How Do I Setup My Bullet WIFI?

[Dennis.G]

I got some new gear for on-board WIFI system, and am at home trying to get it all to work before putting it on boat. Components include:

• Bullet M2 Titanium radio
• Engenius EAG-2808 omni antenna
• Netgear WNR1000 router

The router and radio connect together via ethernet cable (with POE), with cable connected to WAN port of router. Router is for on-board use (laptops and iPads on the boat). Bullet radio is to tie into remote WIFI access points.

Confused on proper setup.
On the Netgear, am I supposed to setup the Bullet as the "Internet" or "DNS" for IP address, or something else? How do I set this up?

On the Bullet (via airOS) how do I setup? Is Network mode to be set as Bridge, Router, or SOHO Router? Is Wireless mode set as Station or Access Point? (thinking Station)

I have setup now as Bridge and Station, but does not work.

If someone who has gone through this process (or just smarter than I am) could help me it would be most appreciated. There are so many options in the setup it is beyond my knowlege level.

Note that in the end also hope that can access the airOS from any device via their on-board WIFI connection.

Thanks

[W32PAMELA]

Either of the links below to Ubiquiti Wiki articles should get you up and running.

http://dl.ubnt.com/docs/M_Series_Beginner_Guide.pdf

BeansTalk long range wifi client - Ubiquiti Wiki

[Dennis.G]

Originally Posted by W32PAMELA

Either of the links below to Ubiquiti Wiki articles should get you up and running.

http://dl.ubnt.com/docs/M_Series_Beginner_Guide.pdf

BeansTalk long range wifi client - Ubiquiti Wiki

These links are very useful. Thanks much.


One shortcoming of the linked articles however, is that they assume that the radio is directly connected to a single computer via ethernet cable. This still leaves questions:

• Does Bullet radio need to be setup any differently if connected to local router?
• How to setup the local boat's router to talk to the Bullet radio?

[DotDun]

Originally Posted by Dennis.G

I got some new gear for on-board WIFI system, and am at home trying to get it all to work before putting it on boat. Components include:

• Bullet M2 Titanium radio
• Engenius EAG-2808 omni antenna
• Netgear WNR1000 router

The router and radio connect together via ethernet cable (with POE), with cable connected to WAN port of router. Router is for on-board use (laptops and iPads on the boat). Bullet radio is to tie into remote WIFI access points.

Confused on proper setup.
On the Netgear, am I supposed to setup the Bullet as the "Internet" or "DNS" for IP address, or something else? How do I set this up?

On the Bullet (via airOS) how do I setup? Is Network mode to be set as Bridge, Router, or SOHO Router? Is Wireless mode set as Station or Access Point? (thinking Station)

I have setup now as Bridge and Station, but does not work.

If someone who has gone through this process (or just smarter than I am) could help me it would be most appreciated. There are so many options in the setup it is beyond my knowlege level.

Note that in the end also hope that can access the airOS from any device via their on-board WIFI connection.

Thanks

Don't use the WAN port on the Netgear, leave it disconnected. Disable the DHCP server in the Netgear. Connect to the Bullet via one of the 4 ethernet switch ports.

Set the Bullet up as a router and let it be the DHCP server. Browse to the Bullet and find a suitable wireless network to connect to.

[CarinaPDX]

I'm a little confused by your choice of hardware. The Bullet IS a router - you didn't need a second one. What you needed was a switch, which is available cheap (say $20) and requires no programming. The Netgear router can be used as a switch, which is a pretty trivial application for it. Having 2 routers is unnecessarily complex, and you will probably best use one as a transparent bridge, or switch, so why bother?

Perhaps a little late, but I would return the Netgear router for a switch and money back.

Greg

[DotDun]

Originally Posted by CarinaPDX

I'm a little confused by your choice of hardware. The Bullet IS a router - you didn't need a second one. What you needed was a switch, which is available cheap (say $20) and requires no programming. The Netgear router can be used as a switch, which is a pretty trivial application for it. Having 2 routers is unnecessarily complex, and you will probably best use one as a transparent bridge, or switch, so why bother?

Perhaps a little late, but I would return the Netgear router for a switch and money back.

Greg

The Netgear is providing wireless inside the boat.

[CarinaPDX]

OK, it is a WiFi Access Point (AP), not just a router. That works...

Greg

[Dennis.G]

First, thanks again for the previous responses. They were very helpful.

I setup the Bullet as router per instructions, and also the Netgear router as a wireless access point (extender?). Anyway, I can talk to both units (their setup programs) but can't get connected to internet.

Bullet is addressed as 192.168.1.20 with DHCP range of .21 to .98.

The Netgear is addressed as 192.168.1.99

Currently for debug I am connected direct to Bullet with ethernet cable. The Main page on airOS shows me (Bullet) connected to a WIFI station (another router in my house) with signal strength at -41 dBm and with activity on WLAN0.

If I look at monitor on the base WIFI unit I can see the MAC address of the Bullet unit under Attached Devices, but it does not show an IP address for the unit (all other attached devices show their IPs).

If I ping the WIFI router (192.168.1.1) from Bullet I get no reply. Same from WIFI pinging the Bullet - no reply.

Any ideas on what I may be doing wrong? Other resources that might help?

Thanks much.

[CarinaPDX]

If I understand correctly, what you are doing is going to bite you (and probably already has). Do not use 192.168.XXX.XXX, and CERTAINLY NOT 192.168.1.XXX! That is only for setup purposes, and will make a mess of your routing tables. The simplest approach is to use 10.XXX.XXX.XXX as the whole block is available for local use. Then assign completely different addresses to each router. So the home AP might be 10.10.1.1, with an address range for connected devices of 10.10.1.002-255. Then assign the Bullet to 10.10.2.1, with addresses of 10.10.2.002-255, and assign the netgear 10.10.3.1 and 10.10.3.002-255 respectively. Then you will have a chance of making sense of what is happening, and the routing tables might actually work.

Keep at it, you'll get there.

Greg

[CarinaPDX]

I should add that you should not use all of the available 002-255 addresses for automatic assignment; usually 050-100 or similar is used. That will leave you with addresses for manual assignment should you need them.

Greg

[twistedtree]

Originally Posted by DotDun

Don't use the WAN port on the Netgear, leave it disconnected. Disable the DHCP server in the Netgear. Connect to the Bullet via one of the 4 ethernet switch ports.

Set the Bullet up as a router and let it be the DHCP server. Browse to the Bullet and find a suitable wireless network to connect to.

This part is really important. I found out the hard way. Under most circumstances two cascaded routers will work fine, except.....

You know how when you first access some wifi services they put up an initial screen where you need to accept their terms and conditions? And in some cases you need to enter a access code of some sort. Well, those initial login screens won't appear if you have cascaded routers. The bullet will look like it's connected fine, but you won't be able to access anything from your computer.

[Suijin]

You only want one device acting as the router. Every other device that is not a client is going to be a "slave" to that device.

Looking at the Bullet product description it does not appear to function as a router, distributing IP addresses and DNS data. It is descibed as a simple bridge/access point and/or repeater, it's real virtue being the rather alarming power that it can pump out to it's attached antenna. I don't see anything in the product literature to indicate that the Bullet includes any router functionality.

If your goal is to pull in far off WIFI access points to the connect to the internet, then you want to configure it as an access point. Simply plug it into one of the ethernet ports on your Netgear router, not the WAN port. the WAN port would before something like a cable modem or similar. Configure the Netgear to serve as a DNS server/router and you should be in good shape.

[AnchorageGuy]

Here is how we set ours up. The Trawler Beach House: WiFi on the Boat - Part 3 . Chuck

[twistedtree]

Originally Posted by Suijin

You only want one device acting as the router. Every other device that is not a client is going to be a "slave" to that device.

Looking at the Bullet product description it does not appear to function as a router, distributing IP addresses and DNS data. It is descibed as a simple bridge/access point and/or repeater, it's real virtue being the rather alarming power that it can pump out to it's attached antenna. I don't see anything in the product literature to indicate that the Bullet includes any router functionality.

If your goal is to pull in far off WIFI access points to the connect to the internet, then you want to configure it as an access point. Simply plug it into one of the ethernet ports on your Netgear router, not the WAN port. the WAN port would before something like a cable modem or similar. Configure the Netgear to serve as a DNS server/router and you should be in good shape.

No, it can run as a router. It supports Bridge mode and Router mode.

[colemj]

I have no problems running it in router mode into the WAN port of the house router. Never had a problem with acceptance splash screens, etc.

Since we use the house router for other things like remote desktop, wireless printing, attached storage, etc, setting up the Bullet as the router through a LAN port defeats those applications.

I believe many of the commercial systems use the WAN port of a second router with the bullet set as a router and have no problems.

Mark