Airport IP Hell

bigcharlie · Mar 2, 2006, 01:19 PM

Right i'm having a bit of trouble with my airport at home,

The situation is a cable modem (d-link 300 or 500) plugged into an airport extreme or snow basestation (its a white teardrop with three white lights, a WAN and a LAN)

this relays my internet connection via another airport express i think (the one that plugs into a socket and is square) this relays the internet to my powerbook which would otherwise be out of range because of all the brick walls at home.

Thats ok but the basestation is only sharing one ip address if i want to use another laptop it has to steal this ip address from the powerbook (usually putting the powerbook to sleep does it) and other wifi products like the xbox 360 cant get an ip address at all.

I undertand that the basestation cant run dhcp if it is itself configured over dhcp but i cant get the manual assignment for the base station to work, it always states that ive used an invalid range (or something like that) even when i use the exact information that works automatically on dhcp.

Ive upgraded the firmware on both airports and i seem to have to reset and reconfigure the airport express everytime i alter the settings on the base station, because otherwise it throws the whole network out.

And although highly inadvisable ive turned all the security off temporarily

What makes this worse is that at my office ive got a 5 year old linksys wireless router that worked perfectly out of the box and any device instantly works with it even with all the fiddly security precautions on.

Im contemplating throwing the basestation out of the window at the moment.

So any help, thoughts? any crucial info ive left out of my description?

edesignuk · Mar 2, 2006, 01:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bigcharlie

I undertand that the basestation cant run dhcp if it is itself configured over dhcp but i cant get the manual assignment for the base station to work

That's not true. The AirPort can be set to get an IP from your ISP with DHCP (your WAN IP) and set to dish out IP address for systems on your LAN using DHCP.

You just need to tick this off.

bigcharlie · Mar 2, 2006, 01:57 PM

Right, but when i tick the distribute range it wont let me because the Base station is setup via DHCP.

bigcharlie · Mar 4, 2006, 07:44 AM

So i eventually fixed it by:

turning DHCP off on the dlink modem,
assigning a fixed ip to the airport:

IP 192.168.1.5
Sub 255.255.255.0
Router 85.xxx.xxx.xx
DNS 70.xxx.xxx.xx

Then switching distribute IP addresses on, with a range of
192.168.1.10 - 192.168.1.100

Then, I Hard Reset the Airport Extreme and configured it manually as a relay station, inputting all the details of the first base station manually (because it couldnt see the base station).
This worked nicely and then in order to have WEP security, i had to download wep key maker, input a phrase and then use the hexadecimal key it generated for the airport base stations WEP key.

I then got to type this thrilling string of 26 digits and letters into every device that was going on the network. lots of fun doing that on the psps god-awful inputting system.

I then reset the Extreme again because it wasnt working - which seems to happen constantly and hey presto! wireless access all around my house and it only cost me about six to eight hours.

I would strongly urge anyone with a mixture of Mac, PC and other wireless devices to get a Linksys because configuring Airport Stations is largely a horrible experience.

ElectricSheep · Mar 4, 2006, 10:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bigcharlie

Right, but when i tick the distribute range it wont let me because the Base station is setup via DHCP.

The only time I've ever had an airport basestation complain about distributing IP addresses is when its configured as a WDS client.

Are you using WDS? How is that configured?

bigcharlie · Mar 4, 2006, 11:23 AM

WDS was configured with the bases station being the main hub and the express being a relay station.

It seems it was the DHCP on the cable modem and its effect on the airport that was the problem anyway.

Mar 2, 2006, 01:19 PM	#1
bigcharlie macrumors newbie Join Date: Mar 2006	Airport IP Hell Right i'm having a bit of trouble with my airport at home, The situation is a cable modem (d-link 300 or 500) plugged into an airport extreme or snow basestation (its a white teardrop with three white lights, a WAN and a LAN) this relays my internet connection via another airport express i think (the one that plugs into a socket and is square) this relays the internet to my powerbook which would otherwise be out of range because of all the brick walls at home. Thats ok but the basestation is only sharing one ip address if i want to use another laptop it has to steal this ip address from the powerbook (usually putting the powerbook to sleep does it) and other wifi products like the xbox 360 cant get an ip address at all. I undertand that the basestation cant run dhcp if it is itself configured over dhcp but i cant get the manual assignment for the base station to work, it always states that ive used an invalid range (or something like that) even when i use the exact information that works automatically on dhcp. Ive upgraded the firmware on both airports and i seem to have to reset and reconfigure the airport express everytime i alter the settings on the base station, because otherwise it throws the whole network out. And although highly inadvisable ive turned all the security off temporarily What makes this worse is that at my office ive got a 5 year old linksys wireless router that worked perfectly out of the box and any device instantly works with it even with all the fiddly security precautions on. Im contemplating throwing the basestation out of the window at the moment. So any help, thoughts? any crucial info ive left out of my description?

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Mar 2, 2006, 01:57 PM	#3
bigcharlie Thread Starter macrumors newbie Join Date: Mar 2006	Right, but when i tick the distribute range it wont let me because the Base station is setup via DHCP.

Mar 4, 2006, 07:44 AM	#4
bigcharlie Thread Starter macrumors newbie Join Date: Mar 2006	So i eventually fixed it by: turning DHCP off on the dlink modem, assigning a fixed ip to the airport: IP 192.168.1.5 Sub 255.255.255.0 Router 85.xxx.xxx.xx DNS 70.xxx.xxx.xx Then switching distribute IP addresses on, with a range of 192.168.1.10 - 192.168.1.100 Then, I Hard Reset the Airport Extreme and configured it manually as a relay station, inputting all the details of the first base station manually (because it couldnt see the base station). This worked nicely and then in order to have WEP security, i had to download wep key maker, input a phrase and then use the hexadecimal key it generated for the airport base stations WEP key. I then got to type this thrilling string of 26 digits and letters into every device that was going on the network. lots of fun doing that on the psps god-awful inputting system. I then reset the Extreme again because it wasnt working - which seems to happen constantly and hey presto! wireless access all around my house and it only cost me about six to eight hours. I would strongly urge anyone with a mixture of Mac, PC and other wireless devices to get a Linksys because configuring Airport Stations is largely a horrible experience.

Mar 4, 2006, 11:23 AM	#6
bigcharlie Thread Starter macrumors newbie Join Date: Mar 2006	WDS was configured with the bases station being the main hub and the express being a relay station. It seems it was the DHCP on the cable modem and its effect on the airport that was the problem anyway.