Topic: adding wifi to my network?

[nefkho]

hi, i am suing sme 7.4, and would like to add wifi network to my current wired network, would it affect my sme 7.4:

layout:

sme7.4 -----wired----wifi----wireless----pc

is the above layout possible?
will my pc still get dhcp ip from sme 7.4?

thanks,

[johnp]

Is your SME in gateway mode?

[girkers]

No it won't affect your computers and yes your wireless PCs will get an IP address from SME. I use that exact configuration except with a Router/Modem in front of my SME box and it works fine.  Think of wifi in your configuration as just an extension to your physically wired network, in theory it works just the same, just the medium is different.

[nefkho]

hi, yes, my sme is in gateway mode..

[johnp]

If you have a wireless gateway/router, I would disable dhcp on it and give it a static ip on your lan (outside your dhcp range). Then it would be connected to your lan via one of it's lan ports. This basically makes it operate as an access point.

Yes your devices will receive all dhcp from you SME with this type of configuration.

[RedBeard]

Just to be clear, as this one stumped me for several hours a few years ago, if the wireless device is a gateway/router it will have LAN ports and a WAN port.  If you want your SME server to hand out IP addresses don not use the WAN port.  Plug the network cable into the LAN ports on the wireless gateway/router. 

[cactus]

Just to be clear, as this one stumped me for several hours a few years ago, if the wireless device is a gateway/router it will have LAN ports and a WAN port.  If you want your SME server to hand out IP addresses don not use the WAN port.  Plug the network cable into the LAN ports on the wireless gateway/router.

Why? Most routers should work if you disable DHCP as they turn the WAN port in a LAN port as well.

[johnp]

Why? Most routers should work if you disable DHCP as they turn the WAN port in a LAN port as well.

I've never seen this to occur, most gateway/routers I've seen have separate settings for the wan and lan ip addresses. Then nat between the two.

In regards to my previous post, I should have said to put a static ip on the lan side of the router that was in the same subnet as his dhcp range. Then by plugging into the lan side to his existing lan, everything would be on the same subnet and receive leases from his SME. Thus, there is no need to do anything to the wan side.

[arne]

Yes, this can work as suggested at the top.

As a general prinsiple: The wireless access point might be built as a router or as a bridge.

If it is built like a router then connecting to the wan side will give a "double nat" and some lan functions and dhcp from the sme server will propably not work.

If the cabeled lan side of the wireless router is bridged to the wireless lan, then RedBear's proposal might be quite good one. Then the dhcp of the wireless router can be turned off and the wireless zone will have "full sme server functionality".

.. But this require that the wireless accesspont can act as a router from the cabeled wan side and as a bridge from the cabeled lan side. 

[RedBeard]

Why? Most routers should work if you disable DHCP as they turn the WAN port in a LAN port as well.

I don't think it worked for me when I setup a couple Buffalo routers a couple of years ago or a Dell and Linksys one 4 or 5 years ago.  I know I turned DHCP off, maybe I missed something else, but I just recently had someone plug the network cable into the WAN port of the Buffalo wireless router when moving their office around and that killed access to the LAN.  I didn't look into the problem much as plugging the cable into the LAN port solved the problem of letting the SME server hand out the IP addresses and this is was suggested to do to fix the problem.