guest network does not work when bridging airport express to extreme

Hopefully that is Winnipeg Jets hockey.

I am not speaking for the last few posters but in my own experience the problem is when there are base stations below a primary AirPort Extreme or a 3rd party primary router and these secondary base stations offer the Guest Network feature that requires VLAN 1003.

The secondary base stations offer good speed to the main bridged network but terrible speed to the segregated Guest network.

Hello.

Yes I'm sure you are correct which is a big disappointment. Being able to setup guest networks was what made me buy the Apple kit in the first place.

Perhaps I should be looking at other kit?

BTW...... just set up a VLAN ID of 1003 on my Netgear smart switch. I have added the ports that the Apple Express base stations are connected to as "members" of the VLAN. I have set the port properties to "tagged".

Still no joy. The guest networks on the Airport Express units cannot obtain an IP address. If I plug them direct into the Extreme they work, albeit slowly.

Dohh!

Update.

Airport Express base station Guest Networks now working after adding the Extreme router Netgear port to the VLAN 1003.

Don't say it! it's late here in the UK and I'm tired!

Anyways, Guest networks on the Airport Express's are still giving diabolical speeds as expected.

So, have disconnected the Airport Express units completely and have moved the Airport Extreme to my living room (from my workshop). This was easily done as the fibre modem remains at the incoming landline socket. I already have Ethernet cabling between my workshop and several rooms in the house.

Surprisingly the performance has improved slightly. The Ping is down from an average of 23ms to 18ms and the download speed is maintained even via the wireless connection!

So now a quick survey to find out how far the Airport Extreme wireless signal travels, in other words do I need to add the 3 Airport Express Extenders back to the system? The upside of the present scenario is that with the Airport Extreme now in a more central position, I can use it's Guest Network which operates at full speed. So far so good.

Gerald

In my case I have all Airport Extremes...but I think the issue is the same regardless of extreme or express

The bottom line is it will NEVER work right until Apple fixes the issue in the software with any roaming Airports (Express or Extreme) when conected to a managed switch. I might try the setup OI described above:

Primary Airport Extreme WAN ----> internet via managed switch Untagged VLAN

Primary Airport Extreme LAN ---> Unmanaged 8 port switch

Office Airport Extreme WAN ---> Unmanaged 8 port switch (Per roaming setup instructions)

Kitchen Airport Extreme WAN ---> Unmanaged 8 port switch (Per roaming setup instructions)

Bedroom Airport Express WAN ---> Unmanaged 8 port switch (Per roaming setup instructions)

This should in theory work correctly. It would free up ports on my managed switch of course, but it's another switch in the mix JUST for the AE's to connect to each other for local communication. Also I'd need to by a completely unmanaged switch for this to get setup.

In my case I have multiple VLAN's so I also need to link the unmanaged switch to the managed switch on an untagged port so I can access the rest of the local network on the non-guest side. If I set it up I will blog it with a diagram to explain why one must go through such a hassle for it to work. This will also still require that the primary Extreme serve DHCP and NAT so the guests can get to the internet. If the bug was fixed you could serve DHCP on your own server tagged on 1003 (which I have tested and works) making ALL your AE's bridge mode which was my original intent. I've been forced to use DHCP/NAT 100% due to this bug Apple refuses to fix.

Well, just another update after moving my Airport Extreme to the central living area.

Result = I am now using the Extreme as the primary device which is handling DHCP and NAT. Its WAN port is plugged straight into the fibre modem and the internet is pretty quick, certainly faster than the TalkTalk router that it replaced. The Extremes wireless speed is very quick on both the normal and Guest Network (full fibre speeds of 38Mb), I'm impressed. Those are the Pros.

Now for the Cons. The Extremes wireless range is appalling and certainly nowhere near what is claimed. I have had to reintroduce two Airport Expresses to get full coverage around my house (brick built)! I am tempted to experiment with a third Party router to see if I can get better performance but where to start?

Next, the configuration interface is pretty low on detail, this is far from the most configurable router I've seen.

Where does one find a list of the devices connected to the Extreme? Is this available in the Windows Utility? Is it available in the latest IOS Utility?

Or does one need a MAC with the latest Airport Utility to get this depth of access?

Moving on, regarding a few of the posts above, I can confirm that the Guest Network on any Airport Express connected to the primary Airport Extreme is suffering the slow throughput mentioned earlier. It matters not whether the Extremes are connected through a smart/managed switch, or connected directly to the LAN outputs on the Primary Extreme. As a direct result I have now disabled the Guest Network on both of my Airport Express units as it's a waste of time. In the main area of my house where guests would actually be sitting, the Guest Network from the Extreme will suffice, and at Full speed also.

And finally, an interesting problem re Sky Go access. It works on the Primary router Guest Wireless Network, but not on the Normal Wireless Network! Everything else works on the Normal Wireless Network and is like greased lightning. Using the "Normal" wireless network the Sky Go interface loads without problem and displays the normal channel choices. When you select a channel for viewing however, you instantly get a message saying "Video Unavailable, cannot connect to the server", despite the fact that that it has just shown you the up to date channel listing!

Anybody got any ideas on this one? Cheers.

"It matters not whether the Extremes are connected through a smart/managed switch, or connected directly to the LAN outputs on the Primary Extreme. "

This is even MORE disturbing and truly indicates this is a bug...Apple says they WILL support Guest Roaming when the items are NOT run through a managed switch so in that case.....call support and push the issue. if it's not working with them connected to the local LAN ports of the Extreme....that's a bigger problem than I expected...Apple has never stated the Guest roaming is NOT supported like the primary in fact when you add more airports it automatically configures guest roaming on both so there IS A BUG THEY REFUSE TO FIX and they are not paying attention to this thread.

and they are not paying attention to this thread.

You must have missed the information about his being a user-to-user forum.

Apple is not here, so it is extremely unlikely that anyone from Apple will ever see this thread.

Contact Apple Support directly if you want to speak to them.

After having the same problem that all of you have experienced, I can tell you that I found that plugging in the second Airport Extreme directly into the primary Airport extreme solved my problem of the guest network not working on the secondary AP.

Previously the secondary AP was plugged into a Cisco managed switch and it would broadcast the guest SSID and allow clients to connect, but would not give out IP addresses.

The secondary AP is now plugged into port one of the primary AP, in bridge mode, with guest access enabled and working.

Other notes about my configuration (may or may not impact this working)

Primary AP is in static mode for obtain IP from ISP. IPv6 is in local-link mode on both APs.

-tekwerx

It's worth to mention that in many Cisco managed switches (running Cisco IOS) the VLAN ID 1003 is predefined (Token Ring) and can't be used as an ordinary VLAN outside the Cisco unit.

Just wanted to weigh in that I am having the same issue as others in this thread. I just found out today.

I used to use the latest Airport Extreme as my router and wireless network but then decided to switch to a TP-Link as my main router with DHCP leasing, and my AE creating a wireless network in Bridge mode. Guest network worked perfectly in the prior configuration, now it no longer works.

Quite frustrating, I hope there's a fix soon.

maplevshoney

Apple has never supported a bridged guest network on an Airport Extreme that doesn't use another Airport Extreme as the main routing hardware. It never did work, and it is not intended to work. If you want it to work you would have to switch out your TP-Link for the Airport Extreme.

OK, thanks for letting me know. You're kind of making it sound like what you're saying is obvious though, and I don't think that's the case.

Just for the sake of discussion, why can't the Extreme take a leased IP range from the router and use that to create two wireless networks? Seems like it should be a no-brainer to me.

And for the record, here is what Apple has to say on creating guest networks on their website. No mention here that you can't do this downstream from another router:

Put out the Wi‑Fi welcome mat for guests.

With the guest networking feature, you can set up a separate Wi‑Fi network just for guests. Use a different password or no password at all. A guest network allows access only to the Internet, so your primary network — including any external hard drive, printer, or other LAN-attached device — remains secure.

I guess to me it's common knowledge because of how long I have been working with the Airport Extreme.

I agree with you that it should be possible, but the software was never intended to work that way. I do know that someone has gotten an AP Extreme to work in bridge mode by setting up a VLAN on a network switch, but that's the exception to the rule. Generally speaking, The software has always been written that Guest mode only works when the main network router (DHCP server) is an Airport Extreme. The excerpt you have pasted above refers to the use of an AP Extreme as the only device on the network, when used for routing.

I can tell you that enterprise APs do support guest networks regardless of the DHCP server because of the software written into them. This whole guest network limitation is a software limitation of the AP Extreme.

Before today I had no idea such limitation existed because I only used Apple products for my network solution. Add a third-party product to the list and (big gasp!) such is no longer the case. Apple has a dirty history for doing that, so no surprises there.

For the record I did just figure out how to get this to work, though with one caveat. Here's what I did:

1. In Airport Utility > Airport Extreme Edit Settings > Network tab:

Change "Bridge Mode" to "DHCP and NAT"

2. Go into Network Settings:

Change the DHCP range to the same protocol as the router (in my case 192.168) and set the range so as not to conflict with any DHCP leasing the router might do

3. Enable the Guest Network

The caveat is that Airport Utility will give you the yellow triangle perpetually as if the Extreme is not configured properly (it doesn't like that there are two NAT situations happening on your network). I've tested this and it does actually work, though as mentioned Airport Utility will perpetually give you the 'caution' warning, which is kind of a bummer.