[P1] Airport Set up Question

[Mike Beede]

On Monday, Feb 24, 2003, at 21:16 US/Central, Thomas D.Kearns wrote:

>> Shouldn't make a difference.  So long as you don't have too many
>> hubs in a row (I think the number is four), you can just plug
>> everything together and have an old-style shared segment.  This is
>> kind of simple-minded, but is the modem plugged into the right
>> port on the Airport?
>
> I think so.  There is only one receptacle for an ethernet cable.

Gee, I'd spaced that out completely.  Looking back on your message
I see that you have an iMac and an Airport and a DSL modem all
on the same hub.  That's probably the trouble.  Lots of times the
ISP will only talk to a single MAC address.  There are two solutions
to this.  One, and cheapest--call Verison.  Tell them you have two
computers you use with the same modem and you want to register
another MAC address.  Then give them the MAC of the Airport.
Don't tell them it's an Airport.  Make sure you turn on "share
a network connection" and set all the airport stuff up the same as
for the iMac that works.  Note that there is no firewall between
the iMac and the internet.  (Note that this is not a real good idea).

Second, and simpler, but costs money: Get a little firewall
box and plug *that* into the modem.  This will allow you to set
a MAC address for the firewall.  Plug the iMac and Airport
into the firewall (which is a router, too).  Since the iMac
already works with the modem, set the MAC on the firewall to
the same MAC as the iMac.  Things should just work.

You can find the MAC of the iMac by going to the network preferences
(I assume OS X) and selecting "Built-in Ethernet."  The MAC appears
near the bottom labeled as "Ethernet Address" and looks something
like 00:03:93:22:33:44.

Third solution, if they won't register two MACs, is to just give
them the MAC for the Airport, and make everything route through
it.  I haven't tried that, but it should work okay.  If you're
using DHCP to get configuration from the modem, you'd have to
set up your directly wired machine(s) to use a static IP that you
assign.  It would really be worth investing in a six-pack and
having a friend that knows networking over to play with things
for a few minutes....

Remember that when someone says "I haven't tried that, but ..."
you should be prepared to run screaming.

Good luck.

	Mike