Airport Extreme with LAN Setup

[rickeym]

The university I work at has a LAN. For the past two years, I have been attaching my Airport Express to the LAN and sharing an internet connection thus providing wireless access in my office.

Fast forward to today, and I've acquired an Airport Extreme Base Station (AEBS), but I've been unable to get the AEBS to function like the Express. The AEBS doesn't seem to be able to acquire a usable IP number from the router. The IP numbers all seem to be provided by the AEBS rather that the DNS server from the LAN.

Any help appreciated. Thanks.

 

[mihirkamat]

Use it as an access point

I think the problem is that you're trying to use it as a router, instead of as an access point. The university system already assigns you a dhcp ip address. In other words, they have a router assigning out ip addresses.

what you need (i think) is to bypass the dhcp assigning of the AEBS. I'm pretty sure you can turn it off with the airport utility and use it only as an access point.

you'll probably have to google "use aebs as access point" but i think that'll help.

 

[rickeym]

I think the problem is that you're trying to use it as a router, instead of as an access point. The university system already assigns you a dhcp ip address. In other words, they have a router assigning out ip addresses.

what you need (i think) is to bypass the dhcp assigning of the AEBS. I'm pretty sure you can turn it off with the airport utility and use it only as an access point.

you'll probably have to google "use aebs as access point" but i think that'll help.

Thanks for the input. After reading online last night, I think you are right. I'm trying to use it as a router and I need to use it as a switch?

Also, I'm plugging the ethernet cord into the WAN port, should go into one of the LAN ports? Plus, Maybe use the bridge mode option. I'll try all of the above and post a progress report incase someone else has a similar problem.

 

[Euphoria227]

Run a Cat5 into the WAN port, set AEBS as a bridge and set up your wireless however you wish. Now you have wireless and 3 ethernet ports.

 

[mihirkamat]

How to use bridge mode

Yes, exactly. Plug the ethernet cable into one of the 3 lan ports,
then turn off dhcp with airport utility, and set the router to
create a wireless network. I think that should work, and your
actual ip will be assigned by the university router.

Good luck!

 

[rickeym]

Yes, exactly. Plug the ethernet cable into one of the 3 lan ports,
then turn off dhcp with airport utility, and set the router to
create a wireless network. I think that should work, and your
actual ip will be assigned by the university router.

Good luck!

This thing is still kicking my butt.

 

[gsahli]

In Airport Admin there's a setting "Distribute IP addresses." Uncheck (turn off) that to make your AEBS a wireless access point.