# Adding an Airport Extreme base to a wired network



## swiftness (Dec 1, 2004)

Hello...

I just added a Airport Extreme base station to my home network, which was previously just a wired linksys BEFSR41 4 port router/switch.  To make things more confusing I also just got a motorola vonage phone box.

The network has a wired G5, wired Replay TV, wired xbox, wireless Powerbook, and wireless Dell PC on it.  

I need to figure out how to have the the Airport Extreme supply ip addresses to the other units on the network.  I have tried disabling DHCP on the linksys, but then wired devices cannot access the internet.  If I disable DHCP on the airport, then wireless devices cannot access the internet.  If I leave DHCP on both devices then everything can access the internet, but I cannot communicate between wired/wireless computer.  I.e. iTunes cannot stream from a wired computer to a wireless one.

As far as physical routing, right now I have the Ethernet port of my cable modem going into the WAN port of the airport extreme.  Then the LAN port of the airport extreme goes into the WAN port of the Vonage device. Then the "PC" port of the Vonage device plugs into one of the linksys ports (not the WAN or LAN).

Also, I need to figure out how to "foward ports" with my Airport Extreme like I used to do with the Linksys.

If someone could help me get any/all of this straightened out... I would be very greatful!

TIA


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## michaelsanford (Dec 13, 2004)

This may be a bit late but I'll try nonetheless.

 If I get you properly, the AirPort base station is plugged into your router which provides DHCP addresses, right ? Well in that case, you _don't_ want the AirPort to assign IP addresses, you want your router to do that so there aren't any conflicts anywhere. That's precisely what's happening when you enable DHCP on both routers : your wireless network gets 10.0.0.X and your linksys network gets 192.168.0.X (or something similar).

 When you disable DHCP on your AirPort, but for some reason can't browse with wireless machines, do the wireless machines even get an IP address ? Did you have static DHCP mapping enabled ?

 Also, if you are just using the AirPort to extend your wired network (and let your primary WAN router assign IPs) you don't need to forward ports with your AirPort, just the wired router.

 PS PM me if you want, you can send me your AirPort configuration file and I'll take a look at it...


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## joshuatree (Dec 12, 2005)

I am having the same issue except I only have a wired router befsr41 and the airport extreme base station. Everything works fine except i cant get any of my wireless pc's to get on the internet.  The funny thing is that it has an Ip address.  I don't know what gives? Any suggestions?


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## rei1974 (Dec 13, 2005)

Maybe you need to turn on something in Preferences, if I remember well there's a way to "share your internet connection" with the other network devices...


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