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SBS 2008 and Wireless Access Point

I have a working SBS 2008 system and I would like to add wireless access for a pc that is in a room that running wire to would be way to hard.

Should I use an access point and if so what brand or model should I look at?
Hopefully something staples carries as that's about all that's near where I live.
Any advice on configuring it?

Finally, it might be nice to also have wireless for people visiting the building but I don't want them into the system. My firewall/gateway is a firebox x10e. I think it might have another port on the back for this , but if not I have plenty of room on my 28 port switch to plug into.

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ASKER

So do i need to turn off dhcp in the router?
And then set the router's ip that static ip in the range?
What about the pc that has no cable but just the wireless usb drive. How is that set?

Yes. You should have DHCP running on your SBS Server and not on the router.

On the server, you would exclude the IP address for the router, so if your IP range is 192.168.101.0-255, you could make the IP of the rotuer 192.168.101.254, exclude it on the DHCP server, and you'll be good to go!

ASKER

Still the question about the pc.
When the pc is looking for the wireless network, just connect as normal?
What ip gets assigned to the pc?
What happens when a laptop user comes in and tries to connect?

ASKER

More to last question..
Does that wireless laptop user mess things up by connecting?

for your first set of questions: You'll use the wizard to connect to your wireless network. Make sure you change the SSID from the default and for added security do not broadcast it. This way, the user has to manually enter the SSID into their PC to access it. Additionally, make sure you enable security. WAP is better than WEP. The IP address will get assigned by the Server, or since it's 1 pc you can manually add the IP address. If a laptop user comes in, they will not be able to 'see' your network as you are not broadcasting the SSID. If you decide to broadcast it, as long as WAP is enabled, they'll be able to see it, but not be able to connect to it.

As for the 'guest router, you could leave that wide open, or you can change the SSID to something like guest and set up wep or wap and just tell them what the passphrase/password is. This will allow for people driving down your street not to be able to access that router.

HTH

Oh, and if they connect to your second router, they will not be able to access your LAN because it will be on a separate IP range. Thisn will only work if you have more than 1 static IP address from your ISP

ASKER

jocasio123,

I'm not following the part about manually adding the ip address.
If i'm to set the router ip to a static ip (one which I should exclude on the SBS server) then what static ip should I assign to the pc? Anyone within our addressing range? If so then do I need to block it out on the server also? If I set it as static on the pc, what dns do I assign with it?

or do i just let it get assigned by the server?

the IP address of the router. So in the event that the router is shut off your DHCP server won't assign it to another device. frankly, that will be remote unless you have a lot of devices and/or you set your router's IP address low in the range. The static IP address for your PC would be one in the range of your networks.

SO for example:

SBS Server 192.168.101.1
Router 192.168.101.254
PC 192.168.101.200

You would set the DNS to your SBS Server as it resolves your DNS requests. You can also assign the DNS of your ISP, but I'm sure you have DNS forwarder set to your ISP already

ASKER

I understood until you gave the example.

you said to set the pc ip to the ip address of the router and then in your example you you showed the router ip as 192.168.101.254 and the pc as ending in .200

So I am I missing something here? Still confused as to that part?

ASKER

Ok I'm on site and this isn't working.
I changed the linksys wrt54g from gateway to router. then I disabled dhcp. Then i set the ip of the router to 192.168.16.253

I went to my pc and set the wireless connection to a static ip of 192.168.16.252
Windows 7 machine by the way.
The icon in the task bar says i am connect to the internet.
I did an ipconfig and everything their is correct.
BUT
When I try to go to say.. www.google.com , it pauses for the longest time before not connecting.
if i try and ping google.com it can reach it.
I can ping the router, my dns address and my gateway but that's it.
No internet even though the wireless icon in the task bar says internet access.
Help!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Change the dns to 4.2.2.2 and see if that works

Also try restarting the pc to see if that'll work. Finally try diagnosing the Internet connection to see if it'll give you info

ASKER

The 4.2.2.2 for dns of the pc wireless didn't work.
How about a review to make sure I have this right.
Linksys WRT54G router set to router not gateway.
DHCP disabled on router.
lan ip on router of 192.168.16.253 (didn't exclude the address yet on SBS 2008)
connect from my switch to a lan port on router.

Go to pc.
set wireless setting on ip4 to static ip of: 192.168.16.252 (i've tried matching it to router also .253)
set gateway to that of my gateway at 192.168.16.1 (I get warning about multiple gateways)
set dns to 192.168.16.2
save and exit

try to connect and it hangs or says unidentified network

Hmmm, should work. Is the default gateway for the network 192.168.16.1? Also your sbs is 192.168.16.2? Try setting the ip to auto. Also if you could try plugging in the pc directly into the network to see I that resolves the issue. Then we can troubleshoot from there

ASKER

if i change the wireless to dynamic, it says i have internet acces but can't pull up a webpage.
Troubleshooting says everything looks right but it can't get to microsoft.com

ipconfig /all shows everything normal, everything!

is something blocking this or should the linksys be set to gateway or should i dump the old linksys and get an new ap?

ASKER

plugging the pc in directly works.

ASKER

Defaults are as you described 192.168.16.1 and .2

You can try changing it to GW, but I don't think that's the problem. On the router did you have an option to enter dns and GW?

ASKER

No option for dns that i could see

On the pc, under networking what does it show the connection as?

ASKER

Which connection wired or wireless?
Connection as?

Wireless

ASKER

I punched a hole through a wall and wired the pc up to the network.
So I've scrapped the wireless idea altogether.

Now even wired it won't bring up a webpage.
ipconfig shows everything ok.

yet i connect with my laptop wired (what I'm typing on now and it works.)

I now have two pc's that are wired up and won't connect (another one i just wired in a different room).

So i've got some wired that work and a couple that don't...
Wow what is going on here??

ASKER

I'm wondering if my firebox x10e has a limit of users?

Looks like my last post never went through. Try removing therouter from the network to see if that resolves some of the issues

ASKER

it was the firebox. limited to 5 users. It had a 15 user license but never got activated!!

Wow. Were you able to get the wireless running?