wireless access to my network

Hi.

So I've got my normal network set up with my firebox..it's 192.168.111.1

It's DHCP is on and serves out 192.168.111.2 ~ 254, except for 7

I plugged in the Linksys WRT54G and set it as 192.168.111.7

It's other side is 192.168.1.1

Is there any way to get computers that join in wirelessly on 192.168.1.1 to join the workgroup on 192.168.111.1?

Also, another question.....

If I've got SSID turned off, how do I find the network when I'm connecting to it with a wireless device?

Thanks for any info.

Bryce.

Reply to
Bryce
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Thanks Jeff.

I will give this a shot.

Bryce.

Reply to
Bryce

You create a manual profile but given that hiding SSID doesn't actually hide it and is pointless from a security point of view, just turn it back on.

David.

Reply to
David Taylor

Sure. You can build a static route in the "firebox" to the other router. (What's a firebox?) However, that's a pain and not worth the effort. What you do is convert your WRT54G from a wireless router into a wireless access point. To so this:

  1. Setup the LAN side IP address of the WRT54G for 192.168.111.222. The idea is to not duplicate anything in the "firebox". Incidentally, setting the DHCP range for the entire /24 block is a bad idea.
  2. Turn OFF the DHCP server in the WRT54G.

  1. Don't connect anything to the WAN port of the WRT54G.

  2. Connect a cable bewtween a LAN port on your "firebox" and a LAN port on your WRT54G. Watch your polarity as you may need a crossover cable or adapter.

Congrats, you now have an access point instead of a wireless router. Users will get their IP addresses from the "firebox" DHCP server.

One at a time.

Sense of smell? If you specify the SSID, most (not all) wireless client will find your wireless access point. Windoze wireless zero config usually does not.

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

The only DHCP server I know that will hand out its own IP address is the original Windoze 2000 Server before the arrival of a patch. Then, all it did was corrupt its DHCP cache every few days.

There are a few problems with extremely wide DHCP ranges, none of which are fatal, but do get in the way. (Incidentally, I'm from the stone age where the routers IP address was at the high end of the range (xxx.xxx.xxx.254) so that DCHP assignments could conveniently start at .1).

  1. Most systems require a static IP address for some device. Usually, it's an access point, print server, TIVO box, or other appliance. If the DHCP server is setup to pass everything from .2 to .254, then there's a chance that it will try to assign something that's already in use with a static IP address. The DCHP servers I've inspect does a ping (twice) to see if there is an existing device already on that IP, but if the device does not respond to ping, duplicate IP's are possible.
    formatting link
    doesn't always work because the default timeout is 500msec and many power save devices won't power up in the required time. This gave me fits with power save laptops until I increased the number of pings and the timeout on the DHCP server.
  2. Some routers just don't have enough memory to store a large range. You can configure the DCHP server to assign the full 252 IP's, but when you actually try it, the router will roll over and die. I've tested the effect using a MAC address generator. The older routers would handle perhaps 32 IP's. The newer ones could handle 252 but still had problems handling large number of MAC addresses. That's not considered a "normal" situation until you setup a free hot spot in the middle of a very high traffic zone where literally hundreds of wireless devices might "accidentally" try to automatically connect. I've ranted on the subject before and had to cut down the DHCP lease expire time to an illegal 15 minutes to keep the table small.
  3. I like to have more than one DHCP server on my LAN's. This is very common when I have two routers using RIP2 for backup. If one goes down (or hangs), the other takes over. Although protocols exist for synchronizing the DHCP cache on two servers, most cheapo routers don't support it. So, I just split the DCHP assigned IP range in non-overlapping address pools. Router #1 gets .20-59. Router #2 gets .60 through .99 and so on. It's a crap shoot as to which IP range a particular client gets. Usually it's the "closest" router. However, if one router goes down, I still have DHCP services on the WLAN and without any duplication.
  4. There's a few more reasons but my coffee is getting cold.
Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

Why's that Jeff? You don't want it handing out it's _own_ address or the broadcast address, but I shouldn't _think_ that couldn't happen (of course, unexamined assumptions will always come back to bite you on the butt...). Is there another reason? (fwiw, I _don't_ let the DHCP server hand out the full /24 range - but just because that's the way I've always seen it done).

-- derek

Reply to
Derek Broughton

Thanks - there was really no need to suffer on account of my curiosity!

Reply to
Derek Broughton

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