1

I am a confused with what the Netgear router (N150) is doing when it automatically sets up a "wireless access point". When I follow their instructions, they connect the ethernet cable to the WAN port. After it is all done, I then set up the SSID and password to the same as the other router (cable provider all-in-one type of router), and it seems to work. However, when I check the "wireless access point" router, it still has DHCP enabled, but it just simply handing out addresses in another IP range than the "main". This goes against what seems to be the "correct" way to do multiple routers with the same SSID as shown in a previous question.

So two questions, is this current configuration "OK"? As in, (what seems to me) a LAN-to-WAN with both routers having DHCP on with non-overlapping ranges, but with the same SSID and security settings? If not, could you shed some light on why not?

The other is, should I just ignore Netgear's instructions and follow the LAN-to-LAN as recommended in the previous question?

Improve this question

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
1

There are two issues that I can think of with the configuration that you have:

  1. Any device that is connected to the extender will receive an IP address that is only valid on the extender but not on the main router. If you connect to the wireless while closer to the extender (thus getting an IP from the extender's range) and then move closer to the main router, your device may try to switch to the main router but use its previous IP address, which is not valid on this router.

  2. (Without seeing your exact configuration, this is harder to determine -- it may or may not actually be an issue.) If you are trying to do file sharing, or media streaming (AirPlay/ChromeCast) between devices on the two different wireless access points, you may have trouble, and it may not work at all.

However, I suspect that your second router is not actually in "Access Point Mode" if it really is giving out its own IP range using DHCP. Netgear's documentation that you linked to implies that this should not be the case.

You can double-check whether your second router is in AP Mode by following these instructions from Netgear.

If you determine that the router is actually still handing out IP addresses despite being configured in AP Mode, the first thing I would do is check for a firmware update. If there is no firmware update, or if the newest firmware does not correct this issue, then I would conclude that the "AP Mode" setting is broken and I would follow the LAN-to-LAN instructions to which you linked.

Improve this answer
0

In response to Moshe Katz's answer, I think (1) was happening but the clients were smart enough (smartphones) to completely disconnect from one router and connect to the other one, giving some kind of "roaming" ability. I did not test (2), but it seemed that indeed the router was giving out its own addresses. My downstream router (Netgear n150) had the latest firmware and it was indeed in "AP Mode". What I think is happening is that Netgear's "AP Mode" is actually the cascading "LAN-to-WAN" as described here.

I followed the "LAN-to-LAN" descriptions as in the previous stackexchange question (and in the Linksys documentation). Now, the clients don't fully disconnect and reconnect, they seem to switch routers more smoothly.

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .