Setting up 150m as wireless AP with VPN on same subnet as main LAN

Technical Support for Routers
1

My network structure is as follows:

  1. Main WAN/WiFi router provides access to internet. It’s IP is 192.168.1.1 and it assigns clients IP addresses via DHPC in the range 192.168.1.100-200. Standard stuff.
  2. To extend WiFi range in my house, I have connected three extenders in strategic places. They are all connected by cable. Their IPs are manually set at 192.168.1.2/3/4. They are set up as bridges, so clients that connect wirelessly to the extenders are assigned IP addresses by the main router in the range indicated above.
  3. The route and the extenders all use the same SSID so clients connect and switch seemlessly through my home.

Everything works well.

Now, I have a Google Chromecast that I need to connect via a VPN to deal with geo restrictions. I don’t want anything else on my network accessing the internet through a VPN for many reasons. So, I have bought a GL.Inet 150m router to act as a wireless bridge with VPN. I have set this up as follows:

  1. The 150m is connected by cable to one of the extenders, using the LAN port. It’s set up as a bridge to the main network above, through which it accesses the internet. It is assigned 192.168.1.195 by the main router by DHPC.
  2. The 150m’s SSID is MYTYPICALNETWORKNAME_VPN (the “_VPN” is the added part), ie it runs its own wireless network. On this network its IP is 192.168.8.1, and it assigns clients IP addresses in the range 192.168.8.10-100.
  3. Google Chromecast is set up via the MYTYPICALNETWORKNAME_VPN WiFi.
  4. The 150m is then connected to a VPN via OpenVPN.

This gives 95% of the functionality that I want: Google Chromecast (alone) accesses the internet via the 150m and its VPN connection.

My challenge is as follows:

a) To use the Chromecast, users have to switch WiFi from MYTYPICALNETWORNAME to MYTYPICALNETWORKNAME_VPN. This is an added step that I’d like to avoid.
b) Since the Chromecast is on its own network/subnet, it cannot access resources that I have on my server that’s on the main network (192.168.1.10).

So, finally, my question:

Is there a way to place the MYTYPICALNETWORKNAME_VPN network within the same network/subnet as the main network as described above? So that users that connect to my network via MYTYPIPCALNETWORKNAME can still manage and access resources within the MYTYPICALNETWORKNAME_VPN network and vice-versa? Optimally, I’d have the 150m act as my extenders do, ie resides within the main network/subnet, it onpassess DHPC addresses from the main router etc but clients that connect wirelessly to it has its traffic routed via the VPN tunnel for what concerns the internet.

I hope this all makes sense. Given the number of options and level of customization possible with the Gl.Inet routers I have a feeling that it is possible, but all the things I have tried breaks the internet access of the 150m.

2

This situation is more complicated. Setting to the same subnet is not recommended.

a) The static route is a good way to do it, you should configure a static route on your main router.
b) You can untick “Force VPN” when starting OpenVPN, but it will cause data leak. That’s because the firewall rule of LAN forwarding to WAN was deleted.

3

Thanks, I am now able to have my Chromecast access all LAN resources. All that remains is to find a way to avoid users having to change to the _VPN WiFi to control the Chromecast. Any ideas?

4

How do you fix it? Could you share your solution?

As I said before, you have to configure static route on your main router. Maybe you can find it on your WebUI.

5

Chromecast access all LAN resources: I’m honestly not sure, but it may have been from unticking the “Force VPN” option.

Manage Chromecast without changing WiFi: what kind of static route do I need to set up, can you give me more details?

6

What is your main router? Is it GL router?