Router behind router issue

Question

Level 1

12 points

Router behind router issue

We have a 2wire router that we use as part of our AT&T Broadband system for our tvs, dvr and wireless network. I am able to easily set up TC to "join network" and disable wireless. I am currently doing my first back up... yea!

But... I had read several earlier posts about using TC as a 802.11n only network. when i tried to do this. i would get an error saying that our existing router detected a "router behind a router," and asked me to resolve. i thought i had hooked everything up according to the previous posts.

any suggestions? also, if i do this. my other computers will not connect (husband's G4), will it? It does not have 802.11n.

thanks for any suggestions! Also, our internet connection seems very slow now.

Macbook Pro, Mac OS X (10.5.1)

Posted on Mar 3, 2008 8:53 PM

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Answer 1

Henry B.

Level 9

78,713 points

Mar 3, 2008 9:29 PM in response to kami52275

Not sure what you were doing, but it will work if set up as follows:

1. Use the Airport Utility to enable "bridge mode" on the Time Capsule. Do this by running the utility, select your Time Capsule and click on the Manual Setup button, click on the Internet button, and at the bottom of the window select "Bridge mode" from the "Connection Sharing" drop down box.

2. Cable any of the Time Capsule ethernet ports to the ethernet LAN port on the 2Wire router. If you need extra LAN ports for cabled devices on your network, you can connect them to the spare port on the Time Capsule.

That's it.

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Answer 2

kami52275 Author

Level 1

12 points

Mar 3, 2008 10:02 PM in response to Henry B.

Oh, I think I have it connected to the WAN port. So this way I don't disable wireless, just set it for n only. Will this allow my husbands G4 running leopard to use TC with time machine?

Thanks!

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Answer 3

Henry B.

Level 9

78,713 points

Mar 3, 2008 10:16 PM in response to kami52275

Yes - any computer connected to your LAN, irrespective of the method of connection, will be able to access the Time Capsule.

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Answer 4

kami52275 Author

Level 1

12 points

Mar 3, 2008 10:45 PM in response to Henry B.

Thanks! This worked. So now I have the two networks showing up- the b/g and the n network I created. What is strange though is that I can connect to the n network fine, but when I try to go back to the original network it says I am unable.

Also, my own computer was showing up in Finder under both Devices and Shared. Under shared it was showing up kamis-mbp. A name I hadn't seen before. The G4 is still connected to the b/g network and seems to be OK, even after being disconnected while in sleep mode. I wonder why I am able to see both networks, but not connect back to the old one? Being connected to one, I guess I would be automatically connected to the other since the 2wire router and TC are hooked together via ethernet?

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Answer 5

Henry B.

Level 9

78,713 points

Mar 3, 2008 10:48 PM in response to kami52275

Yes - when you are connected to one access point, you are able to communicate with the other access point via the ethernet network connection between them.

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Answer 6

AHShah

Level 1

5 points

Mar 3, 2008 11:25 PM in response to kami52275

Did ATT use netgear gigabit GS 108 switch's to distribute the 2Wire gateway ? to separate TV's and computers, ? I took Henry B' advise , but was using the WAN port (my TC came in today) big disappointment I had to reset it a dozen time, because each time i tried to make the AE as my primary wireless base station I would get the Amber light, I am backing up my Mac Mini now and will wait to back up my PC Laptop tomorrow. by the way this thing does run very hot. I wonder why ?

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Answer 7

AHShah

Level 1

5 points

Mar 3, 2008 11:30 PM in response to Henry B.

That is my question , will my broadband TV and Voip work on the lan ports of TC, ? right now I have each of these devices including the TC connected to the netgear GS 108 gigabit 8 port switch which in turn is connected to the 2 wire gateway in my closet ?

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Answer 8

kami52275 Author

Level 1

12 points

Mar 4, 2008 5:11 AM in response to Henry B.

Henry,

The new network seems to be working fine, but now the TM is running VERY slowly. I woke up this morning to find that only 13KB had backed up, compared to 11 GB in two hours when I had the device hooked up the old way.

Is there a setting I may not have changed last night when I switched the type of wireless access?

Thanks so much for your help. I'm not sure how anyone would get things fixed if you weren't on these boards! 😉

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Answer 9

Henry B.

Level 9

78,713 points

Mar 4, 2008 5:58 AM in response to kami52275

I'm not sure what difference there has been in the method you used for connecting the Mac to the Time Capsule between "old" and "new" ways.

If you are going to be doing a large backup, I recommend you cable the Mac to one of the LAN ports on the Time Capsule itself. Any other connection method is going to be very slow by comparison.

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Answer 10

kami52275 Author

Level 1

12 points

Mar 4, 2008 7:00 AM in response to Henry B.

The very first time I connected TC, I tried setting it up to "create a new network" as 802.11n only. It was connected to my 2wire router via cable. I ran into an issue where my 2wire router was showing an error because saying it detected a "router behind a router" and would not let any computers on the network access the internet. So, I changed settings on TC. I turned off wireless, and set up TC to join the existing network. I started a back up and things were going OK. I had about 10 GB out of 90 GB backed up in a little under 2 hours.

I was disappointed though because I had read posts of people using TC to create the 802.11n only network, and I thought it would be nice to use that capability since my MBP can. So that's when I posted here and realized that I had the cable hooked from my 2wire router into the WAN port, not the LAN port. so, I stopeed the back up, switched the cable, reconfigured TC to create a wireless network.

Now, the wireless networks are both working, but the Time Machine back up is not. It will connect to TC and it shows up under shared, etc. but where it had done 10 GB in 2 hours, it only did 13 KB all night.

Am i correct when setting up the wireless portion of TC to "create a wireless network" not "join" or "extend?"

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Answer 11

kami52275 Author

Level 1

12 points

Mar 4, 2008 7:03 AM in response to AHShah

AHShah, I do belive that you can plug any of the TVs, etc in to any of the LAN ports on your ATT router or TC.

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Answer 12

AHShah

Level 1

5 points

Mar 4, 2008 9:25 AM in response to kami52275

thank you ,
will try that today.
ASHAH

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Answer 13

kami52275 Author

Level 1

12 points

Mar 4, 2008 11:00 AM in response to kami52275

This is also strange:

Now I have two networks... 2Wire Network (which is the original network on the 2wire router) and Apple Network (the new 802.11n only network I just created). My computer can see both of them. I can connect to Apple Network just fine, use the internet, etc. But if I try to reconnect to 2Wire Network I get window asking me to enter the WPA password (which is already in my keychain). When I enter it, it says it is invalid.

Shouldn't I be able to connect back and forth on these networks?

Message was edited by: kami52275

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Answer 14

Mar 4, 2008 11:20 AM in response to AHShah

The right way to do it is to replace the netgear router with the Time Capsule. It is a router. You need to know how you connect to the internet. Is it DSL or cable? Connect the cable/dsl modem to the WAH port on your TC. Using Airport Utility you can set up the TC to connect to the internet. There are four ethernet ports on the TC. You can plug any ethernet able device (including a PC) into the to get them on the network. Use Airport Utility to set up wireless and any wireless computer can access it.

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Answer 15

kami52275 Author

Level 1

12 points

Mar 4, 2008 11:57 AM in response to Steve McKeon

I would do it like that, but we have AT&T Uverse where all our cable boxes connect wirelessly through the 2wire router.

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