Port forwarding through 2 routers?

[myshtern]

I have a comcast business account with a static IP. I have a nice motorola modem but they won't let business accounts use personal modems, we are required to use the modem they provide. The modem they provide though is a 4 port router, whereas I need a wireless network. So I've got the my wireless router plugged into my modem/router. Internet works, that's all great.

I want to setup remote viewing for our security cameras which I setup through a PC. The dvr / security software has it all setup, I just need to make the port forwarding work.

I can only setup port forwarting / NAT rules for computers that are hooked up to the modem/router. The only 'computer' hooked up to the modem/router is the wireless router. First I set the 1-to-1 NAT to send all traffic from the static IP given by comcast to the DHCP IP given from the modem/router to the wireless router. That didn't do anything. Then I set it up so that all ports from 70-5000 automatically route to the wireless router and that didn't do it either.

It's got "True Static IP Port Management". In that I set it to open all of the ports. Still got nothing. Then its got another section for static routing. So i'm trying to set that up but I'm not able to get that going without errors. What the heck do I need to do here?

 

[Hefemeister]

can you turn off dhcp on the modem/router?

 

[myshtern]

can you turn off dhcp on the modem/router?

I'll have to check tomorrow but how would I get it send data to the wireless router?

 

[Hefemeister]

turn off dhcp, treat it as a modem and wire it into the wan port on the wireless router.

It upsets me that companies cannot just provide you with a modem so you can do the routing yourself. [/rant]

 

[TheMajor]

Enable DHCP on the Motorola
Enable NAT on the Motorola
Disable DHCP on your wireless router
Disable NAT on your wireless router
Make sure the wireless router has a fixed IP that's in the same range as the Motorola. If your Motorola is 192.168.1.1, the wireless router should be 192.168.1.2
Use the port forwarding settings in your Motorola

 

[Teh Solution]

My 2 cents:
very similar to the previous excellent suggestions.

Disable NAT/DHCP on the Modem/Router, remove any port forwarding you did on it.
This disables the routing function of the device and makes it a regular cable modem.
Once you do this you can only have one device connected at a time to it, even though it has four ports,
but thats fine because you only need one (the wireless router)

Enable NAT/DHCP on the wireless router and do your normal port forwarding on it for the cams.
It will handle all the routing functions of the network.
Hope this helps

 

[FlashDude]

All good answers however you should hook the lan cable from one router to the other to a lan port on the wireless router not the wan port.

 

[TheMajor]

My 2 cents:
very similar to the previous excellent suggestions.

Disable NAT/DHCP on the Modem/Router, remove any port forwarding you did on it.
This disables the routing function of the device and makes it a regular cable modem.
Once you do this you can only have one device connected at a time to it, even though it has four ports,
but thats fine because you only need one (the wireless router)

Enable NAT/DHCP on the wireless router and do your normal port forwarding on it for the cams.
It will handle all the routing functions of the network.
Hope this helps

Both ways are possible (modem DHCP + NAT enabled, or wireless router DHCP + NAT enabled). There may be a problem with your suggestion (using the wireless router as DHCP server). It may not be possible to disable DHCP on the modem, because it has to give out at least 1 IP (the public WAN-IP, provided by the ISP). For this, DHCP must probably be enabled. I don't know if you can run the modem with DHCP enabled and the wireless router with only NAT enabled (it seems likely to me, though).

I still believe using the wireless router as a switch/wireless access-point is easier (DHCP+NAT disabled). But the wireless part of the wireless router must have the ability to act as an access-point.

I would just try each combination, and see which works.

All good answers however you should hook the lan cable from one router to the other to a lan port on the wireless router not the wan port.

That is if you are using the modem as DHCP-server. Otherwise you should use the WAN port on the wireless router as the input.

 

[FlashDude]

From my experience you will not be able to disable dhcp from the modem/router and why would you? It is the first in the chain. Disable DHCP/NAT one the second router like described above except use a lan port not wan port on the second router so it acts like it should, like a switch. Some routers will work if you use the wan port but there are a lot that won't so I always say its better safe then sorry, use the lan port.