networking question

Joe WD5Y

I have been trying to setup LAN and having trouble. My cable modem is connected to the WIFI. I have a DD-WRT bridge to the WIFI in another room that the Flex computer and Flex 6500 are both connected to. I can access outside (Internet) through the WIFI and also through the bridge, all looks good no issues. The Flex computer and 6500 also works great through the switch on the bridge. I can not see or ping through the WIFI to the bridge, it is like it isn't there. The bridge is setup in "client" mode, I also tried other modes as well. any help would be much appreciated as I probably have a setting wrong.

Thanks and 73's

Joe Torrey

WD5Y

Jim Gilliam

I am not sure what you mean that your cable modem is connected to the WiFi. Usually the cable modem is connected to a router which creates the WiFi environment. Also there are cable companies that provide both a cable modem and a router.

Jim

Joe WD5Y

yes, the cable company modem is connected to the router/wifi unit. The router brand is firebox, I have checked through settings but over my head at this point.

Jim Gilliam

Is the router wireless or are you connecting a wireless bridge to the router to create a wireless WiFi environment?  

kg5eiu

Joe - I am still a little confused as well - a diagram would be worth 1K words at this point - but If I guess what you mean is that (see attached diagram)  now we need to fill in some IP address info
to complete the picture.  BTW - IMHO the wifi bridge is really NOT the way to go esp. if you are using older wifi on 2.4Ghz - that wifi link bandwidth will be cut in half and even in near perfect wifi conditions in that 2.4Ghz spectrum my guess is that your data rates will be around 2megs or less.


 

Joe WD5Y

You are correct in that the speed is a concern. The diagram is exact. The Firebox Router's IP address is 192.168.1.1. I have the DD-WRT bridge looking into the router (wireless) as shown, the DD-WRT bridge uses the 192.168.1.1 (router) address as the gateway address. The windows PC has 192.168.1.132 for an address. The DD-WRT bridge has 192.168.2.1 for an address. I can access the internet from the windows PC connected to the DD-WRT bridge through the firebox router, I also access the internet through any other wireless device through the firebox router. I can not ping from a device through the firebox router to the bridge which is 192.168.2.1, it is not showing up.

Thanks and 73's,

Joe Torrey

WD5Y

Jon_KF2E

Normally when you setup a bridge you have the same subnet on both sides. The purpose of a bridge is to connect multiple segments of the same LAN. You have 192.168.1.X as your LAN subnet. A bridge is not a router so the 192.168.2.X hosts on the bridge side don't have a route to the 192.168.1.X hosts. If you put everything on the bridge side to 192.168.1.X addresses everything should work. You probably should use fixed addresses but if DHCP works over the bridge that should be fine also.

Jon...kf2e

kg5eiu

Like Jon says - there is no "router" for the 192.168.2.X subnet (not all networks NEED a router).  The DD-WRT is just a bridge (meaning the IP address are the same on both sides) In order to access the management pages to configure the DD-WRT - it needs to have an address in/on the 192.168.1.X network/subnet.  Or a Jon says let if use DHCP but it may be difficult to find the IP address unless you login to the Firebox and look in the address/arp tables/cache and match the MAC address to the address of the DD-WRT.  (BTW you only need a router or Default Gateway to "get off" the local subnet/lan i.e. in your case something not in the address space with 192.168.1.**** assuming your subnet masks are all 255.255.255.0 - if you don't have a route to the network that your want to goto then the packets/requests for everything get sent to the default gateway and that devices has to figure out where to send the traffic/packets - this is usually called a router) I suspect if you fix the addressing on the DD-WRT - your issues will go away as far as connectivity - but then the bandwidth of the wifi network cut by 50% will be your bottle neck and the new issue.

Joe WD5Y

I did more checking and it looks like the firebox router is the issue. I connected a pc directly to the router and tried to ping a laptop (wireless) and neither could see each other, the bridge was not in line. I am going to try a default reset on the firebox router and try again. Thanks Joe WD5Y

Jim Gilliam

Why ping the router...talk to it by addressing http://192.168.1.1

Martin AA6E

Joe, I don't know if this applies to you, but some WiFi routers can prohibit one local WiFi device from talking to another local WiFi device. They can only see the internet. This improves security in a public environment. There is generally a configuration option to disable this behavior.

kg5eiu

Ahh there is more to the diagram - what is the IP address of the laptop ?  (when it is on wifi to the Firebox and has connectivity to the Internet) (is the laptop running firewall or anti-virus software that blocks pings?)  I agree with Martin - a lot of wifi routers have the ability to disable peer 2 peer or enable client isolation - this STOPS wifi users from being able to "see" or ping or interact with each other while on wifi.  Not familiar with the Firebox OS/GUI or if that is even an option. 

Joe WD5Y

I may have other problems but need to get the ability to see peer to peer first. I am trying to find the parameter that would allow this but not yet. The firebox has a different layout than a linksys. Will keep looking and thanks very much for help, if and when I find this will definitely post. Sure has been a learning experience. Thanks and 73's Joe WD5Y