Help with an airport network

[joerick]

The situation is this:

I have two Apple Airports. One is modified to include an ISDN modem. They are both wired up to a ethernet hub which connects them to a desktop and a printer. The ISDN Airport (A) is set up to do NAT and DHCP and the other (B) is set up only to act as a ethernet/wireless bridge (no DHCP or NAT).

Here's the problem. Any computer connected wirelessly to Airport B cannot communicate to a computer that is connected (wirelessly) to Airport A or vice versa. A computer on B can connect to the internet using the modem in A however. A machine on A cannot even ping a machine on B. Both Airports are on the same subnets etc.

So the question is can I do this?

Thanks in advance,
Joe

 

[thehuncamunca]

do you have airport extreme stations or airport
if you have extreme, it should be able to be done though i don't know how

 

[cpjakes]

What I don't understand is why you would want this if both base stations are near each other. Shouldn't Airport A be able to serve internet to all of your wireless computers? I would understand if they were in different locations for better signal coverage. Are they?

I would guess that DHCP is on for both of the units. If each base station is routing, then the base stations will see each other, but any machines behind them won't be able to see anything besides the base stations.

I think I have heard of this being possible, perhaps there is a configuration that you are missing somewhere to have the IPs come from only one base station. I think Airport B would need to be given an IP from Airport A and simply treat Airport A as a switch.

Good luck!

cpjakes

 

[joerick]

Thanks so far!
Both stations are original grey stations.
I have changed station B to get its IP from DHCP but it was set in the same subnet and with A as its router.

I have attached a picture to show the settings.

Thanks!

 

[cpjakes]

I need to ask the question again, why can't you just use one base station? Is it for signal coverage? I'm not sure if you can do what you want to do with it. What the Airport to Ethernet bridge does is treats Airport B as a wireless client of Airport A, so you can connect another wired ethernet network wirelessly. I'm not sure that you can configure two separate base stations to run off of one DHCP server. I'm sure it's possible, but I don't know if Apple hardware can do it.

Sorry if I'm not more help, but I don't have Apple WiFi, just Netgear.

cpjakes

 

[joerick]

Yes the other airport is for extra signal coverage. This was set up before airport extreme so is was not possible to link the bases together wirelessly so a ethernet wire was put across the house.

So would it be possible to do this if Airport A was not the router?

I don't really understand how a connection would be 'routed' through bridges when it is all on the same subnet. Perhaps I should set B to give out IP addresses on a different subnet?

Or do I not know what I am talking about?

 

[cpjakes]

I guess I would have to see all the configuration options myself, but it just may not be possible with the original Airport. Could it be the firmware or some software update to the base stations? Just a thought...

What you want to do makes sense, but you should only have one router. As soon as you set up two, especially on cable/DSL boxes, you're instantly blocked from communication. Maybe you could have different subnets so that you could look for machines across Airports, but that seems like it'd be tricky for the machines that cross between base stations.

As I said, I just may not know as much about Apple WiFi. But it seems that you want one to be a router (probably the ADSL base station) and the other just to be an access point. Hopefully someone who has tried (and succeeded...) will catch on to this thread...

cpjakes

 

[Daveman Deluxe]

The answer is simple.

Computers connecting to the AirPort Base Station B need to have their IP addresses set manually. Those computers cannot lease an IP address from AirPort Base Station A via DHCP because they are not connected to it. The screenshot you sent of the setup screen for B actually says as much.

 

[joerick]

I think I am at the bottom of this.

The thing is, Apple Airports find it very difficult to manage 3 connections at once (wireless, ethernet, internet) and the airport really expects a router and then a WAN on the ethernet port. I am really trying to make it do more than it can. The airport either serves internet to wireless and wired clients, or it acts as a bridge.

The whole problem is that Airport A was doing NAT on the connections that were bridged from B (for some reason I don't really know). I think that it will happily bridge connections that have come wirelessly from computers that are actually connected to it, but it does not know where connections have come from when they come from B so they are not bridged.

Or something like that.

Anyway, the only solution to the problem is to buy an isdn router and tell A to only be a bridge.

Perhaps a networking boffin with experience with networks can clear this up?

Thanks anyway to all who replied!

Joe