office with two WRT54Gs + DHCP

I was at a remote office today, and noticed that they had two Linksys WRT54Gs.
but things were a little messy...

They are not being used as routers, merely as wireless access points on the same
LAN,
with different SSIDs, but only one was acting as a DHCP server for the LAN.

So, I was thinking of moving them (from the wiring closet) to the ends of the
office,
and enabling DHCP on both - just with different ranges, but same GW and DNS.
Any probs with doing that ??

"P.Schuman" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
$(E-Mail Removed)...
>I was at a remote office today, and noticed that they had two Linksys
>WRT54Gs.
> but things were a little messy...
>
> They are not being used as routers, merely as wireless access points on
> the same
> LAN,
> with different SSIDs, but only one was acting as a DHCP server for the
> LAN.
>
> So, I was thinking of moving them (from the wiring closet) to the ends of
> the
> office,
> and enabling DHCP on both - just with different ranges, but same GW and
> DNS.
> Any probs with doing that ??

I would not do that simply because if there are wired clients it will mess
them up.
It's not really a problem IF the wireless AP's have different SSID's however
I feel from a managment stand point you would be better off with just one
acting as your DHCP server.
Do you have any wired clients and or any other DHCP servers on the LAN that
are not the WRT's?

Adair

"P.Schuman" <(E-Mail Removed)> hath wroth:

>I was at a remote office today, and noticed that they had two Linksys WRT54Gs.
>but things were a little messy...

The bigger the mess, the better it works. I never have problems until
someone tries to clean things up. It happened yesterday. One of
clever customers decided that they didn't like the tangle of wall
warts (power supplies) in the power strip. Something like this:
<http://802.11junk.com/jeffl/pics/drivel/slides/wall-wart-01.html>
So, they unplugged everything, carefully laced all the cords, and
plugged the wall warts back into the DSL modem, wireless router,
switch, print server, and ticket printer. My guess the total damage
was about $120 plus my exhorbitant labor charges. Amazingly, all the
wall warts were labeled to prevent such disasters.

Here's what a properly messy cabling system should look like:
<http://802.11junk.com/jeffl/pics/drivel/slides/mess01.html>
The bigger the mess, the better it works and no sane employee would
dare touch that mess.

>They are not being used as routers, merely as wireless access points on the same
>LAN,
>with different SSIDs, but only one was acting as a DHCP server for the LAN.

That's the correct way to setup multiple access points on a network.
The two boxes are also probably on different channels.

>So, I was thinking of moving them (from the wiring closet) to the ends of the
>office,

Fine. Run CAT5e extension cables to the office ends, and plug the
AP's back in exactly the way they currently are operating.

>and enabling DHCP on both - just with different ranges, but same GW and DNS.
>Any probs with doing that ??

Don't do it. You only want *ONE* DHCP server on a network. You might
be able to get away with it if each AP dispenses different DHCP IP
addresses, but you'll have problems with portable users getting an IP
address from one AP, but trying to renew it at the other. That won't
work. Leave it alone. It's working.

--
Jeff Liebermann (E-Mail Removed)
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

this "small" office of about 12 people has RJ45 jacks at all the normal
office & desk locations,
along with the two WRTs in the back room. It was a sublease... taken
over...

They had both Linksys WRT stacked on top of each other, antennas right next
to each other,
and my fear was that with just one DHCP server, they might unplug that one
and be screwed
as they use both the RJ and WiFi connections.

I at least moved the WRTs apart, and verified one was on 11 and the other
was on 10... I moved to either 1 or 6.
Did some Netstumbler... but didn't see any other close units.

wall warts - noticed one WRT had the normal 12v 500ma large black wall wart,
but the other had a very very small "switching" device with the same 12v
500ma rating.
I usually label each wall wart to go with each specific device, but this
confused the issue

There were also 3 APC UPS's on the floor - not being used - again, from the
total sublease...
will investigate the battery situation..

"P.Schuman" <(E-Mail Removed)> hath wroth:

>this "small" office of about 12 people has RJ45 jacks at all the normal
>office & desk locations,
>along with the two WRTs in the back room. It was a sublease... taken
>over...
>
>They had both Linksys WRT stacked on top of each other, antennas right next
>to each other,

Bad idea. Ewen with widely seperated channels, they're going to
interfere with each other. Get them physically seperated and also
make sure that the channels are non-overlapping (1, 6, or 11).

>and my fear was that with just one DHCP server, they might unplug that one
>and be screwed
>as they use both the RJ and WiFi connections.

Not really. Setup the DHCP lease time for a few days. The desktop
will retain the DHCP IP address for several days, giving you enough
time to figure out what happened. I don't consider it a real concern.

>I at least moved the WRTs apart, and verified one was on 11 and the other
>was on 10... I moved to either 1 or 6.

Good. Much better.

>Did some Netstumbler... but didn't see any other close units.

Netstumbler won't show "hidden" networks that don't broadcast their
SSID. Use Kismet (Linux) instead. If you don't have Linux box, get a
bootable LiveCD which includes Kismet:
<http://www.remote-exploit.org/backtrack.html>

>wall warts - noticed one WRT had the normal 12v 500ma large black wall wart,
>but the other had a very very small "switching" device with the same 12v
>500ma rating.
>I usually label each wall wart to go with each specific device, but this
>confused the issue

Look at the serial number tag on the two WRT54G boxes. There are 8
different hardware versions of WRT54G/GS. The early ones came with
inefficient transformer type wall warts. I know v8 comes with a
switching power supply.

>There were also 3 APC UPS's on the floor - not being used - again, from the
>total sublease...
>will investigate the battery situation..


--
Jeff Liebermann (E-Mail Removed)
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558