Funking around with wireless

GICarey · Post by **GICarey** » Fri Jul 07, 2006 8:07 pm

Hi Folks,

In the house I have ADSL which comes into the front room, into which is connected a router running the routertech.org firmware, sharing the goodstuff wirelessly around the house.

In the loft, I have a desktop box, running currently with a Linksys "wireless B game adapter" (basically an ethernet to wireless thingy I used to use on my Xbox).

Wireless signals around the house can be a bit weak in places, though the loft (bizzarely) seems to get decent enough reception, so thoughts turned to adding some kind of access point up here to pick up the signal from downstairs and "boost" it around the house.

Well, being a cheapskate, i've been playing around with an Old Origo WLL-1301 cable router which I have from my time using NTL, and with a little playing, plugged with Linksys adapter into the WAN port of the Origo router, configured it to a different set of IP addresses on the LAN, but the same wireless settings (DHCP on, same SSID, etc). This seemed to provide the desktop box (now wired into the router) with a working IP address, and the laptop also saw the Origo router and grabbed itself an IP from there as it was a stronger signal.

All seemed to be working OK, the only point of confusion being not knowing which IP range anything wireless would be on at any one time (is there a way around this?)

Until, that is, I presume the lease expired on the wireless game adapter, and it decided to get itself an IP from the router whose WAN port it was plugged into, at which point all communication between routers ceased.

Any ideas on solutions?

Thanks,

Gav.

Post by **biro** » Fri Jul 07, 2006 9:00 pm

One possible alternative would be to give the origo an IP in the same range as the safecom such as 192.168.1.254 (out of the way of any IP already in use by DHCP ) and restrict the DHCP range on the safecom so it can't try to issue that IP.
Disable DHCP on the origo and connect the linksys to a LAN port on the origo (assuming it has more than one ethernet port ! ).

Not able to try it but in theory anything connected to the origo via wireless Should now get an IP from the safecom.

If it does work than would be able to use static IP's on the PC's if required for port forwarding etc, and there would be no need to setup any port forwards on the origo as everything is LAN side, also will be able to share files etc. between all PC's which wouldn't be possible if they where connected via NAT on the origo (as would be the case using the WAN port!).

Edit
Either way I can see one potential problem that the linksys may connect to the origo wireless signal instead of the weaker signal from the safecom,(don't know if the origo allows blocking of specific MAC's to prevent this or if something can be done on the linksys to prevent it )

Techsolver · Post by **Techsolver** » Sat Jul 08, 2006 8:44 am

Give the Origo a different SSID, tell the Linksys to connect to the SSID of the Safecom, tell your PCs to connect to the SSID of the Origo. If everything other than the Linksys connects to the Origo then you can continue to use the WAN of the Origo to connect to the Linksys.

GICarey · Post by **GICarey** » Sun Jul 09, 2006 11:41 am

Hi Guys:

Biro: Yeah, saw this solution on the Tech24 site, not had a chance to try it out yet, hope to later today, and will post how that goes.

Techsolver: Hmm, that might well work too, would have to configure the devices which "roam" the house to connect to both SSIDs but otherwise, ought to work, although, I would then have to worry about the port forwarding to any "server" PCs.

Techsolver · Post by **Techsolver** » Sun Jul 09, 2006 9:04 pm

GICarey wrote:
Techsolver: Hmm, that might well work too, would have to configure the devices which "roam" the house to connect to both SSIDs but otherwise, ought to work, although, I would then have to worry about the port forwarding to any "server" PCs.

If PCs are going to be allowed to connect to either router then use a LAN port on the Origo with it configured as Biro says with it's DHCP server off. Any client roaming between routers should retain the same IP as it is being assigned by the same DHCP server no matter which wireless router is being connected to. No need to worry about port forwarding on the internal network.

Post by **Shotokan101** » Sun Jul 09, 2006 9:14 pm

Techsolver wrote:
GICarey wrote:
Techsolver: Hmm, that might well work too, would have to configure the devices which "roam" the house to connect to both SSIDs but otherwise, ought to work, although, I would then have to worry about the port forwarding to any "server" PCs.
If PCs are going to be allowed to connect to either router then use a LAN port on the Origo with it configured as Biro says with it's DHCP server off. Any client roaming between routers should retain the same IP as it is being assigned by the same DHCP server no matter which wireless router is being connected to. No need to worry about port forwarding on the internal network.

Absolutely - never have two DHCP servers unless you ensure that the scope's don't overlap and both have enough available to handle all PC's in a crunch

GICarey · Post by **GICarey** » Thu Jul 13, 2006 10:36 am

'ello,

Well, it's working - ish.

Origo router doesn't have a "block this mac address from getting a wireless signal" but only an "allow these MAC addresses from getting a signal" option, so configured that for each of my wireless gizmos and all seems well, they various PCs pick up which ever is the best signal for their location, and away we go, they'll swap APs at random too, which is nice.

Any new PCs to my network will only connect to the downstairs router, which is a shame, but not the end of the world!

Cheers,

Gav.