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Using WiFi and ethernet networks at the same time

Hi,

I have a Mac Mini with Mac OS Catalina 10.15 on it.

I have a network switch with multiple devices connected to it (Signage video players, and video projectors)

I can access these devices in a web browser, using their IP addresses.

IP adresses of the devices are in the 192.168.1.100 range.

That is all working fine.

Now I also want the Mac to access the internet over the Wifi, so that I can connect to it remotely if I need to troubleshoot something or update some files.

The Wifi in the space I am in, is on the 10.10.20.50 range.


My problem is that I can't access the wifi while the ethernet network is active.

If I set the ethernet network to inactive, then I can reach the internet over the Wifi network.

But as soon as I activate the ethernet network, wifi stops working.

Both Wifi and ethernet networks show up as connected (green dot) in System settings.

I'm not a network specialist, can someone help me with this and tell me how to make this work?


Thanks

Posted on Jun 14, 2023 1:25 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Jun 14, 2023 1:41 PM

There are gaps in your description that makes it hard to be precise, but I can at least offer some pointers.


First, it's entirely possible to use multiple networks. I do it all the time.


It's clear you have two different network spaces - 192.168.1.x and 10.10.20.x, so that's a good start.


What's missing:


Is the wired connection (192.168.1.x) completely private? There is no connection to the internet over this network?

Is the wireless network your path to the wider internet?


How are you trying to use the Mac Mini? You state "... so that I can connect to it remotely", but using what protocol? screen sharing? SSH? etc?


Additionally, where are you trying to connect from? From another device on the wireless 10.10.20.x network? or from some random device on the wider internet?


In general, whatever connection has your public internet access (e.g. your wireless network) should be listed first in your network services order (i.e. top of the list). There's an option in System Settings to Set Service Order to do this.


In this way, the Mac Mini can access both local networks directly, and any non-local network traffic would be routed across to the router on the wireless network.


To allow incoming access from the internet, you're going to have to setup access controls and/or port forwarding on the wireless router, to permit incoming traffic into the network to get to the Mini.


More than that will require additional details as to your setup and goals.

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jun 14, 2023 1:41 PM in response to Nexus600

There are gaps in your description that makes it hard to be precise, but I can at least offer some pointers.


First, it's entirely possible to use multiple networks. I do it all the time.


It's clear you have two different network spaces - 192.168.1.x and 10.10.20.x, so that's a good start.


What's missing:


Is the wired connection (192.168.1.x) completely private? There is no connection to the internet over this network?

Is the wireless network your path to the wider internet?


How are you trying to use the Mac Mini? You state "... so that I can connect to it remotely", but using what protocol? screen sharing? SSH? etc?


Additionally, where are you trying to connect from? From another device on the wireless 10.10.20.x network? or from some random device on the wider internet?


In general, whatever connection has your public internet access (e.g. your wireless network) should be listed first in your network services order (i.e. top of the list). There's an option in System Settings to Set Service Order to do this.


In this way, the Mac Mini can access both local networks directly, and any non-local network traffic would be routed across to the router on the wireless network.


To allow incoming access from the internet, you're going to have to setup access controls and/or port forwarding on the wireless router, to permit incoming traffic into the network to get to the Mini.


More than that will require additional details as to your setup and goals.

Jun 14, 2023 2:10 PM in response to Camelot

Hi Camelot,


Sorry for the gaps!

Your reply is very helpful.

-Yes, the wired connect is completely private.

-No connection to the internet over the wired network, I only use it to reach the devices connected to the network switch.

-The Wifi network will be used to connect to the Mac Mini with TeamViewer.

-I want to connect to the Mac mini from the wider internet.


-I want to install TeamViewer QuickSupport app on the Mac Mini and the TeamViewer client on my Macbook pro to connect to the mac mini.


But when we tried to go to the TeamViewer web site, we realized that we had this issue of not being able to reach the internet over wifi.


- I am away from the Mac mini now, but I will ask someone there to check what the order of the networks is and make sure the Wifi is the first one.


I will comeback here to let you know how it goes.


Thanks.

Jun 14, 2023 2:15 PM in response to Nexus600

- I am away from the Mac mini now, but I will ask someone there to check what the order of the networks is and make sure the Wifi is the first one.


Given what you've said, I'm 99% sure that the service order is going to the crux of your problem.


Think of it this way - when the Mac Mini tries to reach a non-local address, it uses the network services in the order listed in System Settings to work out how to get to the Internet, and as you've stated the wired network is entirely private.


You might also get away with making sure there is no router address set on the wired interface - this should force a fallback to the next interface, but setting the service order is a better option.


You'll also need to setup port forwarding on your wifi router to permit incoming traffic to get to the Mac Mini (by default, incoming traffic should be blocked).

Jun 15, 2023 7:39 AM in response to Camelot

HI Camelot,


Service order was the issue, it was changed this morning and we can now access both networks at the same time.


Next step will be to do a test connection with TeamViewer to see if port forwarding is activated on the Wifi router.


One last question for you if I may:

As a plan B, could we connect a wired internet access from the building to the switch I am using for my devices and access the internet with that network?

The wired internet is likely not on the same network space as my private network.

Would that cause a problem?

The place all this is installed in, is a big building and it is difficult to get the IT department to help us, so I am trying to make this work without getting them involved as much as possible.


Thanks for your help.

Jun 15, 2023 9:13 AM in response to Nexus600

> As a plan B, could we connect a wired internet access from the building to the switch I am using for my devices and access the internet with that network?


Conceptually, yes, but there are a lot of details that could derail that, especially since you say:


> wired internet is likely not on the same network space as my private network


Do you mean on a different network space as the 192.168.1.x address space we already covered?


That might work, but connecting two disparate networks to the same switch can have all kinds of problems.


For example, how do devices in each network get their IP addresses? Is everything hard-coded, with someone manually assigning IP addresses to each device? or do you have a DHCP server?


If your 192.168.1.x network has a DHCP server, and the network you want to connect for public internet access ALSO has a DHCP server, you've now connected two DHCP servers to your switch and there is no simple way to control which one responds to any device (in the worst case, your private-only devices could suddenly get a public-facing IP address, which you probably don't want).


There are ways of segregating the switch into 'virtual LANs' (or VLANs) so you can run two separate networks on the same switch, but you first need to check if the switch supports that (not all do, especially low-end consumer switches), and you have to configure each port on the switch to be in LAN 1 or LAN 2 (or both, in the case of the Mac Mini).


So there's lots to unpack there. No way of knowing if it will work without more details.


Jun 15, 2023 10:48 AM in response to Camelot

Ok, I figured it would not be a simple thing to do, but just wanted to check with you.


We will do a first connection test with TeamViewer tomorrow morning and see if it works or not.

If we have to go for plan B or some kind of plan C, I think we will demand that the IT department get involved.


Again, thanks a lot for your help!


I will let you know how our test goes tomorrow.

Using WiFi and ethernet networks at the same time

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