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Airport Express Ethernet Bridge?

D

DaveTaylor

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Nov 6, 2007
381
0
Aberdeenshire, Scotland
Basically I have a linux machine and I cant get the internet sharing to work either they ping each other however won't let it access the internet so thats a different story but;

my dad claimed I could use the airport express as a wireless-to-Ethernet bridge, it's connected to the wireless network however how do I get it to transmit the connection through the Ethernet cable?
 
The Airport utility should list "N" in the drop down box that lets you select the type of wireless network. If it lists only "B" and "G" options, then I would suspect that yours is a "G" only Express. (The "N" express came out this year, so if yours is more than a year old, then it is definitely the older version.)
 
If you want to connect the ethernet interface on your linux computer to the ethernet interface on the Airport Express, then connect the Airport Express to your wireless network, then you might want to look at WDS. That would require your wireless base station to handle WDS, and that can sometimes rule out certain types of encryption (WPA/WPA2).

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2044

I have two Airport Expresse base stations set up in my house. One is connected (via Ethernet) to my cable modem. The other is connected (via Ethernet) to my Powermac, and the two base stations talk to each other using WDS, and my other wireless devices (laptop, iPhone) can connect to either base station wirelessly. All the bells and whistles work: WPA2, MAC address filtering ...etc.
 
WDS reduces bandwidth, adds latency

WDS is fine for some situations ... wireless roaming without a wired backbone network for example. But it consumes bandwidth to preform the repeating function and there will be a latency hit as the packets get copied from one wireless segment to the next. If you plan to do any media streaming, I would steer clear of WDS. If you just do web browsing and e-mail type stuff, WDS works fine for that.
 
mcnicks said:
If you want to connect the ethernet interface on your linux computer to the ethernet interface on the Airport Express, then connect the Airport Express to your wireless network, then you might want to look at WDS. That would require your wireless base station to handle WDS, and that can sometimes rule out certain types of encryption (WPA/WPA2).

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2044

I have two Airport Expresse base stations set up in my house. One is connected (via Ethernet) to my cable modem. The other is connected (via Ethernet) to my Powermac, and the two base stations talk to each other using WDS, and my other wireless devices (laptop, iPhone) can connect to either base station wirelessly. All the bells and whistles work: WPA2, MAC address filtering ...etc.
Click to expand...

I've just spent the last while setting up more or less the same! Took ages to work it out. One problem i came across was getting my xbox to talk to the Macs that are now on a different subnet.!?!

Here's a schematic:
SOHO-net-config.gif
 
Gr1f, your first Express would have to be set up in Bridge Mode if it were to be on the same subnet as your Netopia router. I'm not familiar with Apple and WDS, but if it's possible to let your second Express connect to the first Express while the first is running in Bridge Mode, that would solve your subnet issue.
 
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