Wireless network configuration question. (With Diagrams)

hooneeawr

hooneeawr

hooneeawr

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Okay I've been planning on improving my home network setup. The current setup is like so:

CurrentHomeNetworkSetup.jpg


If you can figure out from that, I have two wireless networks in the house, one for Internet and th other connected to a network (wired) printer in another room. The PC is connected to both all the time (since it's using CAT5 & Wireless) but the laptop needs to switch between the two.

All very messy and akward.

What I thought of doing instead was this:
ProposedHomeNetworkSetup.jpg


Perfect I thought one network for all. Nope, problem is how can I route traffic through the router, to the access point then onto the printer? I can't as far as I can see. The printer in theory could communicate with the PC and Laptop, but not the other way round.

So, my question is what can I do instead? The access point does support bridging modes, but it seems to imply that it only works with WEP, not WAP. Can I do anything with routing on the Router to direct calls to the printer IP via the access point IP? Or is that just crazy talk.

Any help would be fantastic guys.
 
Have you actually tried the latter, or is this all in your head? There's no actual routing going on for starters because it should all be within the same subnet.

If the AP were working as a wireless client, it would be transparent to the network. The printer would appear as if it were directly connected to the router.
 
tolien said:
Have you actually tried the latter, or is this all in your head? There's no actual routing going on for starters because it should all be within the same subnet.

If the AP were working as a wireless client, it would be transparent to the network. The printer would appear as if it were directly connected to the router.
Click to expand...

I have actually tried the new setup, however it doesn't work the way I originally thought it would.

The Access Point is a Client on the Router's wireless network and it is routing traffic from it's connected machines back to the main network.

I plugged a laptop in in place of the printer. The laptop can ping the access point, the router and anything connected to the router.

However, I am unable to ping the laptop from the PC connected to the router. I would imagine this is because the router does not know where to forward the ping request to (since the laptop is not directly connected to it).

Does that make any sense?
 
Here's the setup with some sample IP addresses in the mix. All the same subnet.

ProposedHomeNetworkSetupWithIP.jpg


How can PC1 (10.0.0.50) ping the printer (10.0.0.70)?
 
I haven't checked for the Netgear WG602 details, but are you sure that it can connect wirelessly? I've got 2 router 50ft apart but have had to join them by a cable for them to be able to see each other. There was just no way of connecting them by wireless. At that point I can then ping computer that are extended off the other router.

Edit: I mean wireless to wireless router. I'm not suggesting that you're stupid and just thinking that it's got wireless. :o
 
Last edited:
You've got the same IP listed twice in that diagram.

hooneeawr said:
I would imagine this is because the router does not know where to forward the ping request to (since the laptop is not directly connected to it).
Click to expand...

It isn't, and it does. Devices don't have to be directly connected to a switch (and that's all it is really, a switch and a bridged wireless AP - the parts that make it a router are irrelevant to this) for the switch to know where to send traffic for it.
If the router's switch parts didn't know how to get traffic to the laptop (which would imply the router's badly broken), how do you think the ping response gets back to the laptop from the router?

As I said, the AP should be working as a bridged wireless client and is transparent - so from 10.0.0.50, pinging 10.0.0.70 works exactly the same as pinging 10.0.0.2, or anything else. Have you made sure the AP isn't filtering ICMP (or the laptop's set to respond)?
 
If the WG602 does have a lan port and it's viable to test it with a cable do so, it may work, it may not.

This is my home topology and from it, from my desktop I can ping the family pc or any device connected to the Netgear router.
networktopologyto8.jpg
 
I suppose, but with two Netgear products I would have thought that they were designed to work with each other.
 
The GT will be working fine as an AP and the other router may be working fine in client mode...

I've just had nightmares in the past getting routers to work in client mode - whereas getting two routers connected via ethernet and both running as APs is relatively easy.
 
Pulse said:
If the WG602 does have a lan port and it's viable to test it with a cable do so, it may work, it may not.

This is my home topology and from it, from my desktop I can ping the family pc or any device connected to the Netgear router.
Click to expand...

Yes, you have the two connected by wire to each other. If I could do that I would forgo the access point and wire the printer directly in.

Basically, I'm trying to use the access point as a way to connect the printer (it's upstairs in a different part of the house) to the main router and connected pcs and doing all this without buying any extra kit.

Tolien, I think the difference in pinging from the other side of the access point (10.0.0.70) to the router (10.0.0.2) and getting a response is that it knows the path the request came from and so returns it along the same path.

If I were to ping 10.0.0.70 from 10.0.0.50 (ignore that dupe, copy and paste error) the request will go to the switch on 10.0.0.2 and it won't recognise the address as being on the network. I will double check everthing tonight, but I thought that would be the expected result.
 
hooneeawr said:
Tolien, I think the difference in pinging from the other side of the access point (10.0.0.70) to the router (10.0.0.2) and getting a response is that it knows the path the request came from and so returns it along the same path.
Click to expand...

Unless the AP's performing NAT, that's irrelevant too.

If I were to ping 10.0.0.70 from 10.0.0.50 (ignore that dupe, copy and paste error) the request will go to the switch on 10.0.0.2 and it won't recognise the address as being on the network. I will double check everthing tonight, but I thought that would be the expected result.
Click to expand...

It doesn't need to "recognise the address as being on the network". That's the whole point of ARP.
 
tolien said:
It doesn't need to "recognise the address as being on the network". That's the whole point of ARP.
Click to expand...

Ugh! My head is beginning to hurt. It's starting to come back to me though and I have a bad feeling that you are right. I will check over everthing tonight to make sure I've not just got a stupid problem like a firewall stopping ICMP. The access point does have very limited options however.
 
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