My home network consist of:

• little linux box acting as Media Server (to play videos off it and projector connected to it) and main routing and firewalling machine. it gets/sets an IP with our ISP and runs a DHCP server and DNS and IP masquerading and NAT-ing for the whole home LAN. The box itself has only one network port but I extended it with another USB network adapter – so, this box is connected to ADSL modem on one interface, and to another router (acting as a switch) on the other interface:
• two SOHO consumer-level routers configured as simple switches/wireless bridges/AP with disabled DHCP and any routing – they just forward any connecting devices to DHCP on the main linux box.

I ordered a very cheap but seemingly powerful router by MikroTik “hAP lite RB941-2ND-TC” and configured it in the same way as other two routers – one of them of not both will need to be replaced by this new one. So, the configuration is as follows in the web interface – Quick Set:

• set wireless Network Name if you want the way you want
• under Internet set:
  • Address Acquisition to “Static”
  • IP address to 192.168.88.1
  • Netmask (leave at) 255.0.0.0 (/8)
  • Gateway to 192.168.88.1
  • untick Firewall Router
• under Local Network:
  • IP Address: 192.168.88.1
  • Netmask: 255.255.255.0 (/24)
  • untick DHCP Server
  • untick NAT
  • leave UPnP unticked
• VPN address should stay unticked
• setup your new admin password, if you haven’t already, and Apply Configuration/Changes.

Now connect the (real) router – linux box to this MikroTik on non-internet port, either ports 1,2,3. You should now be able to connect via MikroTik either with a utp cable (again, not via port marked as internet) or wirelessly.

To go back to configuring your MikroTik, you need to connect to it with a cable and manually set your IP to something like 192.168.88.246 (disable your wifi etc..). Then you should be able to ping MikroTik or open the web interface at 192.168.88.1. Otherwise the MikroTik is somewhat invisible (apart from providing the AP – wifi access point name).