WinXP, LinkSys Router, 2 NIC cards, Network Bridge

[rjkrash]

I just spent two days figuring this out and thought someone else might find the solution helpful.

I wanted to have an 802.11b (wireless) segment of a lan connect to/thru a WinXP Pro computer to the DLS connection that is enabled thru a Linksys router/hub. I also wanted the wireless segment to "see" the rest of the network's (other computers) shared resources.

The config is as follows:

Win XP Pro with a NIC card connected to a Linksys BEFSR41 DSL router/hub, which in turn connects to a DSL connection (router) and other ethernet machines thru the 'hub' component of the LINKSYS. . There is also a Cisco Wireless 340 PCI card in the Win XP machine.
A second machine is a Win 98 SE machine with a Cisco Wireless 340 PCMCIA card installed.
Both 340 cards are set up as "ad-hoc".
1 more machine is connected to the Ethernet hub thru an 802.3 NIC.
I have disabled DHCP on the LinkSys router and have set all the NICs and Wireless devices with static IP address in the 192.168.1.n range, subnet 255.255.255.0.

Just a simple home network right!

The way to configure this to work is to setup a Network Bridge between the NIC card and the Wireless card. See "Network Connections" on Win XP.

The "trick" is to make the Network Bridge a part of the same network subnet as the rest of the NIC cards, routers, and wireless equipment in the network. Microsoft sets the 169.254.n.n subnet for the bridge by default. All I had to do (after much head scraching X-) ! ) was set the Network Bridge's TCP/IP properties to a network address in the same subnet as the rest of my equipment. (Rt click Network Bridge, select properties, select "Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)" and click properties, then select the "Use the following IP address" button and enter an available IP address in your subnet along with the proper subnet mask and default gateway.)

I hope this helps someone else!

 

[Guest_imported]

I have a similar setup with a linksys wireless card and a cable/dsl router/wirelss AP. My problem is that when i bridge my NIC card and the wireless card, the wireless card does not connect to the network at all. It only seems to work when i remove it from the bridge. Any ideas???

 

[rjkrash]

You say similar, describe the setup a little more.

# of PCs, # of NICs in PC, OS each PC, and how connected.

e.g - PC1/wireless NIC to Wireless AP, Wireless AP to DSL Modem, ...

Something I can sketch out what it is you are doing.

Let me know.

Dik ----
"eXPerience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterwards." - annon

 

[Guest_imported]

I have one PC running Win2K and a laptop running Win XP. I also have cable modem, linksys BEFW11S4 Cable/DSL router and a Linksys WPS11 wireless print server. I have both my PC and the print server connected to the router using a wired LAN link and my laptop is connected using a linksys wireless card. (the laptop also has a built in NIC). The problem is that when i connect my laptop using the wirelss link i don't see the rest of the network and i can't print If i use the wired link, everything works fine. I tried bridging the wireless and wired connections but when i do that the laptop does not connect to the network. (I assigned a static IP address to the bridge) What happens is that i can see on the wireless card's status AP that it's connected to the AP but I can't get to the rest of the network or the internet. If i remove the wireless link from the bridge, I can then connect to the internet but then i have the old problem of not seeing the rest of the network of the print server.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[rjkrash]

Good info. I think I understand your setup. Can you answer a couple more questions?

1. Is the XP Home or Professional?

2. What is your IP address scheme? Tell me the IP adresses/masks you are using for each device and whether you are using DHCP (and where DHCP is running). What gateway is specified for each PC? A post of an "IPconfig /all" output would tell me most of what is what. Need the IPs of the router and print share device too.

3. Are you running a 3rd party firewall? MS's Internet Connection Sharing? XP's Internet Connection Firewall?

The config I think you have should work and I think a bridge is the way to get there. The IP configuration is probably getting in the way.

Have you looked at Linksys's site for info on setup? I am not familiar with the printsharing device but linksys has some good tech info at their site.

Post back and we'll keep at this one.

----
"eXPerience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterwards." - annon

 

[Guest_imported]

Thanks for getting back to me. This is the IP config spec for the win2K machine:

Microsoft Windows 2000 [Version 5.00.2195]
(C) Copyright 1985-2000 Microsoft Corp.

C:\>ipconfig/all

Windows 2000 IP Configuration

Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : BigKahuna
Primary DNS Suffix . . . . . . . :
Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Broadcast
IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
DNS Suffix Search List. . . . . . : vista1.sdca.home.com

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : @HOME
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : 3Com EtherLink XL PCI TPO NIC (3C900
-TPO)
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-60-97-6D-A2-E2
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.100
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1
DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1
DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 68.6.16.30
68.2.16.30
68.1.17.5
Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : Thursday, April 04, 2002 9:28:11 AM
Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : Friday, April 05, 2002 9:28:11 AM

The laptop is.

C:\Documents and Settings\Peter>ipconfig/all

Windows IP Configuration

Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : laptop
Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . :
Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Unknown
IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No

Ethernet adapter Network Bridge:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : MAC Bridge Miniport
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 52-59-41-F0-22-D6
Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.104
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1
DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 68.6.16.30
68.2.16.30
68.1.17.5


I have BlackIce on my win2K machine so that was blocking my laptop. I disabled it but when i unplug the wired link from my laptop i still can't connect. For some reason the wireless card does not work with the bridge.Everything works perfectly if i connect my laptop using the wired link but the wireless just doesn't like the bridge

 

[rjkrash]

Upon reflection a bridge may not be the answer here.

What are the IPs of the wireless devices? Are they in the same subnet?

Remove the bridge and try the following:

Are you familiar with creating restore points? If so, for safety's sake, create a restore point before doing these procedures. (If unaware of "restore" points search help for "restore points" and read System Restore overview and create a restore point.)

Assume the following (substitute actual IPs as appropriate):

WPS11 - 192.168.1.105
Laptop Wireless NIC - 192.168.1.106
Laptop wired NIC - 192.168.1.104

Laptop is 'wired' to the hub via the NIC.

On the laptop
open regedit
navigate to this key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters
set the value "IPEnableRouter" to 1
close regedit
reboot

after reboot,
at a command prompt on the Laptop issue the following command: (for deatils you can read about the route command in help)

route add 192.168.1.105 mask 255.255.255.0 192.168.1.106

try printing from the laptop.

if printing works and the other network access is functional reissue the above route command to make it persistant like this: (added -p switch)

route -p add 192.168.1.105 mask 255.255.255.0 192.168.1.106

let me know if this works.





----
"eXPerience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterwards." - annon

 

[Guest_imported]

Thanks for all your help.

 

[scottbeck]

I too am trying to connect a Linksys wireless AP (BEFW11S4 V.2) to my network and while it works great as a gateway to the internet I cannot see any of my network with it. I am the Technology Coordinator for a small school and would like to place these wireless AP's around in my buildings for access to the network resources as well as the internet. Setting up a pc router at each point is out of the question. Does anyone know of a wireless ap that will play fairly on a network? I would like to see one that will participate on a class B subnet, and pass on DHCP from my server. Thanks in advance for any suggestions.