FrozenLiquidity
Junior Member
I'm only an intern, so I'm not as technically enlightened as our Senior Systems Administrator or Datacenter Administrator about our network architecture and how to go about setting up stuff like this. This is really a question I'd be asking to them, but since they were at work late on Thursday night rewiring the Datacenter, they're nowhere to be found on Friday! Sure I've made my own wireless networks at home, but never really been able to get a setup like this one to fly, anyway, on to the issue...
So we're looking to roll out a Seamless roaming wireless network in our office. In laymans terms it's would consist of several wireless base stations (be it an access point or router) that one could connect to around the office, and once connected, be able to travel throughout the office without dropping the connection. When the signal that one is currently connected to becomes weaker than another available signal on the same network, it automatically switchest over with minimal packet loss (should take <5 seconds).
Now the real question is, how do the access points and routers need to be configured for this to work properly? I'm testing it out here with a Netgear FS108 Wireless Router (wired into an external DSL line for test purposes) also acting as a DHCP server in the absence of our corperate DHCP servers, and a Netgear WG302 Access Point to act as the first in our chain of wireless base stations. I've done a bit of configuration on each, and while they're not far from the default settings I'll provide the relevant settings.
The FS108 Wireless Router is configured as a DHCP server and is responsible for assigning IP addresses 192.168.0.3-192.168.0.50 (192.168.0.2 is reserved for the WAP) Currently there is no security enabled on it (I want to make sure this is working first, and no it's not connected to the corporate network...) and I can connect to it with a wireless connection. Other than that it's pretty much all basic settings.
The WG302 Access Point has DHCP Client disabled. It needs to be enabled for it to be assigned the IP address that is reserved for it by the router, but whenever I enable it or set it manually, I am unable to login after it reboots. (I try accessing it using the new IP and it brings up the logon page with a red X'd out image and when I input my credentials it immediately says that the request timed out and provides me with a link to try again. This is somewhat odd because the credentials have not been changed, and when using the default IP address 192.168.0.228 the image displays. The only way I've been able to reverse this is to restore it to factory default settings.)
The Wireless Access Point also has a few options for wireless bridge and repeater modes. I've looked at these and based on the descriptions of each, I was fairly sure it needed to be in repeater mode to work. Here are the descriptions it gives of each option:
When it's in repeater mode, I selected the mac address of the wireless connection of the router. So far it hasn't worked, and I'm not sure what to do about its' apparent issue with any IP address other than the default. Seeing as how I am relatively inexperienced with setting up a multiple base station wireless network I am not sure if I am doing it right this far and would appreciate any insight or advice. I haven't been able to find too much helpful documentation about it on the web either, so points in the right direction are also welcome. I've got complete access to all of these devices so if you need more information just let me know.
~FL
EDIT -> At the moment both of these devices are also on a wired connection to allow me to access each one simultaneously although when I unplug the WAP and try to connect to it's interface from being plugged into the wireless router I get nothing, so I'm assuming that the wireless setup is incorrect on that level as well.
So we're looking to roll out a Seamless roaming wireless network in our office. In laymans terms it's would consist of several wireless base stations (be it an access point or router) that one could connect to around the office, and once connected, be able to travel throughout the office without dropping the connection. When the signal that one is currently connected to becomes weaker than another available signal on the same network, it automatically switchest over with minimal packet loss (should take <5 seconds).
Now the real question is, how do the access points and routers need to be configured for this to work properly? I'm testing it out here with a Netgear FS108 Wireless Router (wired into an external DSL line for test purposes) also acting as a DHCP server in the absence of our corperate DHCP servers, and a Netgear WG302 Access Point to act as the first in our chain of wireless base stations. I've done a bit of configuration on each, and while they're not far from the default settings I'll provide the relevant settings.
The FS108 Wireless Router is configured as a DHCP server and is responsible for assigning IP addresses 192.168.0.3-192.168.0.50 (192.168.0.2 is reserved for the WAP) Currently there is no security enabled on it (I want to make sure this is working first, and no it's not connected to the corporate network...) and I can connect to it with a wireless connection. Other than that it's pretty much all basic settings.
The WG302 Access Point has DHCP Client disabled. It needs to be enabled for it to be assigned the IP address that is reserved for it by the router, but whenever I enable it or set it manually, I am unable to login after it reboots. (I try accessing it using the new IP and it brings up the logon page with a red X'd out image and when I input my credentials it immediately says that the request timed out and provides me with a link to try again. This is somewhat odd because the credentials have not been changed, and when using the default IP address 192.168.0.228 the image displays. The only way I've been able to reverse this is to restore it to factory default settings.)
The Wireless Access Point also has a few options for wireless bridge and repeater modes. I've looked at these and based on the descriptions of each, I was fairly sure it needed to be in repeater mode to work. Here are the descriptions it gives of each option:
- Wireless Point-to-Point Bridge - In this mode, the
WG302 will communicate ONLY with another Bridge-mode
Wireless Station. You must enter the MAC address
(physical address) of the other Bridge-mode Wireless
Station in the field provided. WEP can (and should) be
used to protect this communication.
- Wireless Point-to-Multi-Point Bridge - Select this
only if this WG302 is the "Master" for a group of
Bridge-mode Wireless Stations. The other Bridge-mode
Wireless Stations must be set to Point-to-Point Bridge
mode, using this WG302's MAC address. They then send
all traffic to this "Master", rather than communicate
directly with each other. WEP can (and should) be used
to protect this traffic.
- Repeater - If selected, this AP will operate as a
Repeater only, and send all traffic to the remote AP.
If selected, you must enter the MAC address (physical
address) of the remote AP.
When it's in repeater mode, I selected the mac address of the wireless connection of the router. So far it hasn't worked, and I'm not sure what to do about its' apparent issue with any IP address other than the default. Seeing as how I am relatively inexperienced with setting up a multiple base station wireless network I am not sure if I am doing it right this far and would appreciate any insight or advice. I haven't been able to find too much helpful documentation about it on the web either, so points in the right direction are also welcome. I've got complete access to all of these devices so if you need more information just let me know.
~FL
EDIT -> At the moment both of these devices are also on a wired connection to allow me to access each one simultaneously although when I unplug the WAP and try to connect to it's interface from being plugged into the wireless router I get nothing, so I'm assuming that the wireless setup is incorrect on that level as well.
