Two Flint 2's, Two completely separate networks. How?

I have a Flint 2 set up as my primary router. I'd like to add a second Flint 2 to create a separate network for my Tesla, located near the garage.

Stupidly I thought it would be as simple as plugging the second routers WAN into the primary router's LAN.
They are on separate subnets

  • 192.168.1.1 (primary)
  • 192.168.8.1 (second)

The second router never gets an ip address from the first via DHCP.
What am I missing?

Thanks!

So when you plug the 2nd router into the first one. It's WAN address should get a 192.168.1.x IP address from the Primary Router. What does it show in Internet - Ethernet 1 of the 2nd router ?

It doesn't get an address. It just spins on "Connecting".
The primary router never see the secondary router.

Your implying it should be this simple, yeah?

Try 2nd router as access point mode and you can different SSID and password or same SSID as primary router.

Just trying to help…

Have you used a different cable ? If so have you tried to reset the 2nd router and start again ?

Other ideas… are they both using latest firmwares ? Anything out of ordinary in system / kernel logs of the routers pointing to errors or crashes ?

It sounds like you're trying to add a second Flint 2 router to create a separate network for your Tesla, but you're running into trouble with the DHCP not assigning an IP.

Here’s the issue: When you connect the WAN port of Router 2 to the LAN port of Router 1, they are on different subnets (192.168.1.x vs. 192.168.8.x), so Router 1’s DHCP won’t assign an IP to Router 2.

Solutions:

  1. Use Router 2 as an Access Point:

    • Turn off DHCP on Router 2.
    • Plug Router 2's LAN port into Router 1’s LAN port.
    • This will keep both routers on the same subnet (192.168.1.x) and allow Router 1 to handle all IP assignments.
  2. Keep the networks separate:

    • Assign a static IP to Router 2’s WAN (like 192.168.1.2).
    • This will allow Router 2 to stay on its own subnet (192.168.8.x), but still be connected to Router 1.

Both options should solve your problem depending on whether you want one unified network or two separate ones. Let me know if you need more details!

Not need to turn off DHCP in 2nd router, just change network mode

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That works often on non openwrt routers, however for openwrt you need to use wan port for the second router.

But when you do there will be another issue, you will have two firewalls and two dhcp servers, depending of your use case and reachability you may choose to let it be as is.

But if you really need to extend lan and reach devices, then you want to search for dumbap type of setup, from what i know this cannot be easily done from the gl ui, i wish they will add support for it in a form of 'bridge' mode, you need to navigate to the advanced settings in luci.

this means you want to add wan eth1 into br-lan, remove wan interface, turn protocol of lan from static to dhcp client or unmanaged, and remove all firewall zones, you could reserve one port with its own network for maintenance.

to add devices or removing ports from bridge br-lan you navigate to:

Luci -> network -> interfaces -> devices (tab) click on edit, you can add eth1, and uncheck lan5 or lan4 (the last port), click save but not save and apply.

If you click back on tab interfaces next where devices are, you delete wan.

Then edit lan and change protocol to dhcp, on the firewall tab you select none.

again don't apply yet only save, you want a safety maintenance network.

now create a new network interface, call it maintenance and choose lan4 or lan5 the one you previously deleted from br-lan.

Select static protocol, under address you can type:

192.168.32.1
subnet: 255.255.255.0
gateway: leave empty

Navigate to firewall tab create a new zone maintenance.

On dhcp you click on create.

Now navigatie to luci -> network -> firewall and navigate to the maintenance zone, change input to accept.

Now ensure you are connected to maintenance port and click save and apply.

Note that alot of logic will break within the gl ui, but yea... this is a very legitimate setup not advanced perse but in the time present the ui was not made with these intentions back then, hopefully in the future it will be a function on its own :+1:

What happens if you change the 2nd router to 192.168.3.1 for example?

Thanks for the help @sharmaineleonia
Your second solution seemed like the most straightforward for what I'm looking for.

After giving it a shot, this is what's happening on the WAN port.
It goes from

  • Online
    to
  • Connected to the parent network, but the interface cannot access the internet.
    to
  • No cable detected on WAN port.

ezgif-7-4a7ffa0ed1