Question about my new Airport Time Capsule.

[SVTmaniac]

My awesome wife got me one of the new 3TB Time Capsules for Christmas. I set it up as following:

TC plugged into internet modem via ethernet to the 1st port on the modem.
Mac Mini plugged into TC via Ethernet
2 Retina MacBook Pros connected to TC via 5ghz Wireless AC.

On my Internet modem, I turned off the WiFi router portion and everything so far is connecting to the TC just fine and everything seems to be working ok. The only thing that confuses me is when I look at the TC in the Airport Utility under the Network tab, Router mode is set to (Bridge Off) Should it not be set to DHCP since it is handling all the routing of the network?

Like I said, everything is working great but I'm confused on how the router mode can be off and everything still connect to it? I'm no networking expert, but I do know enough to get me in trouble.

Thanks for any help in advance.

 

[Jefe's MacAir]

You can change that. I did in order to get the guest network to actually work. In my case it gave me a Double NAT warning. I selected ignore and it doesn't warn me anymore. This is considered a normal work around for my particular scenario. I don't think you'll have any issues with it either. You can always try it and if it doesn't work, switch it back.

 

[SVTmaniac]

Actually I just figured it out. The Internet Modem is still acting as the DHCP router and the TC is the bridge. I changed the modem to transparent bridge and the TC to DHCP + NAT and now it's working as it should. The modem / router that Centurylink game me was crap so I didn't want it handling anything other than being a basic modem.

 

[priitv8]

Routing, DHCP and NAT are 3 different things, but glad it worked out for you.
If your TC gets routable public IP address on it's WAN port, you can now turn on the Back to My Mac feature on your TC and enjoy connecting to your TC disk(s), printers and other Macs at home from anywhere in the world.
PS DHCP is just for automating unique IP address assignment to hosts on your network. Without it, you'd have to manually config all TCP/IP parameters (IP, subnet, default GW, DNS) on all networked devices. However, having more than one DHCP server on your network is just asking for trouble. Therefore you shall have only one.