Turn router into WAP

Hello all,

I am having a bit of a problem here. I have a wired network already
setup, but would like a way for wireless users to connect to it. I have
come across a Netgear wireless router that I would like to use for
this.

Now I figured it should be pretty simple. But I am a bit confused. In
the router settings there are two options for ip addresses and subnet
masks. The first is the Internet IP which lets me enter an IP, subnet
mask, gateway, and DNS settings. I set the IP to an unused address and
then entered in the subnet mask, gateway, and DNS ip address for those
respective servers.

Now there is another option for LAN IP settings. The default IP for
this is 192.168.1.1 Now I wanted to change this to match the IP
convention used on our network. So I tried changing it to the address I
used for the Internet IP setting (I'm not really sure what the
difference is between these two).

So I think I'm all set. Then, I plug the router into our network and
try connecting via a wireless laptop. I am able to connect to the
router and have an IP address assigned from it (I left the router as a
DHCP server because we don't have one, all our addresses for wired
clients are assigned manually so I figured this would be the easiest
way to deal with wireless clients).

Now I can connect to the network wirelessly and I get an IP assigned
from the router. I can get on the internet as well and browser to other
computers on the network.

The problem is that I cannot reconnect to the router. When I enter in
its new IP address in my browser, I can't get to the setup page. I also
cannot ping the router.

I tried running a tracert to a random website and it shows that I am
indeed going through the router first.

So, what gives? Why can I not get back on to the router?

Any help is appreciated. Thanks.

On 20 Jul 2006 10:00:34 -0700, "(E-Mail Removed)"
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in
<(E-Mail Removed) .com>:

>I am having a bit of a problem here. I have a wired network already
>setup, but would like a way for wireless users to connect to it. I have
>come across a Netgear wireless router that I would like to use for
>this.

See How To below on using a wireless router as an access point.

--
Best regards, FAQ for Wireless Internet: <http://Wireless.wikia.com>
John Navas FAQ for Wi-Fi: <http://wireless.wikia.com/wiki/Wi-Fi>
Wi-Fi How To: <http://wireless.wikia.com/wiki/Wi-Fi_How_To>
Fixes to Wi-Fi Problems: <http://wireless.wikia.com/wiki/Wi-Fi_Fixes>

On 20 Jul 2006 10:00:34 -0700 (E-Mail Removed) <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

| The problem is that I cannot reconnect to the router. When I enter in
| its new IP address in my browser, I can't get to the setup page. I also
| cannot ping the router.
|
| I tried running a tracert to a random website and it shows that I am
| indeed going through the router first.

And you are connecting to the same IP address as the trace shows?

I wouldn't put it past the manufacturer to have shut off ability to
administer wirelessly this way.

It might help (especially if that's where the problem happened) if you
show us all the settings. Every IP, every netmask, route table entries
if you put any in, gateway settings, on every node and every machine.
There are so many ways to make things go wrong you could make a whole
wiki documentaing them all (and very boring). Best to just let someone
see if everything is right and well planned.

--
|---------------------------------------/----------------------------------|
| Phil Howard KA9WGN (ka9wgn.ham.org) / Do not send to the address below |
| first name lower case at ipal.net / spamtrap-2006-07-20-(E-Mail Removed) |
|------------------------------------/-------------------------------------|

Thanks for the replies. After some more experimenting it seems that I
can change the routers IP to anything that is in the 192.168.1.1 -
192.168.1.254 range and still be able to connect to it. I want it to be
10.1.1.1 though and when I change it to that, that is when I can no
longer connect to the router. Thoughts?

Thanks

phil-news-(E-Mail Removed) wrote:
> On 20 Jul 2006 10:00:34 -0700 (E-Mail Removed) <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
> | The problem is that I cannot reconnect to the router. When I enter in
> | its new IP address in my browser, I can't get to the setup page. I also
> | cannot ping the router.
> |
> | I tried running a tracert to a random website and it shows that I am
> | indeed going through the router first.
>
> And you are connecting to the same IP address as the trace shows?
>
> I wouldn't put it past the manufacturer to have shut off ability to
> administer wirelessly this way.
>
> It might help (especially if that's where the problem happened) if you
> show us all the settings. Every IP, every netmask, route table entries
> if you put any in, gateway settings, on every node and every machine.
> There are so many ways to make things go wrong you could make a whole
> wiki documentaing them all (and very boring). Best to just let someone
> see if everything is right and well planned.
>
> --
> |---------------------------------------/----------------------------------|
> | Phil Howard KA9WGN (ka9wgn.ham.org) / Do not send to the address below |
> | first name lower case at ipal.net / spamtrap-2006-07-20-(E-Mail Removed) |
> |------------------------------------/-------------------------------------|

On 20 Jul 2006 15:29:43 -0700, "(E-Mail Removed)"
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in
<(E-Mail Removed). com>:

>Thanks for the replies. After some more experimenting it seems that I
>can change the routers IP to anything that is in the 192.168.1.1 -
>192.168.1.254 range and still be able to connect to it. I want it to be
>10.1.1.1 though and when I change it to that, that is when I can no
>longer connect to the router. Thoughts?

The device trying to connect to the router needs to be on the same
subnet in terms of IP address and subnet mask. For a router at
10.1.1.1, you could manually configure the computer to (say) IP
10.1.1.100 and subnet mask 255.0.0.0

--
Best regards, FAQ for Wireless Internet: <http://Wireless.wikia.com>
John Navas FAQ for Wi-Fi: <http://wireless.wikia.com/wiki/Wi-Fi>
Wi-Fi How To: <http://wireless.wikia.com/wiki/Wi-Fi_How_To>
Fixes to Wi-Fi Problems: <http://wireless.wikia.com/wiki/Wi-Fi_Fixes>

Yes, I know that. Both the router and the computer trying to connect
are on the same subnet (255.255.255.0). I left the router as a dhcp
server and told it to use the ranges of 10.1.1.2-10.1.1.20.

Any other ideas?

John Navas wrote:
> On 20 Jul 2006 15:29:43 -0700, "(E-Mail Removed)"
> <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in
> <(E-Mail Removed). com>:
>
> >Thanks for the replies. After some more experimenting it seems that I
> >can change the routers IP to anything that is in the 192.168.1.1 -
> >192.168.1.254 range and still be able to connect to it. I want it to be
> >10.1.1.1 though and when I change it to that, that is when I can no
> >longer connect to the router. Thoughts?
>
> The device trying to connect to the router needs to be on the same
> subnet in terms of IP address and subnet mask. For a router at
> 10.1.1.1, you could manually configure the computer to (say) IP
> 10.1.1.100 and subnet mask 255.0.0.0
>
> --
> Best regards, FAQ for Wireless Internet: <http://Wireless.wikia.com>
> John Navas FAQ for Wi-Fi: <http://wireless.wikia.com/wiki/Wi-Fi>
> Wi-Fi How To: <http://wireless.wikia.com/wiki/Wi-Fi_How_To>
> Fixes to Wi-Fi Problems: <http://wireless.wikia.com/wiki/Wi-Fi_Fixes>

On 20 Jul 2006 10:00:34 -0700, "(E-Mail Removed)"
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in
<(E-Mail Removed) .com>:

>Now I figured it should be pretty simple. But I am a bit confused. In
>the router settings there are two options for ip addresses and subnet
>masks. The first is the Internet IP which lets me enter an IP, subnet
>mask, gateway, and DNS settings. I set the IP to an unused address and
>then entered in the subnet mask, gateway, and DNS ip address for those
>respective servers.

Let's call that the WAN port, used only when routing. It's irrelevant
to an access point. Since you don't have anything connected to it
(right?!), the settings are largely irrelevant (as long as the router
doesn't barf on them).

>Now there is another option for LAN IP settings. The default IP for
>this is 192.168.1.1 Now I wanted to change this to match the IP
>convention used on our network. So I tried changing it to the address I
>used for the Internet IP setting (I'm not really sure what the
>difference is between these two).

That's likely to make the router barf (even though it shouldn't be
connected to anything in access point use). The firmware mostly likely
expects the WAN to be a different address range from the LAN, with both
its own WAN port and the WAN gateway in the WAN subnet range.

>So I think I'm all set. Then, I plug the router into our network and
>try connecting via a wireless laptop. I am able to connect to the
>router and have an IP address assigned from it (I left the router as a
>DHCP server because we don't have one, all our addresses for wired
>clients are assigned manually so I figured this would be the easiest
>way to deal with wireless clients).

As long as there are no conflicts. Make sure the DHCP server is
configured so that won't happen.

>Now I can connect to the network wirelessly and I get an IP assigned
>from the router. I can get on the internet as well and browser to other
>computers on the network.
>
>The problem is that I cannot reconnect to the router. When I enter in
>its new IP address in my browser, I can't get to the setup page. I also
>cannot ping the router.
>
>I tried running a tracert to a random website and it shows that I am
>indeed going through the router first.
>
>So, what gives? Why can I not get back on to the router?

I thought you were using it as an access point (a bridge), not a router.
Traceroute won't see a bridge, only a router. Is the WAN port
disconnected? Did you read the How To reference I posted previously?

--
Best regards, FAQ for Wireless Internet: <http://Wireless.wikia.com>
John Navas FAQ for Wi-Fi: <http://wireless.wikia.com/wiki/Wi-Fi>
Wi-Fi How To: <http://wireless.wikia.com/wiki/Wi-Fi_How_To>
Fixes to Wi-Fi Problems: <http://wireless.wikia.com/wiki/Wi-Fi_Fixes>

On 20 Jul 2006 16:15:36 -0700 (E-Mail Removed) <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

| Yes, I know that. Both the router and the computer trying to connect
| are on the same subnet (255.255.255.0). I left the router as a dhcp
| server and told it to use the ranges of 10.1.1.2-10.1.1.20.

Just "255.255.255.0" alone does not define a subnet. If the router is
on 10.1.1.1 then the computer connecting to it needs to be on one of
the IPs between 10.1.1.2 and 10.1.1.254 for them to find each other's
MAC address. The 255.255.255.0 is effectively just a statement of the
size of the subnet expressed in terms of the bit masked used to isolate
the network part of the whole address, converted to dotted decimal.

I do stuff like this in Linux by giving my ethernet interfaces many
different IP addresses so they can reach a variety of different subnet
numbers I play around with in many ranges.

--
|---------------------------------------/----------------------------------|
| Phil Howard KA9WGN (ka9wgn.ham.org) / Do not send to the address below |
| first name lower case at ipal.net / spamtrap-2006-07-21-(E-Mail Removed) |
|------------------------------------/-------------------------------------|

Run IPCONFIG /ALL to verify how the computer is getting configured, and
post the results here.

p.s. Out of curiosity, why are you insisting on using a different
netblock?

p.p.s. Please don't switch posting styles (top vs bottom) in mid-thread
-- it's confusing, and considered a bit rude. Thanks.

On 20 Jul 2006 16:15:36 -0700, "(E-Mail Removed)"
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in
<(E-Mail Removed). com>:

>Yes, I know that. Both the router and the computer trying to connect
>are on the same subnet (255.255.255.0). I left the router as a dhcp
>server and told it to use the ranges of 10.1.1.2-10.1.1.20.
>
>Any other ideas?
>
>John Navas wrote:
>> On 20 Jul 2006 15:29:43 -0700, "(E-Mail Removed)"
>> <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in
>> <(E-Mail Removed). com>:
>>
>> >Thanks for the replies. After some more experimenting it seems that I
>> >can change the routers IP to anything that is in the 192.168.1.1 -
>> >192.168.1.254 range and still be able to connect to it. I want it to be
>> >10.1.1.1 though and when I change it to that, that is when I can no
>> >longer connect to the router. Thoughts?
>>
>> The device trying to connect to the router needs to be on the same
>> subnet in terms of IP address and subnet mask. For a router at
>> 10.1.1.1, you could manually configure the computer to (say) IP
>> 10.1.1.100 and subnet mask 255.0.0.0

--
Best regards, FAQ for Wireless Internet: <http://Wireless.wikia.com>
John Navas FAQ for Wi-Fi: <http://wireless.wikia.com/wiki/Wi-Fi>
Wi-Fi How To: <http://wireless.wikia.com/wiki/Wi-Fi_How_To>
Fixes to Wi-Fi Problems: <http://wireless.wikia.com/wiki/Wi-Fi_Fixes>

On 21 Jul 2006 08:27:57 GMT, in alt.internet.wireless ,
phil-news-(E-Mail Removed) wrote:

>On 20 Jul 2006 16:15:36 -0700 (E-Mail Removed) <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
>| Yes, I know that. Both the router and the computer trying to connect
>| are on the same subnet (255.255.255.0). I left the router as a dhcp
>| server and told it to use the ranges of 10.1.1.2-10.1.1.20.
>
>Just "255.255.255.0" alone does not define a subnet. If the router is
>on 10.1.1.1 then the computer connecting to it needs to be on one of
>the IPs between 10.1.1.2 and 10.1.1.254 for them to find each other's
>MAC address. The 255.255.255.0 is effectively just a statement of the
>size of the subnet expressed in terms of the bit masked used to isolate
>the network part of the whole address, converted to dotted decimal.

This is all true, but the OP left DHCP on, so the computer would have
broadcast a request for an address, and got given one inthe same
subnet as the router.
--
Mark McIntyre