Is there a way to make a router passive?

[excalibur313]

The network setup in my house is a cable modem going to a firewall router which then goes to an airport router. Is there a way to make the airport router passive that the computers get their ip addresses assigned by the firewall router? I've tried simply disabling the dhcp server but that results in me losing my internet connection. Any suggestions?
Thanks,
Stephen

[Counterfit]

Go into the AirPort admin utility and turn off DHCP (probably listed as "assign IP addresses" or something like that).

[excalibur313]

Will it let me do that since i have a linksys? (yeah i know i went cheap)

[garybUK]

You just need to make the Airport a base station and not a router.

1) Switch off DHCP and NAT and all the routing settings off in the Airport base station.

2) Connect the base station via the LAN port to the Linksys router rather than via the WAN port.

3) Enable dhcp on the linksys router

4) Reboot both routers & get a new IP Address on your clients.

Gary.

[excalibur313]

so sorry both are actually linksys routers. so you're saying on the back on the linksys wireless router to disconnect the line i have running from a lan port on the firewall to the internet port on the wireless to actually be from a lan to a lan port on each router?

[Celeron]

With 2 Linksys routers this isn't a problem at all. What the above posted said is correct. However you do need to change a few things.

1. You need to change the internal IP address of the second router. If you fail to do this both routers will be using 192.168.1.1, which will cause all sorts of problems when you try to connect to the Internet. You can change this in the main page of the Linksys router setup.

2. Turn off the DHCP server on the second router. If its running on the first router you should be all set.

3. Connect the second router to the first using a LAN port, NOT the WAN port. This is a key step as posted above. LAN port, NOT WAN port.

That should be it.

[excalibur313]

So i have a powermac that is also plugged into the wireless router and that is now working fine. The problem is that i cannot connect wirelessly to the internet with any of my apple laptops. additionally how would i go about getting to the setup screen of the wireless router because when i type in the ip address of the router it goes to the firewall one not the wireless.
Thanks again!
Stephen

[emw]

Originally Posted by excalibur313

So i have a powermac that is also plugged into the wireless router and that is now working fine. The problem is that i cannot connect wirelessly to the internet with any of my apple laptops. additionally how would i go about getting to the setup screen of the wireless router because when i type in the ip address of the router it goes to the firewall one not the wireless.
Thanks again!
Stephen

If they both have the same address, which they both will as a default (192.168.1.1), then you'll need to change one of them to a different IP. If you're already connecting to the wired router, just change it to 192.168.1.2 or something. To attach to your wireless router, you're probably better off doing a direct wired connection to it (remove it from the firewall router connection) and go to http://192.168.1.1 and change that one, if you'd prefer.

From there, make sure it is set up as a Gateway, and not a router in the setup menu. Others have given good advice on making sure you get your IP from the firewall router.

I have both a linksys wired and wireless router, and I segregate my wireless traffic from my wired traffic (using the wireless to dole out those IPs), and everything works fine. You shouldn't have to get all IPs from the wired router.

[excalibur313]

Okay thanks guys that worked perfectly! My next question is that i have an airport express. Is there a way to set it up so that it will extend the range of my network since i don't have an airport extreme hub? Another question is how would i go about setting it up so that i could plug a wired computer into the ethernet port of the airport express hub to connect it to the internet?
Thanks a bunch
Stephen

[emw]

Originally Posted by excalibur313

Okay thanks guys that worked perfectly! My next question is that i have an airport express. Is there a way to set it up so that it will extend the range of my network since i don't have an airport extreme hub? Another question is how would i go about setting it up so that i could plug a wired computer into the ethernet port of the airport express hub to connect it to the internet?
Thanks a bunch
Stephen

Here are a couple threads to review:

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=84429

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=83320

They contain discussions on this topic, but essentially the gist is that your second question is yes.

The first question, I believe, is also yes, and there are some threads on that as well (if you do a search). I don't know that any of them are attempting to do both at the same time, though...