Hi,

Ok, I'm at a complete loss as to how I can get this combination working - here's hoping one of you guys can point me in the right direction.

I have a 2600we which has served me admirably for years - rock solid connectivity even with a very noisy line. However, I now need something with faster LAN ports, better WLAN whilst hopefully still leveraging the benefits of my Draytek kit - namely the ADSL modem inside the 2600we.

I purchased a D-Link DIR655 with the belief that I could simply reconfigure my 2600we to work as a ADSL modem and the two would work seamlessly together. Unfortunately, after several very late nights, I am no further forward.

Although my networking knowledge is not great, I think I understand the concept of what I want to do. The D-Link can be configured to talk to an ADSL modem using PPPoE so I guessed that simply setting the Vigor to allow PPPoE pass through on the LAN would allow the D-Link to initiate a connection. I went to the PPPoE/PPPoA settings, checked the pass through box, cleared the ISP connection username/password boxes and gave it a try. The D-Link reports a PPPoE session time out while trying to connect.

My ISP is TalkTalk - which is connected to using PPPoA. Am I correct in thinking that PPPoE pass-through is therefore not going to work (as it will try to connect to TalkTalk using PPPoE too)? With this in mind I thought that I'd somehow need to bridge PPPoE and PPPoA - this is where I am really padding around in the dark! The MPoA screen looked like it allowed this so I tried setting up 1483 Bridged IP LLC. Without really knowing what I'm doing I wasn't suprised to see that it made no difference whatsoever. I think I have tried almost every conceivable permutation of settings to try to get this to work but its having none of it.

Does anyone have a clear set of instructions I can follow to allow me to set this up? If not, could some of you try answering some of my questions below to see if I can figure it out for myself.

1. Is what I am attempting even possible?
2. Am I correct in thinking that PPPoE pass through by itself is not enough if my ISP uses PPPoA?
3. Does my concept of bridging PPPoE and PPPoA even make technical sense?
4. If it does, there are a number of Encapsulation settings you can set. TalkTalk uses Ecapsulation Type "VC MUX" - does this also mean that I should be using RFC1483 Encapsulation "1483 Bridged IP VC-MUX" rather than the default (or are the two things unrelated).
5. I have the WAN port of the D-Link connected to the Vigor (on LAN port 1). Is this correct? Does the Vigor 'listen' on ALL LAN ports for PPPoE connections or do I have to configure this?
6. I am hoping to use the D-Link for all LAN-type activities (DHCP, WLAN, NAT, Firewall etc) but my Vigor was previously used for these activities. Presumably I'd need to turn these things off otherwise I'd get some conflicts no doubt.
7. The D-Link is configured as 192.168.1.1, the Vigor 192.168.1.2. Even if PPPoE is seemingly not getting passed through, would you expect the D-Link to 'see' the Vigor? A ping of the Vigors IP address yields no response (though perhaps this is the root of my problem)
8. Ultimately what setup will I end up with? Will each device be given a hard-coded IP address or would one device lease a DHCP IP off the other?
9. I am thinking of connecting to the Vigor directly from my laptop and create a PPPoE-based connection to see if that works thereby taking the D-Link out of the equation as a test. Anything I should be aware of before I go down this route?

My apologies if this mail has rambled a bit. I'm sure if someone could answer my questions that I'd be able to figure this out.

Many thanks in advance, any help would be greatly appreciated.

I'd start with 7 first. Put the two routers on different sub-nets.

If you need to get something up and running quickly, once they are on different sub-nets, you don't have to bother with PPPoE passthrough, but you will be "double natting". Just connect them as they are (with different sub-nets)

Once you have it up and running, you can then go for the PPPoE/PPPoA set up which should work.

As an alternative, if the 2600we has a printer port (I think it does) and you want to use it, rather than connect the D-Link WAN to the 2600, connect them together LAN to LAN. Keep the IP addresses as they are and turn off the DHCP server in one of them (probably the D-Link unless it gives you better features). If you turn it off in the 2600 you will have to configure the gateway on the D-Link as 192.168.1.1.

Thanks for the prompt reply.

Looks like I've been a bit thick - it's all become a lot clearer now thanks. I tried your first suggestion last night but couldn't get each router to see the other but I think I know why. I don't think I've configured the WAN ip on the DLINK properly.

Of course the first suggestion of giving each router it's own subnet is quite obvious now I think about it (after all this is what routers are meant for). Any data bound for the same subnet on the DLINK would not get routed out through the WAN port - no matter what static routes I may put in (probably wouldn't even appeal to the routing table).

Therefore your second suggestion of linking them together through the LAN ports effectively treats the DLINK as a simple switch thereby extending the subnet giving me more LAN ports to use. Probably won't do this as I need all LAN ports free on the DLINK and the 2600we doesn't have a printer port (well at least mine hasn't). I'll live with the double natting as long as it doesn't cause any unnecessary configuration headaches or performance issues.

I'll give it another shot tonight and post back here the outcome.

Thanks again

Once you are up and running with double-natting, you can then play with making the 2600 work as a modem only and use PPPoE between the D-Link and 2600.