Wireless to Wired network.

The_KiD · 28 Jul 2006 at 14:38

Ok am after a bit of advice regarding my wireless setup at home.

What I want to to do is keep my wirelessd router downstairs near the phone point, but then upstairs I want some way of connecting devices with no wireless abilities.

This is because I bring other peoples machines home to fix and need to hook them to network so I can update them etc.

My theory was this:

phone--wireless rourter/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\wireless AP---switch----PC's

--- indicates a wire
/\/\ indicates wireless signal.

Would this work?

Also if I wanted to make it so the machines I plug into the switch are on a different subnet (or is it called a DMZ) so that they can get on the internet, but not see machines on the LAN (in case they are virus infected) how do I do this?

tolien · 28 Jul 2006 at 15:01

Yes, provided the wireless AP could work as a wireless client.
As for separating the two networks, you'd need some kind of firewall (or NAT with the outside interface being attached to the switch).

The_KiD · 28 Jul 2006 at 15:23

tolien said:
Yes, provided the wireless AP could work as a wireless client.

This is kind of what I was asking, can the AP work as a client? how does it work?

tolien said:
As for separating the two networks, you'd need some kind of firewall (or NAT with the outside interface being attached to the switch).

So I would need a firewall in after the AP?

tolien · 28 Jul 2006 at 15:28

The_KiD said:
This is kind of what I was asking, can the AP work as a client? how does it work?

It'll depend on the AP in question.
On the WRT54GS (which isn't an AP, but ho hum), it works like you'd expect it to, you feed it an SSID, encryption key et al, and it connects. Wireless and switch ports are bridged, so anything connect to them can see anything on the other side of the wireless.

So I would need a firewall in after the AP?

Something's going to have filter (and block) traffic.

The_KiD · 28 Jul 2006 at 16:03

Nice one Tolien, cheers.

So what router and AP would you recomend?

Vai · 28 Jul 2006 at 16:18

I have a similar setup, but have a wireless NIC and a wired NIC in my downloading/server box, then set it up as a network bridge.