Wirelessly linking 2 LAN's

slugheadslughead
Posted:
in Genius Bar edited January 2014
So I have a guest house and a main house.



The main house has lots of computers, as does the guest house.



I would like the guest house to have internet, and the main house already has a router with DHCP setup and everything is working great.



I would like to use a wirelss bridge to join the LAN in the guest house with the LAN in the main house.



I would also like the DHCP in the main house to configure the computers in the guest house (so I don't need a router).



The wireless bridges I've seen thus far are only good for 1 machine.. I suppose I could hookup a router to that but then the LANs wouldn't work properly.



Thanks!

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 5
    karl kuehnkarl kuehn Posts: 756member
    You haven't talked about distances, but the best solution that pops to mind without details is to have an AirPort Base Station in the house, and a AirportExpress set to extend that network in the guest house. Everything will appear to the client computers as one big network.



    There are issues if the two AirPorts can't see each other due to range, but you can solve that with an external antenna on the non-Express model.
  • Reply 2 of 5
    slugheadslughead Posts: 1,169member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Karl Kuehn

    You haven't talked about distances, but the best solution that pops to mind without details is to have an AirPort Base Station in the house, and a AirportExpress set to extend that network in the guest house. Everything will appear to the client computers as one big network.



    There are issues if the two AirPorts can't see each other due to range, but you can solve that with an external antenna on the non-Express model.



    I should say that I'd like to use 802.11G standards (That's right, I'm cheap..)



    that particular bridging function only works with Apple and Linksys products
  • Reply 3 of 5
    toweltowel Posts: 1,479member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by slughead

    I should say that I'd like to use 802.11G standards (That's right, I'm cheap..)



    that particular bridging function only works with Apple and Linksys products



    I'm not sure what you mean by that. Apple and Linksys both use 802.11G. What Karl was describing was using the APExpress as a repeater. D-Link and Linksys also sell dedicated repeaters (aka "wireless range extenders"). Any of these might work if you can put it somewhere where it can see the home network, and the guest-house computers can still see it. Of course, all the guest-house computers would need wireless cards, but this is still probably the simplest solution.



    It sounds like you already have a wired LAN in the guest house, and would like to keep it, transparently merging it with the home LAN. That's more complicated, and requires more network hardware. Keeping all the devices on the same subnet requires having a switch in the guest house that is directly linked to the home router. I don't know of any consumer-level wireless switches, so you'd need a wireless bridge (aka ethernet-to-wireless adaptor) for the switch. The adaptor is connected to the switch by cat5, so you can try putting the adaptor in the msot advantageous spot in the guest house, and hope it can see the home router's wireless network. if it can't, then you'll need a repeater in between, big enough external antennas on both router and adaptor to make the connection directly, or a dedicated long-distance wireless bridge. I've never tried anything like that, so don't take this as expert advice, but I think it's ballpark.
    Code:


    [homeLAN]---router ((())) repeater ((())) guest1

    ))) guest2

    ))) guest3



    - or -



    [homeLAN]---router ((( * ))) adaptor-switch---[guest LAN]

    * = repeater, external antennas, dedicated bridge



  • Reply 4 of 5
    slugheadslughead Posts: 1,169member
    Thanks!





    This thing will do it, but it only works with 1 device (which would have to be a router).







    It's apparently impossible to keep them all on the same subnet without putting wireless cards in them



    Not that big of a problem I guess... I just wish Apple was more friendly to inter-subnet networking.
  • Reply 5 of 5
    karl kuehnkarl kuehn Posts: 756member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by slughead

    I should say that I'd like to use 802.11G standards (That's right, I'm cheap..)



    that particular bridging function only works with Apple and Linksys products



    As you have hinted at, there is no standard for what you are looking for. It was deliberately dropped from the spec to get the support of the industry bigshots who saw that as cutting in on their products. And don't ever depend on interoperability between vendor products for repeaters: they don't test them. For example only certain Linksys products (and product revisions) work with Airports, and it is a hit-and miss thing with many problems reported.



    Apple is one of the few vendors that has done this right and it can be expected to "just work". But they don't have cheap level products (but if you compare the full feature list you usually come out ahead).



    If the two houses are using the same power box, then you might want to look into PowerLine products. It can travel a bit further if the wiring is good, and that spec has all sorts of bridging built in.
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