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krove · Mar 24, 2003, 01:00 PM

I thought I'd just relay the ease with which I setup my new Airport Extreme. I only have one Airport-equipped computer, the rest being tied to a wired 10/100 switch.

Having both a WAN and LAN port is really cool, allowing me to easily have both wireless and wired computer connected to the same subnet (great for Rendezvous). The setup went quickly and easily. I thought I might run into trouble over straight vs crossover ethernet cables between the cable modem, ABS, and switch, but all worked out the first time. (I think the ABS has auto-sensing ethernet ports, but I cannot be sure.)

All-in-all, an excellent buy, IMHO.

aaanorton · Mar 24, 2003, 01:56 PM

Mac users haven't needed crossover cables for years now. All current and recent new Macs auto-sense.
Any luck with printer sharing?

krove · Mar 24, 2003, 02:25 PM

Printer Sharing rocks! Plugged in my HP DeskJet 970C into the USB port on the ABS, went to printer setup, added new Rendezvous printer, and there it was! Visible to both wired and wireless computers. Excellent!

bbales · Mar 24, 2003, 05:28 PM

OK -- Can you tell me HOW everything's hooked up? In other words, are you using AEBS as a bridge? Because, while I LOVE wireless, I can't get the rendezvous printing set up. Apparently (I was told on another forum) I have to set "configure manually" on the configure setup, plus disaple the distribution of IP addresses. I've been loathe to mess around with the settings, because really, I can just e-mail something to myself, come downstrais to the desktop and print.

Anyway -- how's yours set up? AEBS to modem to other computers? (By the way, I have a router involved, too.)
Thanks in advance.

krove · Mar 24, 2003, 05:53 PM

My Airport Extreme BS is setup to provide DHCP and NAT, distributing ip addresses to wireless AND wired computers. In effect, it is a router for both wireless and wired sides of my network.

I have an 8-port 10/100 Asante switch. The AEBS is plugged into it via the LAN port on the AEBS to the uplink port on the switch. This provides internet connectivity to my wired portion of the network.

As for the printer, I had no extra setup involved. I simply plugged in the USB cable from the printer, powered up the printer, and added new Rendezvous printer in Print Center (can be found in /Applications/Utilities) as I described above. The AEBS does what is necessary to keep the wired (LAN) and wireless portions of the network on the same subnet so that everyone can see the printer. In fact, this is the very reason that the USB port was added to this new generation of Airport Base Stations: previously, a rendezvous-shared USB printer could only be seen by either the wireless OR wired side of the network (depending on what computer the printer was plugged into) but not both sides. By providing a LAN port, etc the AEBS can bridge the wireless and wired networks transparently. Allowing the USB printer to be shared by all computers.

What kind of printer do you have?

krove · Mar 24, 2003, 06:07 PM

Here is a graphical representation:

aaanorton · Mar 24, 2003, 06:26 PM

Originally posted by bbales:
(By the way, I have a router involved, too.)

Is the router before or after the ABS? Ideally it should go: cable/DSL modem (or phone line) > AEBS > router > computers. In this set up, you'd have the ABS distribute IPs and the router not. In other words, the router could just as easily be a switch, as it's doing no routing/DHCP.

bbales · Mar 25, 2003, 01:25 PM

LOVED the picture -- it's the clearest I've ever been on the whole process! And how I have it know is G4 desktop, PC and the AEBS all hooked to the router. AEBS is hooked via the LAN. Does this make sense? A lot of the networking stuff is pure and utter gobbly-deegook to me (NAT, uplink, etc. I can read directions, but I'm not very intuitive with this stuff.)

Thanks for the help.

aaanorton · Mar 25, 2003, 01:32 PM

It's better to describe the connections in order. Usually this is done from the wall. So you have a cable/DSL modem (right?) that is connected directly to what? The router or the ABS? Then what?

bbales · Mar 26, 2003, 11:55 AM

Originally posted by aaanorton:
It's better to describe the connections in order. Usually this is done from the wall. So you have a cable/DSL modem (right?) that is connected directly to what? The router or the ABS? Then what?

Sheesh -- had to crawl around on the floor, finding wires. Wall to modem. Modem then connected to router. Router has connections to the modem, and also to a wired Mac, a wired PC and the AEBS, via the LAN port. Don't ask me about uplinks, b/c that's greek to me.

Any help gratefully appreciated. Like I said, it works, but I'd like to do printing, too.
Thans.

aaanorton · Mar 26, 2003, 12:31 PM

OK, here's the problem: You have two routers at work on your LAN. The AEBS is a router because it provides IPs for computers connected to it, via DHCP. Your other router is also doing this. And this is a no-no. If you check the IPs of your different computers, you'll see that they look completely different. Some may be 192.168.10.x, while others are 192.168.123.x. See the difference? This is called different subnets. You want to avoid this. At one point you mentioned setting up your AEBS as a bridge (no DHCP). You could do this, but I would recommend the following:
Plug the ethernet cable FROM the modem INTO the WAN port of the AEBS.
Plug an ethernet cable FROM the LAN port of the AEBS to the UPLINK port of the other router. (you may need to set a switch to uplink on the back of the router)
Then plug the other computer(s) into the LAN ports of the router.
THEN configure the other router to NOT DISTRIBUTE IPs (important).
You can then have a printer plugged into the AEBS which will be shared across the LAN.

This isn't nearly as hard to do as it is to type out, so just give it a try.

bbales · Mar 26, 2003, 02:21 PM

OK, I'm going to try it later on. You know, those are the clearest directions and explanation that I've seen EVER for this whole process! You should write the tech directions...

Thanks a bunch.