Epic Fail

[So Uncivilized]

Old setup: Some crappy DSL modem from sbc, Linksys WRT54G Router handling wireless and wan login duties. There are ethernet cables to various points int he house, save one, the living room, where Lil SU's computer is. I used WDS to attach an Apple Airport Express base station to the wireless network and share it's ethernet port with Lil SU's computer and some printers.

New setup: The old modem is no longer any good. I got a new '2Wire' modem/router combo from AT&T. It will not talk to the airport express in any way, shape or form. I have tried everything. I have been at this for hours, and I am ready to smash things. I have tried slaving the old LInksys router to the new 2Wire one so that I could still use the airport express to leach off of that wireless signal to no avail. I am now stuck. I am ready to tear holes in my ceiling to run cat 6 to the computer.

I think I am just venting because after several hours I have a worse situation than when I started, and I don't even feel like I learned anything. Things have gotten murkier.

WEP? WEP-OPEN? WEP-SHARED? WPA_TPEK? What is the difference between WEP-40 bit and 128 bit? If there is a difference, then why don't all the devices specify? On one device, it will just say 'WEP'. In trying to use the same scheme elsewhere, that's not a choice, just WEP 40 bit or WEp 128 bit. These things were designed in the pits of hell.

The Wii connected fine to the new wireless network. Gah.

I think I am going to try and get a wireless card for the other computer and make it into a print server as well, but that's a crappy solution. Why can't they make these things so they easily talk to one another???



SU

[MrBlah]

Well some time Airport only wants to work with some routers, like netgear and linksys. WEP 128-bit is a hard encryption to break than 40-bit because you have 88 more bits of data to guess at.

Things are never this easy because the engineers that designed them were not being harassed by the other company to get it to work and they were also not on each others' speed dial to test these things.

[dredfox]

Alright, here we go.

Home routers are not designed to talk to each other so we will need to plug the 2Wire's port into a LAN port on the router. When you set up a PC specify the gateway address as the local address of the 2Wire device. Disable the 2Wire's built in wireless. DHCP probably won't work very well with this setup, so you will need to manually assign addresses to each PC, including the wireless ones. Disable DHCP on both the 2Wire and the router.

If this doesn't work, you may be out of luck with a secondary router.

[Stevo]

Yeah I have the same setup (just without the wireless). First you have to go into the router configuration to disable DHCP and set Working Mode to Gateway (under Advanced > Dynamic Routing). Then you need to connect the LAN port of the 2wire gateway to a LAN port on the router. In the 2wire setup, set the IP range to 192.168.0.0 (under Home Network > Advanced Settings). I use the 2wire built-in wireless along with the extra Linksys router without any problems with this setup. The router basically adds more ports to the 2wire router and allows it to handle DHCP.

That's what worked for me.

[So Uncivilized]

Thanks, Stevo. I couldn't see anything like that on the router, but I will look some more..

In trying to do something similar, I set it to accept an IP address from the 2wire router... what happened is that the linksys router got a new IP instead of 192.168.1.1. Now, I cannot find it even if I attach it directly to a LAN port on my laptop!

I tried doing a hard reset &c. on the Linksys, but I need to look into it more... I'm tired of messing with it, so for now, Lil SU gets the benefit of direct ethernet!

[So Uncivilized]

OK, unbricked the Linksys. It's a long mountain to climb.

Now, on to experimental territory. Also, my cat petey is now chewing on one off the Linksys antennae. Cats are not a network peripheral.



SU

[So Uncivilized]

[quote="dredfox";p="101931"]Alright, here we go.

Home routers are not designed to talk to each other so we will need to plug the 2Wire's port into a LAN port on the router. When you set up a PC specify the gateway address as the local address of the 2Wire device. Disable the 2Wire's built in wireless. DHCP probably won't work very well with this setup, so you will need to manually assign addresses to each PC, including the wireless ones. Disable DHCP on both the 2Wire and the router.

If this doesn't work, you may be out of luck with a secondary router.[/quote]

Thanks, Dreds. I will try this as a last ditch effort, but assigned IP addresses, ug. Let's see...


EDIT: triple post, FTW!!!


3 apple laptops
MacMini
iMac
Apple TV
Sinistar (my tf2/game machine)
Lil SU's computer
xbox 360 x 2
2 network printers
Wii
That's... 13 devices... and the printers, I can't imagine what a pain it would be to assign them IPs Here's hoping!

[Dog]

Wow! Impressive collection!

[So Uncivilized]

Well, I fixed it via a solution you couldn't have guessed.

This morning, I suddenly realized that I have TWO Airport Express stations...

So I hooked one up to the 2Wire, then WDS'ed the second one to the first, attaching the ethernet port to the existing 4 port in the living room.

Voila, bridge.

And now I have a backup wireless network as well.

Thanks for your suggestions!!

Yeah, Dog, it's... something... the home network here is somewhat ridiculous, especially considering that it's a 35 year old house.

Anyway, it's way way hot. One hundred something, and we keep our AC at 85, so it's too warm. Gonna hit the tiny inflatable pool in the backyard

See you in game!!!


SU

[gator]

Glad to hear you got it working.

Not that this is needed now, but:

[quote="So Uncivilized";p="102097"]and the printers, I can't imagine what a pain it would be to assign them IPs Here's hoping![/quote]

If the network printers are Bonjour/Zeroconf compatible, I'd just use that protocol.

[Lil So Uncivilized]

**Checking Lil SUs connectivity, but this is me, the dad half of the team.**

Oh yeah, they are already running on Bonjour... are you saying that I can use the protocol to program them with static IPs? I assumed I'd have to usee the primitive menu buttons and LCDs on the face of the printer...