Posted: Sun Nov 24, 2024 19:19 Post subject: Is this feasible? (2 WANs, 2 LANs, 2 dd-wrt VMs, 1 PC)
Greetings. We have two physically-connected but functionally-separate buildings, each with their own separate LAN. Both buildings each have their own WAN connection, but they share a single multi-port fiber ONT located in one of the buildings. As it is right now, each building has its own router connected to the ONT, and therefore each building has its own static WAN IP. This final point must remain unchanged, the two buildings cannot share a single WAN connection.
What I am contemplating, though, is replacing the two physically-separate routers with a single x86 PC with four GigE ports (a retired pfSense box) running two separate VMs of dd-wrt, one for each building, as shown in the attached diagram. This would free up some space in our equipment rack.
Dual-WAN failover is NOT an end-goal here, and the two LANs must remain physically distinct with zero communication ability between them, and as mentioned before, each LAN must retain its own separate WAN IP. Basically, I just want to use a single box to emulate the two-WAN/two-router/two-LAN setup that currently exists.
To keep it simple I would just have two DD-WRT pc's running with their own WAN and Lan ports. As long at the WAN has it's own IP address separate this will work. Running a VM dd-wrt might become extremely difficult to manage the port assignments.
I would suggest checking on Facebook marketplace for cheap computers and NIC adapters. Stick with Intel NICs if you can otherwise Realtek has worked fine for me. I have a 4770K system with 16GB ram with a 6 port Realtek 2.5Gbpe Ethernet ports and have the onboard Ethernet as WAN. The motherboard I got from Work with the RAM for something that was going to be thrown away since it couldn't run Windows 11 without locking up.
