1
I just moved into an apartment complex which offers free wireless internet for all tenants. They use Meraki wireless devices and to my surprise the internet access has been very stable in the short time (1 week) I have been in this apartment.
That's all great for one computer connecting to the internet, but I have two laser printers, three VoIP phones and other networking equipment which needs to be on a LAN. The printers don't even need internet access.
I want to add a router to separate my local network from their huge wireless 'cloud'.
this would allow me to connect to my printers and only hit their wireless network when I wnat to access the internet. I have already been told they could 'whitelist' a MAC address, so they could do that for either my Router or my Wireless Bridge - not sure how that would work. Please advise. Basically I want to know if it works like this:
Wireless/Meraki ))
)) Linksys WET54G Wireless Bridge
-----| WRT54GS Router
> Device 1
> Device 2
> Computer 1
> Computer 2
If that little diagram doesn't make sense, I am basically trying to do the following:
- Connect Linksys WET54G (Wireless Ethernet Bridge) to existing Meraki Wireless Network
- Connect the cat5 cable from the wireless bridge into the router
- Connect all of my devices into that router so I can have a lan. If I want to print, I don't have to send a 50MB document over some wireless mesh.
@wbeard52 he will not need to watch for IP conflict if he just configures his network to use a different subnet mask. – ubiquibacon – 2010-10-11T04:46:44.600
I contacted Meraki tech support and they said this can't be done. is there anything they could have done to disable what I am trying to do? – dingalingchickenwiing – 2010-10-11T21:38:50.803
A friend of mine recently contacted Linksys (the maker of the WET54G) and they were unaware of this as well. All I can say is that I have done it before and will do the same thing again in a couple weeks when I go to my friends house to install the WET54G. The linksys marketed the item as being able to connect a PS3 wirelessly to your network through the use of the builtin ethernet port. – wbeard52 – 2010-10-12T00:12:01.317
wbeard52 - ok, I did ifconfig and found the following assigned by the meraki network: inet addr:10.109.148.72 Bcast:10.255.255.255 Mask:255.0.0.0. Knowing these details, what should the IP address of the WET54G be? What should the IP of my router be? – dingalingchickenwiing – 2010-10-12T00:41:38.207
The WET54G should get its IP address assigned by the Meraki system through DHCP. The WAN port on the router should also be assigned by the Meraki DHCP server. The LAN router portion I would configure to use 192.168.0.1 wtih a subnet of 255.255.255.0. – wbeard52 – 2010-10-12T01:04:08.153
I would connect the WET54G directly into the ethernet port of my computer so I can access the webpage in the WET54G. You may have to use the install CD to find that page and may have to assign your computer to a temporary static IP address. I would then configure the WET54G to connect to the Meraki system and ensure it works with your computer configured to get a DHCP IP address. At this point, I would disconnect the WET54G and setup my local network with the router and ensure the local network is up and running. With the router WAN configured for DHCP, plug the WET54G into the WAN port. – wbeard52 – 2010-10-12T01:07:13.140
That makes perfect sense! HAHA! This is exciting! One last question I have that I didn't think of before: They have a login page for any device that accesses the internet - just a splash page. However, meraki can whitelist a device by MAC address. Since I can't use the splash page to login for the router or wet54g, I will have to have them whitelist the mac address. The question is, which mac should they whitelist? Should I have them whitelist the wireless bridge's mac and then clone that mac on the router? I'm not sure how to go about this... – dingalingchickenwiing – 2010-10-12T01:08:07.210
I did everything as you said and it works! I cloned the MAC address of my laptop, which I had already used to login to the network, and I can surf the internet through my router! this is great, thanks! – dingalingchickenwiing – 2010-10-12T01:55:00.627
I would whitelist the routers MAC address. The reason being is that the WET54G is a wireless bridge meaning it will pass along whatever packets it receives to the other side. At this point, you should be able to access the WET54G webpage from your local network using the DHCP address assigned by the Meraki system. Others on the Meraki system can also access the WET54G through the same IP address so it is important to password protect it if possible. – wbeard52 – 2010-10-12T04:43:46.013