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Airport Extreme wired iMac setup

J

jeremyh

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 13, 2004
13
0
Just bought a new iMac (my very first mac) with an airport extreme base station. The idea (as the guy at the applecentre discussed with me) was that I could connect the iMac using a cable to the base station next to it, then the other computers (A linux box, and a windows laptop) could connect wirelessly sharing our pppoe internet connection.

My problem is a fairly basic one, I've plugged them together, started the base station - but when I start the base station admin utility on the imac it tells me there is no airport card installed, so I can't start the program. How can I configure the base station?
 
wait a minute, seems like there's one too many ethernet cables involved here. If the iMac and base station are to be connected, how will you connect the cable modem/ISDN/whatever? Anyway, i'm not sure whether or not it's even possible to access an AE base station over ethernet, realistically your best options here are a) Connecting the internet connection directly to the base station, then connecting all computers (including the iMac) wirelessly. You'd need a base station and AE card. Or b) connecting to the internet from the iMac, then sharing the internet connection over an AE card (you'd need an AE card but not a base station). I think the sales guy may have misunderstood what you're trying to do here. Or maybe i'm just confused :)

paul
 
There is a lan and a wan port on the base station. wan for the pppoe connection, and lan for the iMac.

They guy at the apple store said this would work... ?
 
Originally posted by jeremyh
There is a lan and a wan port on the base station. wan for the pppoe connection, and lan for the iMac.

They guy at the apple store said this would work... ?
Click to expand...

I think you've got them reversed. LAN is for connecting to a router/modem, WAN is for the rest of your network from what I've seen.

Like paul, I'm confused on why you would need an Airport Extreme card in the iMac and need to hardwire it as well. It's a one or the other type of setup normally.
 
Unless my old computing teacher from highschool got this wrong when he taught us it:

Lan - local area network, for connecting within a small space, like a single building.
Wan - Wide Area network, It's a network that goes beyond one building, like the internet.

I explained to the sales guy that we had two other computers and he said it's probably best to get a base station, no airport card, and just have the base station next to the imac, plugged into it, with the others wirelessly connected.
 
Think about this...

All he wants to do is hard wire (ethernet) his mac to the base station, and go wireless to his linux box and windows laptop. Now, assuming all computers besides the mac has a wireless card, they should be able to connect to the base station from THEIR setup utilities, not the macs. What I BELIEVE you are trying to do (and should have done in the first place) is hard wire the mac to your cable modem, install an airport extreme card in your mac and share the CARD'S connection. If it is within ten days, take the base station back, get the AE card and turn on internet sharing in the sys prefs.
 
Would that require the iMac to be turned on in order for the others to use the internet?

We would not want to keep any of the computers on all the time in order to allow the others to use the internet. The base station appeared to be the only way.

Are you saying that I could configure it through the windows XP laptop with a wireless card?

Just for clarification - running the "airport setup assistant" (as the manual said to do so) on the imac tells me there is no wireless card installed, so it doesn't run. Running the airport admin utility just doesn't show any base stations on the list.
 
Originally posted by jeremyh
Unless my old computing teacher from highschool got this wrong when he taught us it:

Lan - local area network, for connecting within a small space, like a single building.
Wan - Wide Area network, It's a network that goes beyond one building, like the internet.

I explained to the sales guy that we had two other computers and he said it's probably best to get a base station, no airport card, and just have the base station next to the imac, plugged into it, with the others wirelessly connected.
Click to expand...

Actually, I just checked Apple's support docs on that and they say the same as you. I only know that to get a snow base station to work on our campus network it had to be hooked up via the LAN port - unless I'm losing it. ;)

Let's try diagramming this out shall we. Here's how I envision your setup:

Airport Base Station . . . . . . . Linux box and Windows laptop
|
|
|
|
iMac

(. . .) denotes wireless connection
( | ) denotes wired connection

If that's the case, then we can address the configuration issue.

You don't need an Airport card in the machine to connect to and administer an ABS. I do it all the time at work for our base stations, all from my PowerMac. If your machine is getting valid network info via the LAN port from the ABS, you should be set.

Here're some things to check:
iMac connection to the 'Net when connected to ABS
iMac IP when connected to ABS
ABS network name and status (if you haven't configged it yet, use the default info from the setup manual).

If the base station doesn't come up in the list of stations to configure in the Airport Admin Utility, try finding it manually via the IP (your IP via the DSL modem).
 
Thanks for the help.

I flicked through the manual and could not see any default info. The base station hasn't been configured yet because none of the configuration software sees the base station - no base stations appear on the admin utility, and the setup assistant wont do anything because it needs an airport card in the system to run (I'm trying to connect to it through a cable)

Any ideas? What's/where-is the default IP address of the base station, so I could try to add it manually to the admin utility?
 
Yes this is possible

jeremyh said:
Unless my old computing teacher from highschool got this wrong when he taught us it:

Lan - local area network, for connecting within a small space, like a single building.
Wan - Wide Area network, It's a network that goes beyond one building, like the internet.

I explained to the sales guy that we had two other computers and he said it's probably best to get a base station, no airport card, and just have the base station next to the imac, plugged into it, with the others wirelessly connected.
Click to expand...


You have a few options:


a) connect the internet to the WAN port on the Airport and the the imac to the LAN port
b)(never used ppoe so i dont know what it uses) connect the ppoe connection to the imac and then run another ethernet cord the the WAN port on the Airport
c) connect the internet to the WAN port and buy a card for the iMac and run everything wirelessly


as for configuring the the Airport, run a cord from the WAN port the the ethernet port on the iMac and then configure

hope i helped :D
 
no no no no

appleretailguy said:
All he wants to do is hard wire (ethernet) his mac to the base station, and go wireless to his linux box and windows laptop. Now, assuming all computers besides the mac has a wireless card, they should be able to connect to the base station from THEIR setup utilities, not the macs. What I BELIEVE you are trying to do (and should have done in the first place) is hard wire the mac to your cable modem, install an airport extreme card in your mac and share the CARD'S connection. If it is within ten days, take the base station back, get the AE card and turn on internet sharing in the sys prefs.
Click to expand...


DO NO do this! The range compared to a AE is VERY limited. Besides, the iMac would have to be on all of the time.
 
OHHHHH

I get it now!


What you need to do is run a cable from your cable modem to the WAN port on the AE. Then run a cable from the LAN port on the AE to the iMac. Then it should be able to configure it. If for some reason it cant, check your box and see if the disc that has the windows set up utility is there and u might be able to configure from windows. UGH :(
 
Rower_CPU
The typical IP that the ABS uses is 10.0.1.1. Give that a shot.
Click to expand...
When I click "other" on the admin utility, make the IP to 10.0.1.1, it then has a password box, I can't click ok until there is something written in the password box. Is there a default password?

I'll give the windows configuration option a shot.
 
sounds simple enough, hook your modem into the wan port, plug your imac into the lan port, then let your other machines access wirelessly. sounds almost similar to my setup, and by the way paul, yes you can access a AE base station over ethernet. i update my base station all the time from my g5, which is wired to it.

iJon
 
Yeah, sounds simple - although the mac doesn't recognise the base station to be able to configure it.

When my sister gets back I'll try configuring it from her XP laptop, assuming that's possible.
 
jeremyh said:
When I click "other" on the admin utility, make the IP to 10.0.1.1, it then has a password box, I can't click ok until there is something written in the password box. Is there a default password?

I'll give the windows configuration option a shot.
Click to expand...

Default password is "public". That info should be in the documentation, same as the IP.
 
I tried the IP/Password. It tells me it could not read the configuration for the base station. I tried a random IP/pass and it gave me the same error, so it seems the mac can not see the base station at all.

Could I have a faulty base station? Has anyone else done the initial base station setup through a cable rather than wireless?
 
jeremyh said:
I tried the IP/Password. It tells me it could not read the configuration for the base station. I tried a random IP/pass and it gave me the same error, so it seems the mac can not see the base station at all.

Could I have a faulty base station? Has anyone else done the initial base station setup through a cable rather than wireless?
Click to expand...


You could try it through Windows:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=120273

I don't see why you need the IP address of the station, just double click on the Airport Station's Name (it will be your MAC address on a new system) and the type in 'public' for the password...
 
You have to use a cable, not wireless

jeremyh said:
I tried the IP/Password. It tells me it could not read the configuration for the base station. I tried a random IP/pass and it gave me the same error, so it seems the mac can not see the base station at all.

Could I have a faulty base station? Has anyone else done the initial base station setup through a cable rather than wireless?
Click to expand...



I've always had to use a cable anyway. Turn off airport and then try to connect to it. that's what I always have to do. It's possible that you have a faulty Airport. Our Airport's at school are notorious for erasing and corrupting their ROM if they are reset or configured too many times.
 
It tells me it could not read the configuration for the base station.
Click to expand...
You're NOT in the same IP address range as the Base Station.

You can configure the new base stations without an Airport card, I've done it several times using a cable.

The biggest problem is you have to manually change your computers IP address to be within the same range as the new Base Station.

If you don't you get a not found message by the administration utility.

After you set up the Base Station you should be able to go back to letting the machine use DHCP.
 
Thanks for the advice!
Ok, my networking knowledge is fairly limited, but after fiddling around I managed to get the base station to show up in the admin utility if I turned off PPPoe and then set it to manual for the IP (as you suggested). As learnt from my tetris-over-the-lan days, I used the IP 192.168.0.1, which I assume is a standard small lan IP. It worked, as the base station appeared after clicking apply! I clicked configure after selecting the base station, and it prompted for the password. I entered "public", as suggested above. Then after a small delay, it brings up an alert saying

"Airport admin utility was unable to read the configuration of the selected base station
An error occured while reading the configuration"

I reset the base station and got the same message.
Now what? Am I using the right IP? (subnet is default 255....)

Once again, thanks for all your help and patience so far.
 
"Airport admin utility was unable to read the configuration of the selected base station
An error occured while reading the configuration"
Click to expand...
Probably not the right IP, you should be seeing the IP address of the Base Station in the Admin Utility.

Just change the last number and it should let you in...

Just because you can see it doesn't mean that you're in the right IP range for the admin utility to work with the base station.

And I don't remember the default IP of the base station, so I can't help you there.
 
Ah, there we go - why didn't I think of that? Thanks everyone for all the help (sorry for stretching this rather simple matter over a few weeks!)

After setting everything up I can configure the base station from the lan port directly without having to turn off dhcp. Everything works perfectly.

Once again, thanks all.
 
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