OBi202 - Any advantage to hooking router to OBi?

[mwalt2]

My original thinking when I bought the OBi202 was to connect it to my cable modem and then connect my router to the LAN port of the OBi.  I could not get this to work when I tried (no internet access for router devices), so I just connected the OBi to my router and set things up that way. 

I assume internet didn't work because I left my router as a DCHP server and as a gateway.  Are there any other settings to get it to work (turn on DCHP passthrough and change mode to router)?  Also, is there any advantage to using the OBi202 QoS vs QoS on a router running DDWRT?  Thanks.

[giqcass]

The main advantages are having an extra port and QOS.  You already have QOS on your router.  If you don't need the extra port then there aren't any big advantages. 

Using DHCP should be fine.  I have my system set up in this way. 

I set the WAN setting on the OBi202 to DHCP. 
I set the OBi202 operation mode to Router.

I set the WAN setting of my router to Automatic IP (basically DHCP)
I set operation mode to "Enable the DHCP Server"

[mwalt2]

Thanks for the reply.  I decided to put it between the cable modem and my router.  I put my router in the DMZ of the OBi202.  Now I do not have to worry about forwarding any ports for the OBi or QoS on my router and my network should be separate from the OBi.

I should have got an OBi a long time ago.  It's nice to have a 'home' phone again, e911 service, and a dedicated fax number...all for 80 cents a month.

EDIT for anyone reading this in the future - Enabling DMZ broke the ability to call Anveo 933 and 911 for me.  Turning off DMZ fixes this.

[paleomjc]

Having issues with calls dropping.  OBI Support has suggested that I carry out the setup to which both of you refer:  cable modem to INTERNET port on the OBI202 and LAN port on OBI202 to router.  When I set this up, reboot modem and router, I can make phone calls but cannot connect to the internet.  I have same configuration parameters as giqcass:

I set the WAN setting on the OBi202 to DHCP. 
I set the OBi202 operation mode to Router.

I set the WAN setting of my router to Automatic IP (basically DHCP)
I set operation mode to "Enable the DHCP Server"

Any insight as to what might be going on or what else I need to change or check in my configuration?

Thanks.

[Shale]

Having issues with calls dropping.  OBI Support has suggested that I carry out the setup to which both of you refer:  cable modem to INTERNET port on the OBI202 and LAN port on OBI202 to router.  When I set this up, reboot modem and router, I can make phone calls but cannot connect to the internet.  I have same configuration parameters as giqcass:

I set the WAN setting on the OBi202 to DHCP. 
I set the OBi202 operation mode to Router.

I set the WAN setting of my router to Automatic IP (basically DHCP)
I set operation mode to "Enable the DHCP Server"

Any insight as to what might be going on or what else I need to change or check in my configuration?

Thanks.

I don't find a good writeup on this. Here is my suggestion to throw out, even though I am not at all sure of the result. I just know that you can change it back if it does not improve things, and we can all learn something in the process. Also, hold back until the more knowledgeable folks have a chance to review things.

I suggest putting the OBi202 into bridge mode as a prospective solution. That way the OBi202 will not be doing NAT, and the router will not be contributing to double NAT.

What I would do to try this:

To put the OBi into bridge mode, on the attached phone dial ***0, 31#, 1,1#,1.
To put it back to router mode dial ***0, 31#, 1,0#,1. (comma means pause and listen)
After entering a string, you could just hang up.

What I hope the user will gain:

http://www.obihai.com/OBiAdminGuide.htm says "Instead of acting as a router, the OBi202 can be set to work as a 3-port switch. One of the ports is internal and is used by the OBi202 CPU only, while the two external ports (labelled as Interent [sic] and LAN) can be connected to other devices. This mode of operation is known as the bridge mode. In this mode, all the router features, such DHCP server, firewall and port forwarding, will not take effect. The QoS policy in this case is hardwired such that the native voice and related traffic will always have highest priority (this behavior is not configurable). Furthermore, accessing the OBi device management web pages from either of the two external ports is always allowed."

So I am looking for the OBi202 to get highest priority for bandwidth and for the external router to do what it does normally for everything else.

What am I thinking might make this work:

I am presuming the OBi in this case will use 192.168.10.1 if you haven't set up a static IP for it. (you could inquire about the IP by dialing ***0, 21#.) Presuming the external router is using a different subnet, then the router would send packets addressed to 192.168.10.1  out of its WAN port, which is connected to the OBi202. So I am hoping that the OBi202 recognizes the number and does not pass the packet on to the modem.

How do incoming packets to the OBi202 get routed? I am hoping that the designers allowed for that. It would depend on the OBi202 intercepting those packets. It would presume that the external router is not using the same port for something else. How could that be prevented? I don't know.

Why don't I try this myself? Right now, my router is integrated with the router, and everything is working fine.

[Willy-Bill]

I was hoping someone would've had some info.  I am planning on getting one of these, but have a slightly different question.  I won't ask it here, unless everyone wishes me to, as I believe it would require a new thread.

[Lavarock7]

Here are my thoughts:

I bought a wifi device for my 202 but then realized that I needed the QOS the 202 provided, so I go Modem to OBI202 to Router.

With that setup I connect to the Obi with my internet IP address.

The problem I have is getting an external Obi (in another state) to send me Syslog info. I tried forwarding through the OBI to the Router (from WAN to LAN addresses) to my PC with no luck. Who knows where I got hung up, but finally gave up.

Not to get off topic, but I may be able to have both router and Obi in parallel. I did notice that my cable company supplies an IP to my router in one address space and other devices get another IP address. I am thinking of hooking a switch to the modem and put the Obi and Router on different IPs. I don't know what the other IP space is for but if if it works, it can solve one problem :-)

[Willy-Bill]

I would be a bit careful.  Often the modem will provide a local IP address, while the ISP IP is bridged through.

[MikeHObi]

The problem I have is getting an external Obi (in another state) to send me Syslog info. I tried forwarding through the OBI to the Router (from WAN to LAN addresses) to my PC with no luck. Who knows where I got hung up, but finally gave up.

Syslog needs UDP port 514 open assuming default configuration.  Is that what you forwarded?

Not to get off topic, but I may be able to have both router and Obi in parallel. I did notice that my cable company supplies an IP to my router in one address space and other devices get another IP address. I am thinking of hooking a switch to the modem and put the Obi and Router on different IPs. I don't know what the other IP space is for but if if it works, it can solve one problem :-)

Your ISP issues one IP address to your router.  The router is then responsible for using NAT and it's own internal DHCP server to issue out local IP Addresses.  That is where you get the different networks from.  The router routes between the ISP and the local network.

[Shale]

Here are my thoughts:

I bought a wifi device for my 202 but then realized that I needed the QOS the 202 provided, so I go Modem to OBI202 to Router.

With that setup I connect to the Obi with my internet IP address.

I am thinking that you are saying that the voice quality did indeed improve with this setup. Are you having the OBi pass the WAN IP address to the router on its LAN port, or is the OBi202 doing the DHCP and the external router is configured to not do the DHCP?

The problem I have is getting an external Obi (in another state) to send me Syslog info. I tried forwarding through the OBI to the Router (from WAN to LAN addresses) to my PC with no luck. Who knows where I got hung up, but finally gave up.

I presume you have a static IP for the computer you are trying to log to.

Not to get off topic, but I may be able to have both router and Obi in parallel. I did notice that my cable company supplies an IP to my router in one address space and other devices get another IP address. I am thinking of hooking a switch to the modem and put the Obi and Router on different IPs. I don't know what the other IP space is for but if if it works, it can solve one problem :-)

[PNS8]

Hi...

I have a similar requirement and tried connecting as above, but it does not work.

My setup is as follows:
* Motorola cable modem connecting to Comcast
* Obi202 device
* Wireless ADSL router with 4-port switch

I would like to connect the Internet port of the Obi202 to the single Ethernet port of the cable modem, so that the Obi202 acquires an IP address from there via DHCP, and then connect the LAN port of the Obi202 to the wireless ADSL router, so that whichever device connects to the router, either via a wired or wireless connection, gets an IP address via DHCP (from the Obi202) and is able to connect to the Internet.

I have tried numerous combinations as mentioned in this post, but the setup does not work.

For starters, the WAN status of the Obi202 never shows an IP address, subnet mask or other setting, which one would expect to be supplied by the cable modem's DHCP server.

Secondly, the setup does not work even if I connect a computer directly to the LAN port of the Obi202, let alone attaching the ADSL router to that port and then connecting a computer to the router.

Does anyone have a working setup like the above?

Thanks!

[Jimbob]

I tried to do this and it never did work for me.

Either the OBI could not route internet traffic (router), or you couldn't get to the OBI202 (bridge).

[coolclay]

Thought maybe I could help some people out as I managed to set my obi QOS up

My set up is cable modem/router supplied by ISP, OBI202 with USB. and 4 port switch.

The Idea being that I can hook a couple computers up through the switch and do wireless on the usb. I haven't used the wireless yet, but did manage to get the QOS working with 3 computers I don't hook the computers into the router as that would defeat the QOS as all traffic needs to pass through it. Also running the obi in bridged mode did not seem to use the qos, I think because it did not direct the traffic as bridge mode does not use DHCP

First.. the qos on the obi is not enabled by defaults so that has to be checked in the setup and outbound bandwidth needed to be set.

The obi did not actually conflict with the router as it assigns a different subnet to its DHCP.

The router was 192.168.1.25 and the obi is 192.168.10.71

The online settings were not sufficient to set up my obi, to access the advanced options type 192.168.10.71 into the browser.

my conflicts were 2 fold as I had conflicts on IP addresses of my computer for reasons I'm not sure about but it seems that the switch and one of my computers were somehow occupying the same IP address, to get past this first thing, I reserved a DHCP address for each computer 192.168.10.102, 192.168.10.103 , etc.

The second issue was that I needed to forward ports as having two devices with DHCP creates 2 firewalls. So to forward from the router, in the router config, I forwarded to the obi at 192.168.1.71 then on the obi.. forward port# to computer at 192.168.10.102

Now if you are running a router after the obi, it would likely be easier to put it into bridged mode or buy a switch instead as it would be the same thing, however you can do a similar setup by changing the IP for the subnet of the router, say for example 192.168.20.1 or whatever you choose.. note that to log into your router afterwards, you will need to use this new IP address. Also, you will need to forward any needed ports in a similar fashion from the obi to the router and router to Computer or other device.

Not simple, but it is allot easier than some setups that I have done and works very well.

Also, for the posters original question about QOS on the obi vs ddwrt of the router. Both can work fine, but the obi is a lot simpler to set up. QOS can be a very touchy thing. Tomato is a little nicer to set up as it is easier to see what is going on with the graphs. The QOS on a router is allot more customizable

After having done both ways, this is a lot less hassle for me

[Lavarock7]

Your ISP issues one IP address to your router.  The router is then responsible for using NAT and it's own internal DHCP server to issue out local IP Addresses.  That is where you get the different networks from.  The router routes between the ISP and the local network.

To follow up, what I was trying to say is that when I connected a switch/hub to the modem, the cable company supplied a different IP address to each of the Obi and the router that connected to the switch. The router got its old IP address and the Obi got a number in a different IP segment. That appears to be a temporary IP address issued until the MAC address is assigned to the account at the cable company. As I remember, some ports worked but port 80 did not, on that temporary IP address. I did not do any other testing, but my next step would have been to see if any other ports worked and what speed I got to them.