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Create a dual-Airport 51 Mbit wireless network bridge Network
I recently ran into the problem of linking two existing ethernet networks in my company.

Our first network has an SHDSL Internet access routed into the network by a SHDSL router. Our network is a heterogeneous, running a mix of Macintosh, Linux and Windows machines. We are in the graphical industry meaning we have heavy loads of files that need to be transfered at quite some speed over the network.

Now we were given a second floor office space by our landlord. However, wiring the network to that second floor seemed to be just unmanageable. A wireless connection would be just the right thing for us - so we thought!

Although the Macs in question are not that old, some Dual Processor PowerPC 1GHz "Mirror Doors," this particular model is just not "Airport Extreme" capable, meaning, you can only plug in an ordinary Airport card (i.e. 802.11b standard, at 11Mbit/s). This, however, would have been definitively too slow for us. I wanted a 802.11g, i.e. 51Mbit/s connection at least! So, what could I do?!

I thought of maybe linking the original network with the new second floor workstations with two Airport Extreme base stations, so I phoned up my dear friend Jason at Apple Store in Ireland - wonder who else is good friends with Jason! He then phoned up Apple Support - and I did the same to maybe even get a second opinion. Both said that owning older Macs, there would be no way of linking them by Airport Extreme, i.e. 802.11g, i.e. 51Mbit/s, i.e. so-called "Wi-Fi" wireless network.

I had a very long look through Internet pages. No answer whatsoever. Phoning up other wireless network vendours also turned out of no help: there was simply no way to join to networks over the air at a speed of 51 Mbit/s. Or was there?!

[robg adds: Read the rest of the article for a detailed solution to this problem. I haven't tested this one, so if anyone can confirm it, please do so via the comments...]

I bought both Airport Extreme base stations and tried myself. After configuring and reconfiguring for about two days, I was successful: my second floor work stations are now linked into the first and home network over the air at 51 Mbit/s - the fastest you can get at present. Here is my setup, which will also work for any kind of operation system provided there is an Airport base station configuration software (currently this is Mac and Windows).

First the setup of the base station within the old/first network: for initial setup, I needed to directly plug the base station into my Mac. I set my network control panel to DHCP to automatically get an IP (this was the default in my network anyway since the SHDSL router routing in the Internet has a DHCP server and all clients obtain their address from this machine.

Next I configured the base station as you would configure any base station (just follow the instructions in the manual or let yourself flow over the settings, basically everything is self explaining anyway). Make sure to give the wireless network a meaningful but not too easy to guess name and for security reasons, switch to closed network to conseal your network name over the air and prevent possible other compatible network cards from next doors to share into your own network.

Now click on the Internet tab. I found out that the naming of the tabs can be a little confusing: the "Internet tab" actually is the configuration of the LAN port of your base station. If you want to operate the base station off an ethernet switch - which you need to do if you are in a larger network anyway, I connected mine directly to a free switch port using a patch cable - you need to give your base station a STATIC tcp/ip-address. Now this is vital! Using DHCP may cause address confusion over the network! I had not thought so, but it proved to be the only way to make the base station configurable through the admin tool if not connected DIRECTLY to your Mac, but rather connected to a switch's port on a network. Make extra sure you use a yet free ip-address within the range of possible addresses set by the DHCP server on your network! If this address is manually assigned, the DHCP server will spare it out from its range automatically and not assign the same address to yet another machine. Enter the DHCP server's IP in the fields "Router" and "DNS-Server". Now save to the Airport and wait for it to reboot. After rebooting it is now safe to de-connect the base station from the Mac and connect it to the network at any given point, i.e. a free router's or switch's port.

Now go back to the admin tool and reconnect logically to your base station. Now go to the Network tab. THIS actually describes the "wireless network side" to the airport. Click on "Share IP-addresses", and click on "use a range". This sets up a wireless DHCP server if you want to be able to connect to the Airport using other Airport clients! Quite useful if you have people with laptops around. For basic office applications, 11 Mbit is fine anyway and PC-Cards compatible to 802.11b are around for about 30 Euros / 30 Dollars anyway. Set a good range, somewhat above the range of your first DHCP server, but make sure it is a valid range under your subnet mask!

Now save everything and connect your second Airport Extreme base station directly to the first remote Mac. Set the same name for the wireless work group and again for security reasons configure as closed network. Make also certain to use the SAME channel as the first Airport to get a connection. The next bit is somehow tricky, since at first the Airports will just not "see" each other! So go to both Airports and jot down their MAC-address for the wireless network side.

At the second Airport, now go to the Internet tab and chose "Airport (WDS)" as network. Below enter the MAC-address of the first Airport (now on the switch or router). Again do manually configure the IP and give it a static address within the range you have set at the wireless DHCP server on the other side!

Click on Network and disable everything. Again, skip the rest and go directly to WDS, configure as remote base station, and enter the MAC-address of the FIRST airport again.

Click on save and let the second Airport boot again. Now you can plug this one to a router on your SECOND network too. Go to your first network and start the admin tool, chose the first Airport, click on WDS, configure as main station, add a new remote and MANUALLY enter the second Airport's wireless MAC address. Save and off you go:

51MBits wireless network bridge !
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Create a dual-Airport 51 Mbit wireless network bridge | 10 comments | Create New Account
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Create a dual-Airport 51 Mbit wireless network bridge
Authored by: smkolins on Jul 31, '03 11:57:32AM

Yeah But...

The bridge is extreme, ie 51mbps, but the 802.11b clients are connecting to the airport system at 11mbps. So the airports talk to eachother at 51 but the client only connects to the airport at 11.

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= - - -- - - - =
Steven
smkolins@mac.com
http://homepage.mac.com/smkolins
Possess a pure, kindly, and radiant heart!



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nah, read it again
Authored by: Accura on Jul 31, '03 12:10:43PM

"I recently ran into the problem of linking two existing ethernet networks in my company. "

he/she wanted to link 2 ethernet networks with out running more ethernet cable (I would think ethernet cable is actually cheeper than this) so all the airport extreme base stations do is bridge the ethernet over a wireless link at 51mb. it would also allow clients with 11b card to connect at 11mb and clients with the 11g card at 51 meg but any one already wired into the ethernet network has access to the other floor's ethernet network because the bridge is in place...

i still think running cable is cheeper....

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"The time has come," the walrus said. "To talk of many things..."



[ Reply to This | # ]
nah, read it again
Authored by: saint.duo on Jul 31, '03 12:12:38PM

However, wiring the network to that second floor seemed to be just unmanageable.

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duo



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nah, read it again
Authored by: notmatt on Jul 31, '03 08:33:30PM

Depends on the building, really. And if the poster is in Ireland, which seems likely, he could be in a fairly old building, making it particularly difficult.

For example, the building directly across the street from me (on the corner of Lawnmarket and West Bow in Edinburgh) is spraying water out from just between the first and second floors (second and third, if you're N. American).

I've yet to figure out the purpose of the fairly regular discharge (complete with a purposeful-looking pipe sticking out of the wall), but I have a hunch that wiring this building for ethernet would be fairly hard, if they can't even get drains in.



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nah, read it again
Authored by: imageworx on Aug 01, '03 10:28:17AM

There's not a floor that can't be cored to. Likely, it may cost more in labour for this work, than purchase several AirPort Extreme bases.
But there are WireLess Bridges out there already (Orinco, Linksys, SMC... both for a, b and g).

I've always wondered about wireless repeaters...you could extend the nodes indefinitely..within reason and power access.. :)

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To BeOS or Not to BeOS



[ Reply to This | # ]
remote clients are wired
Authored by: extra88 on Jul 31, '03 03:03:34PM
"Click on save and let the second Airport boot again. Now you can plug this one to a router on your SECOND network too."

The clients at the second location are not using Airport cards, they're connected by wire to a "router" (probably a switch, not a router). The router is connected to the Airport Extreme Base Station which bridges that network to the first network. Bridging is a nice feature not always found in consumer-oriented access points, such as the Netgear MR814.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Create a dual-Airport 51 Mbit wireless network bridge
Authored by: Arakageeta on Jul 31, '03 12:15:17PM

As I understood the hint, gateone wanted to link two standard ethernet networks together by using two Airport Extreme base stations. Typically, a user would only have one bast station and then wireless equiped computers. But by using two base stationed talking to each other, the Extreme speed can be reached. Of course direct wireless users without g speeds will only connect at 11. But that doesn't really matter since the computers who are going to be using the base stations will be doing so by way of a standard ethernet plug into the station:

[network 1] <-100-> [station 1] <=51=> [station 2] <-100-> [network 2]

Did I miss read the hint?



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Create a dual-Airport 51 Mbit wireless network bridge
Authored by: tersono on Aug 01, '03 04:30:31AM

haven't tried this, but it seems to be the hard way to do it.

I have a 802.11g wireless network running just fine at maxiumum speed despite the fact that neither of my macs are airport extreme-ready. I simply used Buffalo 802.11g cards (one PCI for my DP867 and the cardbus version for my TiBook). OS X 10.2.6 supports these and recognises them as regular airport extreme cards. The only real difference is that they have a better broadcast range...



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Supplementary Question (clarification)
Authored by: willbank on Aug 01, '03 04:54:52AM

That seems to be a neat bridging solution - but... it seems that you opened up one of the 2 extreme base stations (the ends of the bridge) to DHCP for use by laptop users as you state...

Surely then, if someone were to come to your office with an 802.11b wireless card and connect they would 'throttle back' the whole system (by making one extreme base station operate in 'b' mode and not 'g' in order to be compatible with this new wireless client) and suddenly your snazzy 51Mbps bridge would become 11Mbps as the other end of the bridge defaulted to 11 to comply with its speed-reduced counterpart. (Which might have serious consequences for the large files in transit and the general workflow.)

Or, can extreme base stations communicate with different clients on 'b' and 'g' channels simultaneously?

Good work on the process whatever.

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No, really. This is a healthy obsession.



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Create a dual-Airport 51 Mbit wireless network bridge
Authored by: thebimbo on Aug 02, '03 06:53:56AM

This info is also at http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107454 "AirPort Extreme: How to Use Multiple Base Stations to Create a Wirelessly Distributed Network".

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=mak



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