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In my house, my internet comes through a cable modem which has a number of ethernet ports on it. I have a few computers connected via these ethernet ports.

For example, one computer (let's call it computer1) is connected to the cable modem via ethernet and reports: inet 192.168.0.25 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 192.168.0.255

I also have a wireless mesh network connected to one of the ethernet ports; devices on this network look like (e.g.) inet 192.168.68.72 netmask 255.255.252.0 broadcast 192.168.71.255 (let's call this computer2)

Computers on the mesh network can easily reach the ethernet network; e.g. I can ping or ssh from computer2 to computer1. Right now, however, I cannot go the other way around and access computer2 from computer1.

Could anyone point me in the right direction of being able to set this up so I can go both ways? I'm running Linux on both computers, for what it's worth.

Also, the ethernet network goes through a Motorola Cable Modem while the mesh network is on a TP-Deco that's plugged into the cable modem.

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  • Your mesh is on a different subnet (.68) than your regular network (.0) . When you connect the mesh, are you able to assign the subnet? and can you set it to .0 ?
    – anon
    Commented Mar 30, 2023 at 12:42
  • "Also, the ethernet network goes through a Motorola Cable Modem while the mesh network is on a TP-Deco that's plugged into the cable modem." - This is the reason you are unable to see devices on the other network.
    – Ramhound
    Commented Mar 30, 2023 at 12:44
  • Maybe put a small switch on one port of your modem and connect the main network and mesh to the switch. Then set (see if) the mesh to .0
    – anon
    Commented Mar 30, 2023 at 12:47
  • Thanks @John -- I'm not sure about setting the subnet -- I'm guessing this would be config option in the Deco? I'll look for it! I guess I was wondering if I could keep them as separate networks but somehow still let them talk to each other. This seems to work one way but not the other. Maybe this is NAT? I'm very much a noob with network stuff!
    – jdbrody
    Commented Mar 30, 2023 at 12:51
  • Separate networks and more than one DHCP server generally cause issues. Simplify if you can. I keep everything here (wired and wireless) on one network, one DHCP server and one subnet. It is just so much easier.
    – anon
    Commented Mar 30, 2023 at 12:53

1 Answer 1

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Your TP-Deco is a full-fledged router that uses the cable-modem for its WAN uplink and presents it's own network to the devices connected by Wifi.
It does NAT to "the internet" (actually to your Cable-Modem supplied 192.168.0.0/24 network).
Because of the NAT everything behind the Deco can see "the internet", which includes the devices on the wired connections to teh cable-modem, but that won't work the other way around as you noticed.

I'm not familar with the Deco, but I presume you can re-configure it to act as just a mesh (access-point only mode) and disable the routing part altogether. (Most of these type of mesh-routers can be configured that way.)
That should put all your devices in the 192.168.0.0/24 network provided by the cable modem and everything can talk to anything else.

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