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Can Airport Extreme N base station be connected to a Linksys Wireless router Lan port

B

bujjai2007

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 5, 2007
23
0
Boston, MA
Hi,

I got an airport extreme N base station. I currently have a linksys wireless router. Can I connect the airport extreme to the lan port of the linksys and have two wireless routers operating in parallel. If so, how do I do that ? I tried connecting the AE WAN/LAN ports to one of the LAN ports of the linksys and the AE does not get an IP address and does not connect to the internet.

TIA
 
Yes, you can do this.

Unfortunately, I'm not at home and so can't tell you the exact settings. And, with the AirPort Extreme, I think by default it assumes it's not connected to a different router, so I believe (and will correct once I get home if no one answers before me) that you need to tell it not to distribute IP addresses as well as, if I recall, a different than default setting on the router type.

But, yes, it is possible, and I should have the answer to you within 2 hours or so.
 
I use this type of setup to extend wireless coverage to remote areas that aren't quite reached by the main router. The idea, and I can't be specific because I've never done this with an Apple router, is to turn off DHCP completely on the slave access point. Connect that access point via its uplink port -- often hard to find documentation on this, but it tends to be the last LAN port if it even exists -- to any LAN port on the master router. What this does is that any DHCP request issued to the slave access point gets passed up to the master router, meaning it makes it all part of the same network.
 
I think the only setting you need to do (with the new AirPort Utility) is set the Internet | Connection Sharing option to Off (Bridge Mode). Once you save that setting, the DHCP and NAT tabs will disappear.

If you plug one of the LAN ports from your new Airport Extreme into a LAN port on the LinkSys, then the Airport should pick up a DHCP address for itself, and let clients that connect via it wirelessly pick up their own DHCP address from the LinkSys.
 

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Thanks. I will wait for the response. Apple was not very helpful wrt this as linksys is a third party product :)

I want to do this to segregate the 802.11abg - PC laptops, from the 802.11n (my macbook and future apple products). That way adding the 802.11g PC laptops will not degrade the n performance.
 
aristobrat said:
I think the only setting you need to do (with the new AirPort Utility) is set the Internet | Connection Sharing option to Off (Bridge Mode). Once you save that setting, the DHCP and NAT tabs will disappear.

If you plug the WAN port from your new Airport Extreme into a LAN port on the LinkSys, then the Airport should pick up a DHCP address for itself, and let clients that connect via it wirelessly pick up their own DHCP address from the LinkSys.
Click to expand...

How did you get to this screen ?

Thanks
 
bujjai2007 said:
How did you get to this screen ?

Thanks
Click to expand...
First, you must have installed the AirPort Extreme software that came with the AE.

This installed Applications->Utilities->AirPort Utility.

Open that app (make sure you pick "AirPort Utility" - there may be others with similar names). It should, after a moment, display your AE.

Double-click on the AE's icon - on the left side (ignore the right side of the app).

This will open the configuration panel, where you should be able to make this change and apply it, which will reboot the AE.
 
jsw said:
First, you must have installed the AirPort Extreme software that came with the AE.

This installed Applications->Utilities->AirPort Utility.

Open that app (make sure you pick "AirPort Utility" - there may be others with similar names). It should, after a moment, display your AE.

Double-click on the AE's icon - on the left side (ignore the right side of the app).

This will open the configuration panel, where you should be able to make this change and apply it, which will reboot the AE.
Click to expand...

Hi all,

That did not solve the problem. The AE base station is not getting an IP address from the linksys. I manually added an ip address for the AE with a default gateway pointing to the default linksys address. That did not work. So I am stumped. I have the wan port on AE connected to one of the lan ports on the linksys.

Thanks
 
If your broadband is connected to your linksys wan port, you want to use a non-wan (lan) port on the AEn to connect to your linksys.

If you use the AEn wan port, you would have to allow management via the wan port and all the other things through the wan port...

alternatively, you could connect your broadband to your AEn and connect your linksys the AE.

Since I already have coverage throughout my house with both APs, I decided to put the AEn in 5 Ghz A/N only mode. This way my linksys (2.5 GHz B/G) and my AEn do not interfere with each other. It also allows me to minimize client interference between my two laptops and thereby maximizing my thoughput on each. YMMV.

The Airport disk is working great, btw.. I have a usb 2.0 hub connected to the AEn and so far have 2 disks and a printer connected. I will be adding a third disk soon. It would be nice to have per disk permission settings, but I have not figured that out yet.. I have a feeling that there is more that can be done that is not documented.. like the user account settings..
 
aristobrat said:
crap crap crap crap crap crap crap

I totally apologize.

Go LAN to LAN when in bridge mode.
Click to expand...

NP. Still does not work. I am getting two errors under airport->summary->base station status

Ethernet unplugged - Nothing is connected to the base station wan port. Connect the broadband modem or network to the Ethernet WAN port :(

Internet Connection - Your base station does not have a valid IP address.

Looks like I may have to ditch the linksys :)
 
bujjai2007 said:
NP. Still does not work. I am getting two errors under airport->summary->base station status

Ethernet unplugged - Nothing is connected to the base station wan port. Connect the broadband modem or network to the Ethernet WAN port :(

Internet Connection - Your base station does not have a valid IP address.

Looks like I may have to ditch the linksys :)
Click to expand...

I finally got it working. I had to use a straight through cable and then reset the linksys. The AE comes up fine and I am in business. Thanks all for the very quick help and appropriate pointers. I setup the AE as a N only network at 5GHz and it is pretty fast.
 
I have separate wireless networks at my place, like what you're doing.

I used the new Extreme to setup a 802.11n-only 5ghz network, and used my old Extreme (setup as a bridge, connected from its LAN port to a LAN port on the new Extreme) for 802.11b/g. It gets the "unplugged ethernet" error all the time too.

I'm looking at my old Extreme (which is setup in the same spot you'd put your new Extreme) and see that its been setup with a static IP, not DHCP. Maybe it can't pull DHCP?

If that's the case, I'll go beat my head repeatedly against my desk for causing you so much grief following my wrong advise.
 

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aristobrat said:
I have separate wireless networks at my place, like what you're doing.

I used the new Extreme to setup a 802.11n-only 5ghz network, and used my old Extreme (setup as a bridge, connected from its LAN port to a LAN port on the new Extreme) for 802.11b/g. It gets the "unplugged ethernet" error all the time too.

I'm looking at my old Extreme (which is setup in the same spot you'd put your new Extreme) and see that its been setup with a static IP, not DHCP. Maybe it can't pull DHCP?

If that's the case, I'll go beat my head repeatedly against my desk for causing you so much grief following my wrong advise.
Click to expand...

It (at least the new one) does use DHCP to get a new address from the old router. So I don't think what you said was incorrect. Ideally a static IP should also work, which is what I tried. My suspision was that the linksys needed a reboot and a straight through cable. I would suggest the following set of operations for others.

Cables: Have a twisted ethernet cable and a straight through cable in hand.
Connect the straight through cable between AE lan port to the lan port of the existing wireless router (linksys/AE etc.)
Reboot the existing wireless router.
Check to see if the AE got its IP address and you can connect to the web.
If that fails repeat the above steps with a twisted cable.

Most current lan ports autodetect the cable type and flip the signals in hardware, but one cannot take a chance.
 
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