# Trying to use Airport Extreme as Bridge



## nk1 (Mar 1, 2009)

Ok, I've never posted in a thread before, but I can't seem to figure out the best way to set up my house network.

I have a netgear cable modem/router which has the cable company's cable screwed in.

The house came with a US Tec Router which has wired connections all over the house homerun to it and it is in the same closet as the netgear modem.

I disabled the DHCP on the US tec router and plugged in to the LAN ports between the netgear and US tec (avoided the WAN port)

The ip addresses are 192.168.1.2 and 192.168.1.1 for the netgear and us tec routers.

Due to the location of the closet, the wireless on the netgear has poor range- I turned it off.

I have an AEBS 802.11n which is in the middle of the house. I connected it via a LAN port to a LAN port on the Netgear, hoping to replicate what I did with US Tec.

I went to Airport Utility/ Internet Connection and turned Connection sharing to Off (Bridge Mode). I also configured the IPv4 to manual and I set up the IP address to 192.168.1.3 (in hopes that everything wired/unwired in the house could see each other) . I also changed the router address to the same address. I left the subnet mask as is.

I can get on the internet from the AEBS, Netgear and US TEc connections.

While on a US Tec connection, I can ping 192.168.1.1 and 192.168.1.2. However, I cannot ping the AEBS.

While I am on a wireless AEBS, I can ping 192.168.1.1 and 192.168.1.2. I cannot ping 192.168.1.3 again.

Also, when I go to system preferences/ network/  it says that airport is connected to the AEBS and has the IP address 172.27.35.116

Finally, if I open a finder window while on AEBS, I cannot see computers plugged into US Tec or the netgear.

This really sucks, seems complicated and has made me respect guys who know what they are doing with this stuff. 

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated and keep me out of further trouble with my wife


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## Satcomer (Mar 1, 2009)

You best bet would be ISP modem to router (wired) and let that router do NAT (IP Sharing in Airport Extreme). Any router after that should NOT being doing NAT (connection Sharing). This way you only have the main router doing NAT and avoiding double NAT in local Sharing. 

On my setup (with two routers) has a network setup:

Cable Modem->D-Link wired router. Connected to the wired router is my desktop G5, Linksys VOIP (Vonage) modem and Time Capsule. I setup the Time Capsule up to be on the same subnet by setting it up to "Bridge" mode. This way my Mac Book Pro can see the Time Capsule and both the G5 & Mac Book Pro can share music/video with each other because they are the same subnet. So if I look at the IP (System Preferences->Network) in the G5 & Mac Book Pro they are on the same subnet by having similar IPs given out by the wired D-link router.

So you best bet would be ISP (ISP usually gives just one IP) modem wired to the first router. This router should be doing NAT for the network. When you wire to the Airport Extreme in the Extreme turn off NAT by setting it up into "Bridge" mode. connect a wire between the Airport Extreme WAN port to LAN port on the ISP router (connected to via a wire). This way if you plug into one of the Airport wired ports only the main router will being dishing out the local network. This why if you ever have a device wired to the main router and another to the Airport Extreme they both will be on the same subnet for local sharing and both workstations will have IP that are in the same subnet.


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## nk1 (Mar 2, 2009)

Will give this a try-

In my setup, the airport extreme is wired from the LAN port to a LAN port on the cable modem/router. You suggest having it go the AE LAN port??

Also, I have the AE set to bridge mode on airport utility>connection sharing. Is that all you did, or did you have to adjust the IPv4 settings. I tried setting mine to manual, but then it asks for an IP address, subnet address, and router address. This might be where I am getting stuck...

Thanks


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## Satcomer (Mar 3, 2009)

No! what I suggest is the first router (doesn't matter which brand it is) does the NAT (Network address Translation=takes one IP given by the ISP and give out a private IP range for you local house) and any router after that do a pass-through ("Bridged Mode" in the Airport Extreme)!


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## thomaa (Mar 6, 2009)

I hate to be a noob, but I really need a straight YES/NO answer 

Can I setup the AE basestation (new March09) to be a bridge, so that the wireless clients get their IP from an DHCP-server on the LAN (where the AE is connected) and share the same subnet as the wired clients?


t.


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Mar 6, 2009)

http://www.google.com/search?btnG=1&q=airport+extreme+as+bridge

Short answer, yes.  You can configure the AirPort Extreme as a wireless bridge with the AirPort Setup Utility software.


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## thomaa (Jun 3, 2009)

Just to give an update. As ElDiabloConCaca pointed out, the Extreme can be configured to be a bridge. It´s as easy as it gets. More so, I had to extend the wifi network to cover the whole house. To enable this, I bought an Airport Express. It just goes in the socket, has almost the same setup as the Extreme. Since my wifi is an N-network, I just set the Express to extend an already existing wifi-network. Type in the credentials and presto! the wifi covers the area 


t.


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