Web control (network knowledge needed)

I have somewhat of a unique situation and I need assistance with the web control. If anyone can assist, I'd really appreciate it.

So... I'm running the Duet on a printer I have built at work. The network admins won't allow me to add a wi-fi module to the duet and connect it to our network for fear of "hacking". I've tried to explain, but at this company, it's like talking at a wall. I can't wire it in at the moment because they want an outside firm to come in and run the cable (don't ask) and they're looking at thousands of dollars to hook up a couple of printers that cost me <$1k to build. Not going to happen. Well, I could force the issue, but I just don't see it as a productive spending of resources.

What I decided to try (not knowing a whole lot about network infrastructure) is to bring in a router from home and try to set up my own wired network. I plugged it into the printer and into a separate network jack on my computer. I left the "internet" jack empty so there would just be the two resources on the router. The printer and a computer.

Is there any chance this can be configured to work?

When I connect the router to my work computer, it wants to use that connection for internet access, so I lose that functionality,and I have yet been able to "connect" to the Duet web interface. I believe the router is using DHCP. Should that be changed? DO I need to modify the gateways or something? This is all beyond my knowledge.

Ideas? Options?

Thanks.

The only way you can multi-home a computer on 2 networks without it wanting to use a specific one or both for the internet is to turn-off the gateway reply section of the DHCP reply. If you get an IP address and Subnet mask, without a gateway then the computer should know it can't access anything else through that network port. I'm not sure if that is possible on the "home office" routers. Based on that, you can use the router or just a basic switch and use 2 static ip addresses. In that case, just set your gateway to 0.0.0.0 for that network interface that's connected to your 3d printer "network".

Or if your hellbent on using that "home office" router in DHCP mode, you can just delete the gateway route from your routing table on the computer for the gateway that goes to the printer.

Usually a router has its own configuration page available from a browser. The pages IP-address is something like 192.168.?.?. ( see router manual )
Once you're logged in, you can see a status page with the IP address from all computers connected to the router ( and Duet too )
Remember this address and type it in, like you did before with the router IP.
Now you should see Duets Web control page .

If your Duet is setup with static IP address, than it's best to do the same on your computer as well.

Let's say you have your Duet setup to 192.168.0.100 , netmask 255.255.255.0 , than you will have to setup a fixed IP on your computer in the same range as the Duet: 192.168.0.101 , same netmask.

If you use DHCP (dynamically assigned addresses) than you have two options: take a look onto the WebInterface of the router as o_lampe suggested, or run a small IP scanner utility on your computer to see what devices are on the same network.

The big question is : do you need to access the Duet from "Outside" this small network created by you with your home router ? Does anybody else outside your room need to monitor or start prints ? If you connect the company network to the WAN port, you will not able to access the Printers without special configurations (like port forwarding, or disabling NAT and using standard routing)

You could probably just connect the Duet to your computer directly with a cable without a router or hub between them. Make sure your computer does Auto-MDIX, or use a crossover cable.

Thanks everyone for the suggestions, and here's an update:

No, the printer doesn't need to be seen by anyone but me. I have two others I want to upgrade to the Duet, but have been holding off until I get this one running golden so I want to be able to monitor them all from one computer. This is why I'm using a router so I can connect multiple printers at once.

I got the web interface working by altering the Duet config file so that it's looking for an IP address (DHCP) by setting the IP to 0.0.0.0. I also set the Subnet Mask to 255.255.0.0 both in the Duet and on the Router (a D-Link DIR-655).

I can now access the Duet web interface by entering the IP address assigned by the router (which I can see in the admin section of the router). All controls work and I can upload/print/etc. Awesome.

My only problem now is more of a network issue than a Duet issue. When I plug the "home" router into my second network receptacle, the internet portion of my "work" connection seems to go dead. I can still access the work network drives, but I can't access the internet. It seems to think that this second "home" network is going to provide the internet connection, which it isn't. The instant I disconnect the second (home) network cable, I immediately regain internet access.

Is there a way to stop my computer from looking to this second (home) network for it's internet access? Is there a setting in the router or on my computer I need to change? My computer currently lists two network connections that I'm connected to, the "home" (printer) and "work" ones. The work one says "internet access", and the "home" one doesn't but I don't have internet access anymore. I think PDBeal might be telling me what to do, but I don't understand how to do it.

Disable DHCP on the home router since your using static addresses ip addresses on the Duet, and just set your self a static ip address on your second NIC card on the same subnet as the Duet board. This way, your second NIC card won't have a default gateway and the computer won't try to use it for the internet.