traffic.

On the one ethernet jack, I have connected my wifi network, and everything is working well enough there with a private internal IP assignment.

On the second ethernet port, I am able to pull a private IP to my laptop, and can connect to the internet through the jack just fine. But, when I try to connect a Layer 2 switch (a trendnet TPE-S44 v3 with 4 PoE ports), everything from the switch down does not get network traffic.  This won't work. Need a router here.

I can connect the L2 switch to my wifi router and get the traffic to work there, but now everything gets double NATted to the outside world and that's exactly what I am trying to avoid.

Two questions:

1. Is this theoretically possible? I would think so, but maybe my brain is missing something obvious...

Yes, if the ISP supports having two WAN assigned IP addresses from the ISP to the one modem. Some ISPs don't allow this or support this for home users. You need a wifi router connected with the CM1100 to service ANY and ALL wireless and wired devices thru the modem. The modem does NOT have a router built in. Yes, I've had two routers connected to my CM series modems when I had them online. My ISP supports me having more then one WAN IP address when I use these modems. 

2. One of the options in the CM1100 is to set up Port Aggregation - that's bonding two ports together for double throughput, right? I wouldn't want to do that if I am trying to create 2 separate networks (wired vs WiFi) right? Correct, LAG enables both ports to 1 WAN IP address so when LAG is enabled, you only get 1 WAN IP address across both ports. 

Any help appreciated 🙂

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[FURRYe38 · Accepted solution]

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@CBJason wrote:

I just purchased the Nighthawk CM1100 to get gigabit speeds and dual ethernet links for my own network traffic.

On the one ethernet jack, I have connected my wifi network, and everything is working well enough there with a private internal IP assignment.

On the second ethernet port, I am able to pull a private IP to my laptop, and can connect to the internet through the jack just fine. But, when I try to connect a Layer 2 switch (a trendnet TPE-S44 v3 with 4 PoE ports), everything from the switch down does not get network traffic.  This won't work. Need a router here.

I can connect the L2 switch to my wifi router and get the traffic to work there, but now everything gets double NATted to the outside world and that's exactly what I am trying to avoid.

Two questions:

1. Is this theoretically possible? I would think so, but maybe my brain is missing something obvious...

Yes, if the ISP supports having two WAN assigned IP addresses from the ISP to the one modem. Some ISPs don't allow this or support this for home users. You need a wifi router connected with the CM1100 to service ANY and ALL wireless and wired devices thru the modem. The modem does NOT have a router built in. Yes, I've had two routers connected to my CM series modems when I had them online. My ISP supports me having more then one WAN IP address when I use these modems. 

2. One of the options in the CM1100 is to set up Port Aggregation - that's bonding two ports together for double throughput, right? I wouldn't want to do that if I am trying to create 2 separate networks (wired vs WiFi) right? Correct, LAG enables both ports to 1 WAN IP address so when LAG is enabled, you only get 1 WAN IP address across both ports. 

Any help appreciated 🙂

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[CBJason]

Well, assign a stupid label on me - I should have considered that the switch doesn't route traffic.  Thanks for the reminder 🙂

[FURRYe38]

👍