Setting up a "Private LAN" separate from a "Public LAN"

[jdole25]

Hello. I'm having trouble setting up a network to work how I want and I'm not exactly sure if it's 100% possible. Here's what exactly I want to do:

I'm at a university and we are allowed to use only one Ethernet port for any networking. Whatever we do with that Ethernet port is completely up to us. The problem here is that I have multiple devices that I want to connect to this port and to do so I have a WRT600Nv1 router (running the latest DD-WRT Mega Build). This works fine for connecting the devices to the internet but I would also like to have some sort of private "home" network on the router itself where my devices can connect freely to one another without having to worry about other people on the school network accessing my shared files. Is it possible to run some configuration where my computers would have a form of "virtual LAN" between one another that is separate from a "public LAN" where each device would separately have access to the internet through the school's network? If so, would someone mind explaining to me how I would manage to set up this sort of configuration?

Would it be better to just use password protected methods of sharing files between my computers on a public LAN instead?

Any help or suggestions are welcome! Thanks.

[YeOldeStonecat]

The router already separates your little private LAN from the school LAN. The router runs something like 192.168.1.xxx for your internal LAN. NAT (Network Address Translation) hides that private network from the network on the outside of the router (your schools LAN). Just ensure that your wireless is locked down...disabled if you don't use wireless, or if you do..use WPA2 security. Ensure your routers web admin password is good.

[jdole25]

Hard to believe that I was overlooking the sole purpose of the router itself. For some reason I had thought I would need to have the router forward all connections to the main network to get separate public IP addresses. I got it all set up now and it seems to be working just as I had hoped it would. Thanks!