Wireless addon to existing LAN.

ID:14232
 
Jun 24 2006, 11:50 pm
I'm pretty sure this is possible, but I'm just checking - can you get a wireless router, plug it into an ethernet switch for an existing, wired LAN, configure it up, and get computers attached to the wireless router into the network? What sort of settings does it involve? What should I look out for?
Jun 25 2006, 2:49 am
Stuff connected to the wireless router will be behind an extra NAT, so computers on the wired LAN won't be able to establish connections to the wirelessly connected computers (though the reverse will work) unless you set up port forwarding. This has implications for network file shares, among other things.

And make sure you secure your wireless network. :-)
Jun 25 2006, 3:24 pm
That isn't a real problem - I managed to port-forward our original NAT, this one should be fine.

And yeah, I'll definitely be activating WPA when/if I get this wireless thing setup. :)
Jun 26 2006, 5:55 pm
In that case, I don't see any problem. Go for it. :-)

Double NAT is a bit annoying since you have to do port forwarding in two different places if you want to port forward from the internet, but I'm sure you'll cope.
Jun 27 2006, 5:18 am
I would actually recommend turning off most "router" things in the wireless router. The most important to turn off is the DHCP server.

You can create some conflicts if both routers are battling to be the primary(We had that problem at work when I connected a router to use as a switch and forgot to disable the DHCP server, it was a big mess and caused at least a few people some downtime).

Some routers(Like my belkin), have a simple "pass-through mode" or something like that. A simple radio button that turns off all router related stuff and it becomes a switch(My belkin is made to easily be turned into a wifi switch just for cases like yours).