[thurstonwhore]

hi all, i'm in need of some big help. i just recently installed panther on my dual 1.42 and titanium 1ghz. both were fresh/clean installs. But now with both cannnot connect to my airport extreme. I had absolutely no issues, EVER. The main issue i am having is that i cannot get into the airport configuration setup. When i launch airport admin, the bas station shows up, but i cannot connect to it. The error i keep getting is:
"The Airport Admin Utility was unable to read the configuration of the selected base station"

Now, i have also just reset my base station by pushing in the little button for 5 seconds, then ther airport setup let me re-create the network, which worked fine. But still no internet access or admin setup, so i cannot even update the firmware. Am i missing something? i'm getting vert frustrated and am very close to hurling this thing out my window, please help!!!

[mcsjgs]

I don't use Airport, but there is an update for Airport Extreme Administration here:

http://www.info.apple.com/support/downloads.html

3.2 version, 2.2 MB

Hope this helps.

[thurstonwhore]

but i now fixed it, but its an issue i would never have thought of, someone at the apple forums said that when he called apple they told him to plug into the WAN (circle) port, not the LAN (arrows) port, now i know that i have never unplugged the ethernet from the base station since i bought it so that is something i wouldn't have thought of, and kind of upsetting that apple hasn't officially posted this anywhere.

[Earth Mk. II]

Uuhhh... If you have it set up as a router (distribute IP addresses), wouldn't plugging the external network (those computers NOT behind your AirPort station) into the LAN jack cause the AP Base to hand out IP's to the entire network? (Which, at the very least, would be bad network etiquette.)

IIRC, your local airpoted network should go in the LAN port and the rest of the network should be past the WAN port of the station.

[thurstonwhore]

i guess i should have explained my setup, huh. its as follows:

DSL-Router-Basestation-2 titaniums, dual 1.42 (also hardlined to router), G4 400.

the dual 1.42 uses a hardline to the router %90 of the time, but all other computers use the basestation %100 of the time. I have always plugged into the LAN of the basestation, but i guess not with panther, doesn't make sense but now i can update the firmware etc with no problems, seems as though at least 20 people posted at apple fourms with same problem and the result was to plug into WAN. oh well, it all works now so i am very happy, confused, but happy. thanks for the replies.

[Earth Mk. II]

Hum.. could be some oddities going on with the SNMP service on the base station.

for what it's worth - I have a linux box plugged into the LAN port of my base station and this PB working off airport, and I haven't had any problems with the Admin tool in either Jag or Panther. And if I did, I'd be screwed, since I turned external SNMP access off for the station.

It's an odd situation, and I know this isn't a very helpful post, but I don't know how else to help.

[thurstonwhore]

np at all dude, i'm all fixed now...is there any dangers being plugged into the WAN? i'm not all that familiar with airport setups, but the original poster at apple said he called the support line and told him to plug into the WAN, so i guess it can't all be that bad. thanks again.

[Earth Mk. II]

Well, the AirPort station can act as a router. It assumes that the uplink is on the WAN post and the local net on the LAN. Which makes sense, considering WAN = Wide Area Network (e.g. The Internet) and LAN = Local Area Network (e.g. a network just in your home).

When it's in its routing mode (on by default and set by "Show All Settings" -> "Network" tab -> "Distribute IP addresses" in the configuration panel*), the AirPort Base Station is configured so the external network only sees one IP address, regardless of how many computers you have behind the router. This means it has to hand out unique IP addresses to the computers connected to the LAN port of the station and computers with wireless connections, and only to those computers - it does not hand out any IP's through the WAN port.

What can be a problem is when the station is configured as a router and tries to pass IP addresses out on the LAN port - but the LAN port is actually connected to the WAN. It'll try and hand out addresses within your immediate section of the WAN. Some computers will take that IP, which will essentially screw with their internet settings (since they're not supposed to connect to *your* computer - just the ISP's) and it brings the quality of the network down. ISP's generally don't like it when that happens.

If you're on dial-up or xDSL - that doesn't really mean a whole lot since you have a dedicated line to the ISP, but on a shared network like a building's LAN (like on a college or business's campus) or with cable modems it can be a big issue. This happened on my campus about a month ago, and the student had her internet access shut off until we could fix the problem.

Also, if you're setting the base station up behind a router connected to the DSL, it's probably best to turn off the "Distribute IP addresses" option and let the router do all the addressing work.

*Turing this option off makes the base station act like a bridge, where it's presence on the local network is completely transparent for most practical purposes - i.e. you get an IP address from your ISP's DHCP server, use your ISP's DNS, and so on.