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airport base station on home network

C

Choppaface

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jan 22, 2002
1,187
0
SFBA
I've got a G4, a PC, a printer (phaser 740), and a base station all hooked up to my router, which is hooked up to my cable modem

ever since i got the base station today, at random times my PC and my mac will get re-IPed from 192.168.1.xxx (normal) to 10.x.x.x (not normal and prevents internet access for the PC and G4!) for no aparent reason, but when i rip out the base station, it stops doing that. how can i make it play nice on my network?
 
That is because the airport is acting as a dhcp server. The default settings for the address range it hands out is in the 10.0.1.0/24 range (which means 10.0.1.1-10.0.1.254 range).

Your best bet would be to either turn off dhcp on the airport, or better yet, turn on dhcp on all of your computers on the network. The Airport can act is a router for all of your computers, window, mac, linux, C-64.

Good luck, and if you have any more questions, please let me know.
 
my router already has a DHCP server running, and i need my computers to take IPs from it instead of the base station because it won't seem to let any comp connect with and IP in the 10.0.1.1-10.0.1.254 range (and I can't seem to find any option that will let me change that...). all computers have DHCP selected already (except for the printer, which likes to have is IP put in manually :| ).... there are only two laptops with airport cards, and the other two computers are wired, so I couldn't have them all connect throught the airport hub..or could I hook the cable modem into the airport hub, and then my router into the airport hub?

also I can't get the access the base station using the aiport admin utility. i keep clicking on 'rescan' and it won't show up.
 
so let me get this straight.... the airport can be a router too???

reason im asking is because im going to have to set up a small network in my pad.

i have a tibook and my friend is getting a new imac. i already have a printer and scanner and a cable modem and i need to have all the puters share the cable modem and printer. so the airport and jaguar will solve this problem???
 
Yes, the Airport is a router. For the guy who started the thread, you want to go to the airport base station control panel, go to the network pane

uncheck "distribute ip addresses" that will solve all of your problems. Also, go to the Internet pane, make sure "connect using:" is set to ethernet. Then under
"configure tcp/ip using ethernet" change "configure" to "use dhcp"

This will cause the airport to get an address that your other dsl/cable modem router is handing out. So, now your airport will have a ten address.

You will probably need to make sure that your wireless computer gets an address from the airport in order to make the changes. Also, don't save the changes, until you have changed both the Internet and Network settings. Your computer will need a ten address in order to run the base station admin program and connect to the airport.

For the other person this thread, use the airport for your router. The new airport is perfect. Connect the LAN port to your switch/hub, and connect the WAN port to your dsl/cable modem. Then tell the airport, under the network tab, to distribute IP addresses, All of your devices should then get ip addresses from the airport. It will also act as a NAT firewall to provide some security. You will want to turn off smtp access from the WAN, to protect you against hackers trying to access your airports config.

Hope it helps.
 
the airport admin utility is still not seeing the base station for some reason....i have a linksys router. is there something i need to enable in order to connect to it?
 
thanks peter.

thats solves that.



so now.... is it better to get the first airport or airport 2 with that new encryption system??? i hear that airport 2 is not as flexible as the first one because of the new firewall. people report problems of trying to upload files over 1k to a remote server because of the firewall... doing it wireless. is this a big deal?
 
I had the original airport, I got it a month after the release with a tangerine iBook. Now I have the new snow airport and a ti powerbook and I don't have any problems with anything.

I would recommend the new airport so that you could get the two ethernet ports. It is a much better solution than the single ethernet of the original model.

I would also consider the linksys and netgear access points as well. the airport is a bit pricy. If you don't need the internal modem, then it is worthwhile to consider alternatives.
 
LOL i had it plugged into the wrong hole....how embarassing he he :D

now I can use the admin utility and everything seems to be working fine :D

my dad is at the very edge of base station's effective range, as he barely gets two bars where his desk is, yet he's well within the 50 meter 'limit.' it seems that it might be because there are many obstructions between him and the base station, and most of these obstructions contain quite a bit of steel. would turning on 'interference robustness' really help in this situation?
 
That would actually decrease the range. Some drivers (in windows) call this microwave interference robustness. What you probably want to do is move the base station. Can you mount it on the wall? Ethernet cable is relatively cheap, can you move the base station to another part of the house?
 
we'll probably end up moving it somewhere, but there's no place to hide the wires. they have the same problem at my school, where they need two or three base stations for this one relatively small building because of all the steel in it.
 
abs

anybody else not getting configed you can hook it up direct and config.
grey base stations can overheat and bake their caps, you can ventilate them if they are out tof warranty. You can make antennas out of coffee cans as well, but the preceding statement is for entertainment purposes only iof you know what I mean.
 
Originally posted by peterjhill


For the other person this thread, use the airport for your router. The new airport is perfect. Connect the LAN port to your switch/hub, and connect the WAN port to your dsl/cable modem. Then tell the airport, under the network tab, to distribute IP addresses, All of your devices should then get ip addresses from the airport. It will also act as a NAT firewall to provide some security. You will want to turn off smtp access from the WAN, to protect you against hackers trying to access your airports config.

Hope it helps.
Click to expand...

does this mean, if one follows your advice above, all "connected" computers would only be having 10mbit connections?

you also noted that in order to configure the airport base station, one has to have a "10" address.

i have a "10" address, but i cannot (re)configure my base station. i get the message: "an error occured while reading the configuration."

maybe you got some ideas. thx in advance.
 
Originally posted by redAPPLE


does this mean, if one follows your advice above, all "connected" computers would only be having 10mbit connections?

you also noted that in order to configure the airport base station, one has to have a "10" address.

i have a "10" address, but i cannot (re)configure my base station. i get the message: "an error occured while reading the configuration."

maybe you got some ideas. thx in advance.
Click to expand...

The WAN port on the new Airport is only a 10m/bps connection, but the LAN port is a 10/100 connection. You could connect a 10/100 switch to the LAN port and it would autoneg to 100fullduplex. You could then connect multiple machines to the switch and they would be able to communicate to one another at 100bps.

I think that the reason that the LAN port is 100, is that you could have a theoritical 11 mbps connection talking to something on the LAN port, plus have a theoretical 10 mbps connection from the WAN port to the LAN port, thus 11+10 = 21 mbps. This is the fastest you will see traffic flowing out of the LAN port.

The 10.0.0.0 network is a "Class A" network. It can be subnetted (broken up into smaller pieces) by changing the subnet mask from 255.0.0.0 to other smaller blocks. It is really too much to go into to discuss CIDR blocks and other networking trivia. If you do not know what the subnet mask and network range of the airport, and it is not giving out a good dhcp address, then you should go to apples web site and find out how to reset the airport so that you can set it up correctly.

There is no reason not to use the dhcp server built into the airport, unless you already have dhcp. dhcp is your friend. You should not set up any computers with static ip addresses if you own an airport.

192.168, 172.28, 10.0 these are al rfc 1918 addresses. If you don't know what that is, go to google and type in
rfc 1918
it will send you to a page that will tell you.
 
thanks for the info "peterjhill".

my isp advertises xxx (this much) bandwidth. downloadspeed, uploadspeed etc.

something like 512mbits/sec. etc.

but the airport can only transport 11 (or 21?) mbps.

that means... i do not use up all bandwidth that i "own".

did i understand that right?

if that is so, would it not be wiser to get a router with a better throughputspeed? so i get a faster internet connection?
 
Originally posted by peterjhill


There is no reason not to use the dhcp server built into the airport, unless you already have dhcp. dhcp is your friend. You should not set up any computers with static ip addresses if you own an airport.
Click to expand...

i get 2 static ip address' from my isp.

my network situation looks like this (right now):

1 ibook networked through airport (it uses 1 static ip) (its network config is manual ip using dhcp)

the base station is connected from the wan connection to a switch.

1 ethernet cable is connected from the switch to the cable modem.

1 ethernet cable is connected from the switch to a pc (it uses the second static ip)

now i got a new g4 and would like to network it too. i thought of connecting it to the base station's lan port and evtl. use ipsharing so i can get to the internet.

but now i cannot configure the base station to share the ip.

is there a better setup? is the reason why i cannot reconfigure my base station, is because of the second static ip?
 
Okay, lets try to straighten all this out. At home, I guarentee that RedAPPLE, you get 512 kbits/sec. At work you are probably connected to a LAN at either 10 or 100 megabits/sec. You LAN at work probably has a connection to the Internet, and if it were 512 megabits/sec (which is an unusual speed) it would cost your company about $20,000 per month or more. It would have to be a fractional gigabit Ethernet connection. It is pretty unlikely.

Okay, next up, your home network. You get two static ip addresses. Are they globably routable IP addresses (do they begin with something other than 192,172, or 10). If they are private addresses (which the 192, etc are), then you are already being NAT'ed, and one more layer of NAT (some people call it PAT) won't kill you.

SO..... Configure up the following:
apple airport admin ->
Internet Tab:
Connect using Ethernet
Configure Manually
(Enter in all the information into the boxes. You need to fill this out correctly for DHCP to work)
Network Tab:
Check "Distribute IP Addresses"
Airport client computers "Share a single IP address (using DHCP and NAT)
Port Mapping
Let me know if you are running a web server or ftp server from your computer, or if you are running os x and want to be able to ssh into your home computer

Now, connect the cable modem directly to the airport wan port. Connect your switch to the LAN port, set all of your computers to use DHCP. Your done.
It is very nice that your ISP gives you two ip addresses, but if you don't need them, then don't bother.

If you want two computers to use your two ip addresses, you will need to have a very complicated network configuration that I would highly recommend against. You would need to have two computers manually configured with the real ip addresses. Then you will need to turn on internet connection sharing on one of those two computers. You will then need to tell the airport to get an address, on the Internet Tab, via Ethernet and DHCP. Assuming that your ISP is not running DHCP, then the Airport should get an address from your internet sharing computer. (only run sharing on one computer). Then you tell the airport to distribute ip addresses and share a single ip address using dhcp and nat. Then (and this is the crazy part), you need to connect both the lan and wan port to the switch, and the cable modem to the switch, and any nonairport computers to the switch. Because the airport bridges between the airport and the lan port, your statically configured laptop will speak to the cable modem via the lan port (hopefully), and your airport nat'ted comptuer will have a default gateway of the airport. This might not work. It relies on the airport not doing any proxy arp. It is an extremely complicated setup that is completely unnecessary, unless you know exactly why you want to use your static ip address on computers. Millions of people are using the first scenario above, the one that I recommend. They are all happy with it. Very few things will not work, or could not be made to work, via the port mapping. This second scenario is more of a theortical, this might work, and is probably the only way to make it work.
 
fyi:

the company where i work in does a lot of research. they pay a lot for technology and stuff. but they do not pay the employees

that good. but that is another story.
 
Okay, next up, your home network. You get two static ip addresses. Are they globably routable IP addresses (do they begin with something other than 192,172, or 10). If they are private addresses (which the 192, etc are), then you are already being NAT'ed, and one more layer of NAT (some people call it PAT) won't kill you.
Click to expand...

fyi: i have a 194.xxx.xxx.xxx ip address...
 
In that case, they are giving you globally routable IP addresses. Therefore, you would not be doing Nat on top of Nat. I would recommend that you do my first option, give the airport one of the ip's that your isp has given you, and then do NAT for all your internal machines.

Are you running any servers that you want to give access to over the internet? In that case you will need to do port mapping.
 
hi peterjhill.

as of now, i do not have any servers running. i might do that in the future. but not right now.

i would try out your "first option" and i would give some feedback soon.

thanks for your help (in advance)
 
Internet Tab:
Connect using Ethernet
Configure Manually
(Enter in all the information into the boxes. You need to fill this out correctly for DHCP to work)
Click to expand...

my isp gave ma a gateway address: 10.0.2.6

but the static ipaddress given to me is a 194.xxx.xxx.xxx

according to the airport admin utility, the gateway/router address is wrong.

i then configured a gateway address: 194.xxx.xxx.203 (the 2nd and 3rd segments are identical)

do you have an idea if this is the reason i still cannot connect to the internet?

i read an apple article: "designing aiport networks 2" and it stated on page 31: "if your isp asks you for the mac address of your base station, use the address of the ethernet wan port, printed on the label on the bottom of the base station."

when i registered for an internet connection, my isp asked me to send me my computer's mac address.

do you think, i need to send the airports mac address?

i am really happy that you have a lot of patience helping out...

thanks again.
 
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