Helping people with computers... one answer at a time.
Adding a wireless access point can be a little frustrating if you're behind a router and the access point is also trying to be a router.
How do I get my wireless access point to work with my existing router?
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This is the scenario: you have an existing cable, satellite, or DSL connection to the internet that is connected to a broadband router or PC providing Internet Connection Sharing that in turn connects to your ethernet local area network. You want to add a wireless access point. Sounds easy, and it is. However there is a gotcha, and the name of the gotcha is NAT - Network Address Translation.
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The short answer is to make sure the wireless access point is not also attempting to provide NAT. How you do that will vary based on the access point, so check your documentation for NAT or for providing DHCP services to wireless clients and turn that off.
NAT is a technique that lets multiple machines on one side of your router share a single internet connection, and most importantly a single internet IP address as well. The router does this by handing out local IP addresses to each machine on your local network and translating between those addresses and the "real" internet IP address when the local computers access the internet.
Many wireless access points can be also configured to act very much like a broadband router. In fact there are several combo devices that are both a broadband router and wireless access point in one package. In either case, they may also be able to provide NAT functionality between the wireless and wired networks.
If NAT is turned on at both the broadband router and the wireless access point, all wireless devices are going through two levels of NAT to access the internet. Not only is that adding unnecessary overhead, but it also introduces some real problems. NAT "protects" the "local" devices from the remote devices ... in this case, the wireless access point will "protect" the wireless machines from the rest of your local network. In effect, it'll make them inaccessible.
So as I said earlier, the solution is fairly simple. You only need one level of NAT between the internet and the rest of your LAN. Anything on your local network is safe and does not need additional NAT. Make sure that NAT or DHCP is turned OFF on the wireless access point. (To be clear, the wireless access point may still use DHCP to get an address for itself, but it should not provide DHCP functionality to wireless devices.)
Article C1841 - September 18, 2003
Leo A. Notenboom has been playing with computers since he
was required to take a programming class in 1976. An 18 year career as a programmer at Microsoft soon followed.
After "retiring" in 2001, Leo started Ask Leo! in 2003 as a place for answers
to common computer and technical questions. More about Leo.
I installed an access point to strength the signal from my wireless router/DSL.
the new access point cannot access the internet wirelessly from my wireless router unless I connect it with RJ-45 Ethernet cable?
if I try without cable I can see the address on my internet browser tab flash rapidly without being able to connect wirelessly?
30-Aug-2011
Posted by: Chariff at August 29, 2011 7:05 AM
Thanks for a nice article.
Now I've a question for our scenario. We some people are sharing the single DSL Internet line through switch/router in a building. Now if some one insert at access point in his apartment a wireless device with DHCP enabled, the other users are not able to connect to the Internet. So the questions are,
Posted by: Muhammad Faisal at October 4, 2011 6:13 AMHow to trace who has done this?
How to avoid this problem? To add complexity we don't know the username /password for DSL router where the Internet line is coming, so cannot make any changes there.
Hope I've made my questions clear.
I'm trying to see if there is anything to do, regarding my connection. My modem at my house is set at the front of the house where my tv is connected. My office is on the complete other side of the house. I don't want to run cables through the roof or along the floor. I was wondering can i have a wireless access point on my office desk and used it like it was a modem/router and connect a CAT5 cable from the WAP to my internet socket at the back of my PC??
During my off hours i like to play BF3, which requires decent connection. I currently have PCi wireless card on board my motherboard. I am not happy with the lag I get from this card. Hence my question regarding the WAP?
18-Dec-2011
Posted by: James at December 18, 2011 8:14 AM
That was my issue...i had NAT enabled on one of my 3 access points causing "limited connectivity" i asume on a random daily basis. I have now disabled NAT (as well as DHCP which was already disabled) on all access points just leaving DHCP and NAT enabled on the main router---connecting to the net
Thanks Leo :)
Cheers
Posted by: Simon at March 2, 2012 6:58 AMSimon
Dear Sir,
Posted by: Abhishek Trivedi at May 4, 2012 11:09 PMI have environment of wireless mesh network of and each AP has dual radio,my laptop connected to AP-1 with ip address 192.168.2.1 and it can ping the AP-2 and AP-3 having ip address 10.0.0.2 and 10.0.0.5.Now second radio of my AP-3 connected to internet but laptop connected to AP-1 can not get the internet connection.
Can you suggest me the solution how get internet connection on laptop.