How to configure second router as acces point?

January 12, 2007 3:42 AM

How do I configure a second wireless router as a wireless access point, and have computers on both routers talk to each other?

I have an Apple Airport base station in my basement office hooked up to my cable modem. It is configured with DHCP. Due to the amount of stone and what not in the construction of the house, the wireless signal dissipates rapidly as you come upstairs, I bought a Linksys WRT54G to plug in Airport, connect via ethernet and extend my network.

Only issue is I forgot how to configure it such that the computers on the Aiport zone can talk to the computers upstairs on the WRT54G zone. Any help? Unfortunately, user documentation was a bit too dense (as am I) to figure it out, and I couldn't find exactly what I was looking for when Googling.

When I try to configure the Linksys as a router (and not gateway) it asks me for both a Default Gateway IP (which should be the 10.0.1.1 address of the Airport, right?) and a destination LAN IP (which I don't get, because my Airport is on DHCP). Can you someone help point me in the right direction?

posted by psmealey to computers & internet (3 comments total)

Disable DHCP on the Linksys, give it a static IP in the same range as the rest of your LAN, and plug the network cable into one of the 4 ordinary ports (not the WAN port). You may also have to do the same thing on your Airport, depending on the exact setup there.
posted by cillit bang at 4:00 AM on January 12, 2007

Thanks c_b. The part I was missing was plugging connecting the Airport into one of the standard ports and not the WAN port. Works like a charm.
posted by psmealey at 5:21 AM on January 12, 2007

For what it's worth, my reading indicates that the standard wireless spread is such that you are best served putting the base station as -high- as possible so your problem could be less stone and material than the fact that you're starting out low.
posted by phearlez at 8:09 AM on January 12, 2007