Airport Express Experts ...?

Spinnaker

I have: wireless router connected to NTL cable modem interfacing well to laptop clients.

I want:to add an airport express as a remote wireless access point connected via 4 port ethernet switch back to wireless router.

I did: set it up as "create a new wireless network", in bridge mode, WPA, DHCP etc all looks good... green light, apple network visible in my wireless tray. My laptop wont connect to access point however :-(

This FAQ on Apple site makes me think my configuration is not possible at all. Any checks / comments ??


Question: Since AirPort Express only has one Ethernet port, does it act as a LAN port, WAN port, or both?

Answer: Depending on how you have it set up, the Ethernet port can function as a LAN port (defined as either simple bridging or sharing your Internet connection via network address translation) or a WAN port (connecting to your broadband Internet service provider or upstream router). However, it never acts as both simultaneously in the way that the original AirPort Base Station (Graphite) can. When the AirPort Express is using network address translation, the Ethernet port acts as a WAN port. When it is set up as a WDS remote station, it can act as a LAN port. Assuming that your Internet service provider only gives you one IP address (the most common scenario for homes), this means that AirPort Express can only accommodate wired clients when acting as a WDS remote base station or bridge. Therefore, if you need to support wired clients and only want to get one base station (or router, as it's the routing capacity of AirPort Express that is relevant here), you should get the AirPort Extreme Base Station instead.

dub45

Spinnaker wrote: »

I have: wireless router connected to NTL cable modem interfacing well to laptop clients.

I want:to add an airport express as a remote wireless access point connected via 4 port ethernet switch back to wireless router.

I did: set it up as "create a new wireless network", in bridge mode, WPA, DHCP etc all looks good... green light, apple network visible in my wireless tray. My laptop wont connect to access point however :-(

This FAQ on Apple site makes me think my configuration is not possible at all. Any checks / comments ??


Question: Since AirPort Express only has one Ethernet port, does it act as a LAN port, WAN port, or both?

Answer: Depending on how you have it set up, the Ethernet port can function as a LAN port (defined as either simple bridging or sharing your Internet connection via network address translation) or a WAN port (connecting to your broadband Internet service provider or upstream router). However, it never acts as both simultaneously in the way that the original AirPort Base Station (Graphite) can. When the AirPort Express is using network address translation, the Ethernet port acts as a WAN port. When it is set up as a WDS remote station, it can act as a LAN port. Assuming that your Internet service provider only gives you one IP address (the most common scenario for homes), this means that AirPort Express can only accommodate wired clients when acting as a WDS remote base station or bridge. Therefore, if you need to support wired clients and only want to get one base station (or router, as it's the routing capacity of AirPort Express that is relevant here), you should get the AirPort Extreme Base Station instead.

Have you tried it with the setting 'extend wireless network'?

Spinnaker

Hi Dub. Yep I did try it in that mode/setting. Spin.

dub45

As you are not getting any responses here I will tranfer the thread to the mac forum - this might yield some help for you.

J-blk

The "extend wireless network" mode definitely works and in that case, the ethernet port acts as a LAN port - I use the Airport Express to extend my Airport Extreme network and I have an Xbox360 wired to the Express (I got fed up of the sh*te Microsoft official adapter) and it works flawlessly.

I'm not getting from your original post how you want to connect your laptops to the Express - wired or wireless? Are you running Windows/Linux or Mac OS X on the laptops in question?