Connecting Airport Extreme Directly to Wall Jack

Question

Connecting Airport Extreme Directly to Wall Jack

Hello,

I very recently purchased an Airport Extreme Base Station to use in my college dorm in Germany. My apartment provides an ethernet connection directly from the wall, so I don't have any sort of modem setup, only a direct ethernet connection between the jack on the wall and the Airport Extreme. I have the cable from the wall running to the WAN port and another LAN cable running from the Airport Extreme to my Macbook Air. I have managed to name the Airport Extreme and provide it with a password. When it's plugged in, I can connect to the new "connection" using WiFi, but there is apparently no internet connection. In the Airport Utility menu, next to the name of my base station, is "3" supposed errors:

No DNS connection
Internet Connection (It doesn't say NO internet connection, just "internet connection")

So, with that in mind, I would essentially like to set it up as a working wireless access point for my Macbook Air and other devices. So far, the only way I've managed to create a working connection with the Extreme is by plugging both ethernet cables into the LAN ports and creating the same standard wired connection I had before I purchased the Extreme. Also, Airport Utility is up to date, so I'm working with the most recent version as far as I can tell.

I am sure I've missed something obvious, but what am I doing wrong? Appreciate any help at all, and thanks so much.

Airport Extreme-OTHER, Mac OS X (10.7.3)

Posted on Mar 31, 2012 9:32 AM

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Answer 1

Tesserax

Level 10

158,208 points

Mar 31, 2012 4:43 PM in response to ArtificialMonk

I am assuming that if you connected a computer directly to the wall Ethernet port that it can gain Internet access without any configuration required on the computer to do so ... correct?

If so, then the AirPort Extreme should work, but it will need to be reconfigured as a bridge as it is most likely that there is another Internet router upstream of that port that is providing both NAT & DHCP services.

To reconfigure the Extreme as a bridge, you would use the AirPort Utility: AirPort Utility (v5.x) > Select the Extreme > Manual Setup > Internet > Internet Connection tab > Connection Sharing = Off (Bridge Mode)

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Answer 2

Apr 1, 2012 3:38 AM in response to Tesserax

Firstly, thanks for your response. You are correct, I am connected to a wall Ethernet port but it does require me to manually create a connection based on a sheet supplied by the ISP - the sheet includes my IP-Address, Subnet, Default-Gateway/Router and the DNS servers, as well as a domain.

Alright, so, making it a bridge definitely helped, as I can now access the internet through the LAN connection. However, just to be as specific as possible, the Internet Connection Tab did not have "Connection Sharing" as an option. Instead, under Network > Router Mode > Off (Bridge Mode) is where I found this option.

Having said all of that, I am still unable to access the internet via the WAN port. Interestingly, I can connect to the WIFI I created, both on my computer and on my phone, but there is simply nothing in it - a hollow connection, I guess.

Lastly, there is still one perceived "error" in the airport utility, and that is that it says "Internet Connection" and expects me to cycle a modem I do not have.

Thanks again so much for your help thus far, and hopefully we can work this out fairly quickly.

Here is a picture of what I'm seeing..

Message was edited by: ArtificialMonk (to include picture)

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Answer 3

Tesserax

Level 10

158,208 points

Apr 1, 2012 10:26 AM in response to ArtificialMonk

However, just to be as specific as possible, the Internet Connection Tab did not have "Connection Sharing" as an option. Instead, under Network > Router Mode > Off (Bridge Mode) is where I found this option.

... and why I included the "(v5.x)" in my instructions to reference version 5 of the AirPort Utility as I cannot predict which an OP is using. I see now that you are using v6. Thanks for clarifying that for me.

With the AirPort Extreme in bridge mode, the upstream router is being relied on to provide NAT & DHCP services. I would check with your ISP to see if their service supports using multiple clients from the wall jack.

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Answer 4

Apr 1, 2012 11:16 AM in response to Tesserax

Ah, somehow missed the (v5.x) - my apologies. I have since downloaded that version, as it seems far more competent a tool. I will check with my ISP and see what they say, then update the thread as information comes in. Thanks for the help!

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