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I'm needing to connect two houses on the same property together, about 1400ft apart. I need to simultaneously access and login to a Quickbooks file on the other computer all using Windows, and of course cloud storage doesn't work with Quickbooks. We're going to put up a wireless bridge outside to connect the houses together. Each location has their own internet and preferably use their own internet.

I'm trying to find the best way to configure the network at each household. Should I configure each with their own subnet? I.E. 192.168.1.# and 192.168.2.#? Then somehow program a static route in a router so one computer can see the shared directory of another computer on the other network? But I thought on routers you have to disable NAT and/or DHCP in able to program a static route which may cause issues.

Or should I install a router in the middle of the bridge and have the bridge go through the WAN port so I could possibly block ports 67 and 68 that are responsible for DHCP so one household doesn't get a DHCP IP from the other household and keep both on the same subnet?

Or should I enable DHCP at both locations and assign one household from .1 to .128 and other household .128 to .254? I don't know how that would work to keep DHCP isolated to their own house.

Any help would be much appreciated.

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  • Does the house with QuickBooks need access to anything in the house that doesn't have QuickBooks?
    – I say Reinstate Monica
    Commented Feb 16, 2018 at 1:54
  • It would be best and easiest if you had a wireless bridge that works at layer 3 and can filter packets and also do ARP relay. Then you just put all the computers on the same network address but you block DHCP broadcasts across the bridge. All computers will see each other but be able to continue using their individual internet connections in this case. You could simulate this by using something like a MikroTik switch or router on one end of the bridge.
    – Appleoddity
    Commented Feb 16, 2018 at 2:00
  • Make model number of the bridges please? it will help to give a non-generic answer.
    – Tim_Stewart
    Commented Feb 16, 2018 at 2:25
  • @Tim_Stewart Not sure of the model of the bridge yet. I'm assuming it'll just pass everything from port to port. Maybe I'll see if I can get more info on the bridges. It would be nice if they can be configured like a router can.
    – MrTom
    Commented Feb 20, 2018 at 21:53

1 Answer 1

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Assuming you only require a one-way connection from the network without QuickBooks to the one hosting it, you can connect your networks with a standard consumer router. Here's how that would look:

For the following, assume House A has QuickBooks, and House B wants to connect to QuickBooks.

  • Configure each home's network with its own separate IP subnetwork address, gateway, DNS, DHCP, etc.

  • Connect the new router's LAN port to House A's network. Assign it an IP address on that network. Disable DHCP services on the router.

  • Connect House B, via the wireless bridge, to the router's WAN port. Configure the WAN port with an IP address valid on House B's network.

  • Configure any required port forwarding rules to connect traffic from House B to the computer in House A hosting QuickBooks. Alternately you can configure the router to put the IP address of the QuickBooks host in the router's DMZ. This would serve as a giant "forward all ports" rule.

  • Add a static route on the QuickBooks computer that points traffic destined to the IP subnetwork of house B to the LAN interface of the router. Alternately, if House A's router can be configured with static routes, put it there.

What you'll end up with looks like this:

House B PC --> bridge --> Router (with port forwarding) --> House A PC w/QuickBooks

Because you use a router to separate the networks, no broadcast or other traffic will go between them, except for the traffic you specifically allow with the port forward rules.

To Connect to QuickBooks

From House B, connect to the IP address of the router's WAN interface. Your connection will be forwarded to the PC in House A hosting QuickBooks. Easy-peezy.

From House B's perspective, the router's WAN IP address is the QuickBooks computer. From House A's perspective, the router's LAN port is a dead-end. Attempts to connect to it don't go anywhere since there's nothing being hosted in House B to connect to.

On another note, QuickBooks is picky about the quality of the network connection between the application and its database. I see it often kick users connecting over high quality wireless links. If you run into trouble because of needing to use the wireless bridge, consider using Remote Desktop or a similar remote PC access solution to connect the the PC in House A and run QuickBooks there directly.

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  • Thank you for a solution to try. Their bridge will be installed on March 1st. Using Remote Desktop won't be an option, as they want each location to be able to be logged into the same QB file at the same time. I will try some temp setups at the office to see if I can replicate the configuration. I think a DMZ would be required as I need to forward the QB database connection ports plus any other Samba ports. I'll keep this thread updated on my progress.
    – MrTom
    Commented Feb 20, 2018 at 21:47
  • A question, after setting port forwards from House B to House A (4th bullet point), will QuickBooks from House A still be able to communicate to House B? Since QuickBooks access is two way, House A's computer that is hosting the database file still needs to somewhat access House B's computer, mainly through the QB ports (8019, 56728, 55378-55382).
    – MrTom
    Commented Feb 21, 2018 at 7:11
  • @MrTom the computer hosting QuickBooks never initiates a conversation with any client computer, it's always the client that starts the conversation. To answer your question, no, the QB host won't be able to start a connection...but It won't need to do that's OK.
    – I say Reinstate Monica
    Commented Feb 21, 2018 at 13:59
  • On the 3rd bullet point, does it matter what Gateway I put in the WAN port? It required something in there. I'm testing with an old Linksys BEFSR41 and it doesn't seem to matter. I put in an IP of .1 which doesn't exist and I'm still able to access the shared folder from a computer on the other subnet. I also had to make a new bullet point 6. Add a static route in "House B's" computer to point to the WAN port IP to get to the subnet of "House A".
    – MrTom
    Commented Feb 21, 2018 at 22:17
  • @MrTom the gateway you use won't matter since no traffic leaving the WAN port will ever be sent to said default gateway. The WAN port of the router should be assigned an IP address from House B's subnet, making a static route unnecessary (that is, assuming the bridge is a transparent bridge). But if what you're doing works, stick with it!
    – I say Reinstate Monica
    Commented Feb 22, 2018 at 1:19

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