Airport Express + Airport + Downstairs Wired

[Nik_Doof]

Ok, im interested in getting a Airport Express for downstairs, i already have a Airport sat upstairs serving 2 macs downstairs. I have 100mbit wired upstairs with a huge cable running down the stairs to my ps2 in the living room...

my question is, i know the Airport Express can be used in WDS mode to extend my existing network, but can the ether socket be used as a link to a small wired network downstairs for my consoles and any laptops my friends bring round, or is the socket for hostile network connections (DSL etc..)?

The main airport serves DHCP and NAT, sooo can it be used to bridge that small network onto the rest? or will i have have another NAT downstairs?

 

[mkrishnan]

my question is, i know the Airport Express can be used in WDS mode to extend my existing network, but can the ether socket be used as a link to a small wired network downstairs for my consoles and any laptops my friends bring round, or is the socket for hostile network connections (DSL etc..)?

I'm pretty sure the socket is for connection to WAN (what you're calling "hostile" above). Hmmm...I think, oddly enough, you could do it the *other* way -- is that an option? That is, the Airport Express upstairs, the AEBS connected to it via WDS downstairs, and the wired HW downstairs connected to the AEBS via the LAN port.

I'm pretty sure you won't need any additional HW either way to get DHCP/NAT in both places. Definitely shouldn't if all the clients put together are <10 IP addresses (how many the Express can handle) and probably not even if there are <10 on the Express and more on the AEBS.