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Alex Smith

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Hosted Network Wireless AP messing up Routing on Server 2016

Hello everybody, Im new to Experts Exchange and hope that someone may be able to help me or shed some light on an issue i am having, i cant seem to find much information about what i am trying to do so i guess most people think its not worth doing.

First of all, the problem is with a test box i am trying to set up and is not going to be put on a production server.

I have installed Server 2016 on a box with 2 network cards to use a router between 2 networks. This is working as it should and and the machines on my second network are able to connect to the internet. This server is also configured as a DHCP server

The problem comes when i attempt to start hosted networking to use a wireless card (third network card in the server) i have installed to work as a wireless AP.
Hosted networking starts and i can connect to the wifi and receive an IP address from DHCP but the devices are not able to connect to the internet.
Also, when hosted networking is started any devices on the second network that are connected via ethernet and were able to connect to the internet now stop working.
The server is still able to connect to the internet at all times.

I cannot find much information on how to configure the hosted network side of things and cant seem to find anyone who has tried to do this exact thing. I know the easiest thing would just be to buy a dedicated wifi router but having this set up the way i want would be very beneficial to me so i am going to persevere with it regardless. But i thought i would ask others who will have more knowledge of hosted networking to see if there is anything i should be configuring differently.

Any help would be greatly received.

Many thanks, Alex
Avatar of Cliff Galiher
Cliff Galiher
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It sounds like you've misconfigured (or just didn't configure) the routing and remote access role, so your routing table is all sorts of wonk. You won't find much on setting up what you want in the internet because windows just doesn't make a great router, but it *is* doable. You've also tagged this as an azure question and have mentioned "hosted networking" multiple times, so perhaps hour should elaborate on how you've set things up so we can spot the issues.
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Alex Smith

ASKER

Thanks Cliff for taking the time to read my question. My apologies, i don't remember remember tagging it as an Azure question.

Ok, so i have 3 network cards in my machine, 2 ethernet and one wireless.

Network card 1 (Wannet) is connected to my home network with internet access and has the following config
IP Address - 192.168.0.150
Netmask - 255.255.255.0
Gateway - 192.168.0.1

Network card 2 (Lannet) is connected to a separate switch which will be used for my private network and its config is
IP address - 192.168.1.1
Netmask - 255.255.255.0
Gateway - None configured

Network card 3 (wireless) is going to be used as a wireless AP. It's config is
IP Address 192.168.1.10
Netmask - 255.255.255.0
Gateway - None configured

The server has DHCP running to assign addresses to the 192.168.1.x network

Routing and remote access has been started and NAT has been configured on Wannet.

This setup is working, i have clients connecting to the 192.168.1.x network and they are receiving IP addresses from the server and all can connect to the internet. The issue is when i start the hosted network to use the wireless card as a wireless AP.

When i use the command "netsh wlan start hostednetwork" thats when things start to go wrong. A second (virtual) wireless adapter is then created to be used as the wireless AP. The network name is showing as "wirelessAP" which is the SSID i have chosen. When i use a wireless device to scan for networks it can see this SSID and can connect to it using my key that i have set up on it.

But, even though it gets its address from DHCP with the same settings as received on other clients on the 192.168.1.x network, the wireless devices are unable to connect to the internet. Also, by starting the the wlan hosted network, all the other clients on the private network lose internet connectivity.

Is there another way of using SoftAP without using hostednetwork, my wireless network card vendor has some SoftAP software in its utilities but i have not tried using it as i was hoping i could just get Windows to do the lot without 3rd party software.

Any thoughts?
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Cliff Galiher
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No comment has been added to this question in more than 21 days, so it is now classified as abandoned.

I have recommended this question be closed as follows:

Accept: Cliff Galiher (https:#a42085576)

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