Proxim 8450/8570/8571 as wireless bridge?

I have some Proxim 8450CN WAPs that are pretty much the same as the Harmony 8570/8571's.

They work great as normal access points where my wired network provides all the WAPs with a path to the building's gateway machine. Wireless users can associate with the nearest WAP and end up with Internet access.

However, now I have to put an isolated wired segment online that can't easily be wired to the rest of the network. So, I wondered, if I put one of my WAPs on that, can it talk to another WAP and form a radio bridge for the machines on the isolated wired segment to talk across to the rest of the Internet? (Ideally, I'd even like the isolated machines to be able to get IP addresses via DHCP from a server on the main wired network.)

I've tried setting the WAPs to repeat, etc., but so far this bridge from wired network to wired network really doesn't seem to be happening. Can this sort of thing be done with the Proxim Harmony 8450/8570/8571 range, or was I just too optimistic? If it can, with what settings?

If not, an obvious question would be what network hardware would be good. I'm even open to replacing some Proxim WAPs if necessary. The main requirement is that the WAPs function fairly transparently, which the Proxim Harmony ones do - the wired segment sees the MACs of the wireless NICs, etc. I don't want fancy router/NAT/DHCP functionality or whatever from the WAPs. Obviously, cheap is good too. (-:

-- Mark

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Mark T.B. Carroll
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