Overview: Usually at the time of UTM installation customer seeks our suggestion on how to connected wifi router after UTM. Here I have demonstrated two methods of connecting wifi router after UTM.
1) Method 1 - AP mode (Recommended)
2) Method 2 - Router mode
Typical WIFI router:
Most of the routers comes with 1 WAN port and 4 LAN ports. You can recognize the WAN port on the router by the label Internet or WAN. OR you can also recognize it by its different colour (blue, yellow etc.)
Method 1 :- AP mode (Recommended for most scenarios)
In AP mode wifi router will be connected to UTM/ switch using LAN port and all the nodes connected to wifi will be manged by UTM.
AP mode allows us to extend the network by acting as a relay.
Configuration:
1) Connect LAN port of wifi router to network switch. You can also connect LAN port of router to UTM LAN port directly if switch is not available.
2) Leave WAN port of WIFI router disconnected. We are not going to use it.
3) Assign a LAN IP address to wifi router. It can be any free IP address within the range of LAN network of UTM. In our case UTM LAN port IP address is 192.168.1.1/24 so we have assigned 192.168.1.2/24 to wifi router.
To assign LAN IP address to wifi router you have to login to router and find LAN IP address settings. Generally you can find it in “Advanced> Network> LAN Settings” OR “Interface setup> LAN> Router Local IP”. Please note that configuration steps may vary according to router brand and model. You can refer router documentation if needed.
4) Disable DHCP feature of wifi router. In this scenario we are going to utilize DHCP feature of UTM.
5) Now you are ready to go.
Key Points:
- You can use this configuration If you want to keep all the devices in same network and get manged under UTM.
- Wifi router will be used here just to extend the LAN network.
- UTM DHCP will assign IP address to all the devices including the devices connected through wifi.
- Default gateway for all the devices including wireless network will be UTM’s LAN IP address (192.168.1.1)
- All the devices (including wireless network) will be managed under UTM. It means you can create separate user for each device and implement policies per user.
- You can view reports in UTM for all the WIFI users separately.
Method 2 :- Router mode
In router mode wifi router will be connected to UTM/ switch using WAN port and only routers WAN IP address will be managed directly by UTM.
In router mode router will create another private network and act as a gateway to all the devices connected to wifi.
Configuration:
1) Connect WAN port of wifi router to network switch. You can also connect WAN port of router to UTM LAN port directly if switch is not available.
2) Assign WAN IP address (on WAN port) to router. It should be in the range of UTM LAN. In our case UTM LAN IP is 192.168.1.1/24 so we have assigned 192.168.1.2/24 to router wan port.
2) Assign a LAN IP address to wifi router. It can be any free IP address other than the WAN IP address subnet of router. In our case routers WAN IP address is 192.168.1.2/24 so we have assigned 172.16.1.1/16 as a LAN IP address of router.
3) Enable the DHCP feature of wifi router because in this scenario UTM DHCP cannot assign IP address to devices connected to wifi router.
Key points:
- You can use this configuration If you want to keep wifi network separate from rest of the network.
- Router’s DHCP will assign IP address to all the device connected to wifi router.
- Default gateway for the devices connected to router will be 172.16.1.1 (routers LAN IP address)
- Only routers WAN IP address (192.168.1.2) will be managed under UTM. It means you can create only one user (IP address or MAC user) for wifi router in UTM. All the policies will be applicable to that particular user only. All the devices connected to wifi network are restricted to single policy.
- You can view the reports in UTM for the user created for routers IP address only.
- Devices connected to wifi router (172.16.1.0/16) will not be able to communicate with rest of the network (192.168.1.0/24)