Bridging Two DSL Connections

Ok here is the issue I have. The place I work at has two separte DSL connections. They want to keep both connection.....don't ask really long story. Any way there is a total of 6 machines between both networks. Each network has 3 pcs on it. Anyway they want to share a network printer between both networks. I've never ran across this before but I would assume one subnet would be a static and the other could be a dyanmic. Have the static under one subnet and the other under another subnet. Then I would just add routes on the routers, so they could communicate. Is this the correct way to go about this? Or is there a better solution.....besides them all being on one network.....which is like getting Darth Vader to sell cookies for the girl scouts....lol thanks for the help guys.

Aaron

The only way I can think of is to add a third router between the two networks and then setup static mappings to the various networks. Without a physical break in the networks DHCP addresses could be sent to the wrong client computers making it a real mess. The problem with one network being static is if your ISP changes DNS server IP addresses your clients will not be updated and the they will lose connectivity.

What are the routers? It would be easier if your routers were business class, say a SonicWALL, Watchguard or Cisco ASA. Then you could just designate each port, and run a Ethernet cable between the two of them. You would need to set up a NAT rule to forward LAN A traffic to that port, and the opposite for LAN B. In fact, one router could handle both ISPs and both networks.

Baltboy, assuming he's using residential routers, how would adding a third one help? It still has only one routable port, the WAN port. That could go into either of the other two's LAN ports, but all that would do is cascade the routers, it won't let you bridge between the two. It would allow two LANs to share one WAN, but not bridge two WANS - you need two configuarable ports for that. The switch ports won't forward traffic. Or do you have some other setup in mind?

There might be a Linux load that could do this for you, Aaron, but I doubt it. I'll take a look once you let me know the routers.

I was assuming due to the size of his LAN that they would most likely be using a consumer level product to connect to the DSL connections. If you set up the third router using a static ip for each of the networks (one WAN and one LAN)and turn off everything else that will break the DHCP requests . Then use static routes to send the traffic over. There is an option to send the traffic over the local lan and wireless or the WAN. So I would have to assume that that using the LAN option would send data using the switched ports.

I don't think that will work. He wants to keep the networks separate, and also maintain the two ISPs. You could have one router as a head in, and cascade two routers off its LAN ports, two keep separate networks and - probably - print across them, but that still won't allow two ISPs. With a consumer router, there's no way to route over LAN segments that are on a different network, unless it supports VLANs.