Setting Up Roaming - New AirPort Extremes and Utility

Tesserax: Your explanation is most helpful. However, my primary router is an old (but still quite functional) Netgear router, which is doing port forwarding to various devices on my network. I had an older Time Capsule, connected via ethernet, that was providing roaming as well as Time Machine backups. It died and I bought a new 2TB 802.11ac Time Capsule. Setting it up the way I did before no longer allows me to use the new device to provide a stong roaming signal. You indicate that all base stations have to have the same network name, security protocol, and password -- but the Netgear only provides WEP, and that isn't a choice on the new TC. Is there a workaround for this, or am I going to have to bite another bullet and replace the primary router?

Unfortunately, the 802.11ac Time Capsule does not provide any type of WEP settings.....so there is no available workaround for this on the Time Capsule.

This might be an opportunity to greatly improve the wireless security on your network with a new router.....since as you already likely know.....there are numerous free utilities available on the Internet that will crack a WEP network very quickly.

OK ... then how about disabling wireless access on my ancient Netgear, and using the Time Capsule as the sole wireless access point? Or does roaming work only if wireless access is enabled on the main router?

If you turn off the wireless on the Netgear, the Time Capsule will not be part of a "roaming" network, unless you also have another router on the network that will also be providing a wireless signal.

If the Time Capsule will be the only device providing a wireless signal, "roaming" is not possible since you will only have one access point....and "roaming" requires two or more.

As long as wireless devices can receive a good signal from the Time Capsule, you should be OK.

I think I understand -- I won't be "roaming", but I should still have a strong (single) wireless signal. I agree that the time has come to replace the Netgear router -- but until I do, we can't access the net via wireless using our iPhones and iPads because the Netgear signal isn't strong enough in most of the house. I just want to make sure that disabling wireless access on the Netgear isn't going to preclude me from setting up wireless access on the new TC and leave me "deaf". And do I need to use the old Netgear network name, or doesn't that matter?

I won't be "roaming", but I should still have a strong (single) wireless signal.

That's correct. The new Time Capsule has added two additional wireless antennas......for a total of six now.....and the antennas are located up at the top of the "tower", so that should improve the wireless performance over previous models.

I just want to make sure that disabling wireless access on the Netgear isn't going to preclude me from setting up wireless access on the new TC and leave me "deaf".

It won't.

And do I need to use the old Netgear network name, or doesn't that matter?

Edit....I would use a different wireless network name on the TC to avoid confusion with the "old" network.

Bob, I saw your edit. I turned off wireless access at the Netgear router and changed the name of the network on the TC to a new name. I've turned off wireless security temporarily to remove that issue from my troubleshooting challenge.

A bit of additional disclosure: I'm running OS 10.6.8 on all my Macs because I need access to a crucial database that requires Rosetta. So I can't run the new Airport Utility, which runs only on 10.7 or better. Instead, I'm using the IOS Airport Utility App on an iPad, which DOES work with the new TC. So I need the wireless network in order to make any changes in the TC config.

I'm following these steps:

1. Power down the TC, so I'm sure my wi-fi connection is to the Netgear router.

2. Once connected, power up the TC and use the iPad to access the TC base station.

3. Change the TC network name and set security to "None".

4. Set the iPad Wi-Fi to the new network name.

5. Connect to the Netgear router via ethernet and disable the Netgear wireless access. Log out.

6. Select the new network name on my laptop Wi-Fi. Remove the ethernet cable.

Now the TC wireless access point should take over, and I should be able to access web sites via the TC wireless access -- but I can't. Network Diagnostics tells me that the connection to my ISP is not functional. I re-boot the cable modem, the Netgear router, and the TC. I even powered off the iPad and the laptop and restarted them. The iPad Airport Utility reports that it "can't find any AirPort base stations." Rebooting the TC yields the addtional warning that the TC is "missing from my network."

I'm at a loss ... what else should I be resetting or rebooting?

Remove the ethernet cable

Your network requires that the routers on the network be permenently connected using an Ethernet cable.

Please review the requirements that Tesserax carefully provided. I am pasting in a copy of his reesponse here.......

In the mean time, let me try to give you some step-by-step instructions using the 6.x version of the AirPort Utility. First, there are a few key elements to successfully configuring a roaming network, and they are:

• All of the base station must be interconnected by Ethernet. Note: You can use non-Apple routers in this type of network.
• All base stations must have unique Base Station Names.
• All base stations must use the same Radio Mode and Wireless Security Type/Password.
• Each base station should be on a different Radio Channel. Using "Automatic" works well here.
• All base stations, other than the "main" base station, must be reconfigured as a bridge.

So, you may have turned off the wireless on the Netgear router, but you must maintain the Ethernet connection between the Netgar router and the Time Capsule. That is the only way that the Time Capsule can receive its network connection information.

Bob,

What I was referring to in step 6 was that I had connected my laptop to the TC via ethernet in order to change the reconfiguration of the Netgear (primary) router. Then I disconnected the cable from my laptop to see if wireless access was working. As long as all the machines are connected via ethernet, I have connectivity among all of them, and to the internet. But when I try to connect my laptop (or my wife's, or my iPad) to the LAN via wireless, I don't see the new (TC) network name in the Wi-Fi choices. The Netgear router and the TC are always connected by eithernet.

Earlier in the discussion, I asked about turning off wireless access on the Netgear router and using only the downstream Time Capsule for wireless access. You said

If you turn off the wireless on the Netgear, the Time Capsule will not be part of a "roaming" network, unless you also have another router on the network that will also be providing a wireless signal.

If the Time Capsule will be the only device providing a wireless signal, "roaming" is not possible since you will only have one access point....and "roaming" requires two or more.

As long as wireless devices can receive a good signal from the Time Capsule, you should be OK.

I agreed that this would not represent a "roaming" network -- but having wireless access from one device is much better than none. What I've been trying to do, without success, is to set up the single wireless access point described above. I thought/think I have the Time Capsule configured as described, but it's not working.

If things are configured as you say, then they should operate correctly. I cannot explain why they do not.

Well, this has been very strange. After many hours of fiddling and tweaking, I've gotten almost everything working. I'm not entirely sure what made the difference but the key steps (I think) were

* reenabling wireless access on the primary Netgear router, with WPA and a passphrase on Channel 10.

* setting the network name, security, and passphrase on the TC to be the same as the Netgear, with Radio Channel set to automatic.

* rebooting every device on the network multiple times.

* explicitly joining the two-access-point network from each device, giving the WPA passphrase.

The current situation is that I can access the internet from each computer, iPad, and iPhone either by hard-wired eithernet connection (where applicable) or wirelessly. The one exception is my wife's MacBook, which will connect via hard connection, but not wirelessly. I have triple and quadruple checked all the network preference settings and they are identical to those on my MacBook Pro. Yet I can't connect wirelessly on hers. Any thoughts you have on this issue would be appreciated. The other flaky thing is that very often the Airport Utility app on the iPad can't locate the TC, even though they are right next to each other ... this may be related to the fact that the iPad also often takes a very long time to display the Wi-Fi icon showing that it's connected. All in all, this whole system seems much more fragile that it ought to be.

A Wi-Fi scanner usually shows two signals, both with the same network name. One is a two-bar 802.11g signal on Channel 10, the other a four-bar 802.11n signal on Channel 1.

And one more update: If I turn off wireless access on the Netgear primary router, then I can't get a wireless conncetion at all on any device. I still see a strong signal on Channel 1, but I can't connect wirelessly. So I guess that when I did connect, I was really connecting to the Netgear router. I think I'll take the TC in to the Apple Store and have them look at the configuration. Obviously, I can't take my whole network in, so we won't be able to duplicate the environment, but at least they should be able to read the TC AirPort settings and see if they are what I think they are.

DukeBedford wrote:

A bit of additional disclosure: I'm running OS 10.6.8 on all my Macs because I need access to a crucial database that requires Rosetta...

Which database?

When the time comes that you must upgrade from Snow Leopard (hardware failure, etc.), consider installing Snow Leopard Server into Parallels 8 to restore Rosetta functionality to run your database:

[click on image to enlarge]

My advice is order SLS from Apple now ($20, telephone orders only 800-MY-APPLE) while it is still available and put it on the shelf!

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1365439

Michael, Thanks for the advice. I do use FileMakerPro, but that's not what I was referring to. I believe that FileMaker continues to produce new versions of FMP for new OSX releases, so being "orphaned" isn't a big concern, other than having to pay for the upgrades (let me know if you know otherwise). What I was referring to was a huge Eudora database containing 20 years of saved email messages (250,000+ messages, the last time I checked). No one is supporting Eudora any more, at least in any backward compatible way. I have these files saved on three different machines, all running 10.6.8, plus SuperDuper bootable backups. So I'm not living in dread of any one machine dying.

But buying Snow Leopard Server and Parallels 8 sounds like a sensible plan for someone like me, who likes to have Plan B, C, D, E ... available in case of disaster.

I think I'll take the TC in to the Apple Store and have them look at the configuration.

Good plan. What you have described about the configuration of your network indicates that it should work.