network geek girl goes grarrrgh
So my renter has wanted wireless networking forever. I knew it was going to be tricky to work into my network configuration because I can't do JUST wireless at my house because of work requirements.
I didn't know it was going to take me seven hours of fighting with the configuration and ending up with a system that, rationally speaking, should not be capable of working but is the only configuration that DID work.
There should be only one router on a home network. The wireless box should have been configured as an access point and taken its DHCP cues from the router that controlled the IP address space for everything on the network.
Unfortunately, even though the salesman assured me that the wireless router he sold me was capable of functioning as an access point, it flat out refused to take its DHCP cues from my router through the basement switch. I reset it to factory specs 3 times and reconfigured it four times. On the fourth try, I said 'screw it,' let the thing think it was a router, layered that behind my actual router, assigned a fixed IP address to the wireless box in the actual router, set it to gateway mode so that it might mistake my router for the actual ISP, restarted everything... and holy @$#! it worked.
It shouldn't have worked. And it's definitely a hell of a lot less than optimal; I shouldn't NEED two DHCP servers for a network that has (at most) three computers active at once.
But it's working.
And to top off the fun and games, the place I was planning to plug it in so that it would be in range of both a network connection and a power plug? That would be on my laundry room's closet rod. Since the insane previous homeowner left most of the power plugs and half the light switches that the basement provides affixed not to the walls, but to the CEILING.
But the nearest available power plug was not only on the ceiling, but also attached to the light switch that controls the outdoor shop lamp that is my only light in the laundry room, also courtesy of aforementioned insane previous homeowner.
So whenever I turned off the laundry room light, the wireless network went with it. @_@
I have now attached the wireless box to one of the floor joists halfway into the laundry room with a combination of nails, careful bracing on a black metal pipe which I think might be a gas line, and duct tape, because somehow I just don't have the ambition to rewire the house's network cabling this evening and I don't trust myself to rewire electrical outlets. The worst mistake you can make with network cabling involves no network connection. The worst mistake you can make with electrical outlets involves potential for ambulances and general deadness.
So yeah, it's 4 pm and I've got somewhere to be in half an hour and this sure wasn't how I'd guessed I was going to spend today.
BUT the damn thing works!
I didn't know it was going to take me seven hours of fighting with the configuration and ending up with a system that, rationally speaking, should not be capable of working but is the only configuration that DID work.
There should be only one router on a home network. The wireless box should have been configured as an access point and taken its DHCP cues from the router that controlled the IP address space for everything on the network.
Unfortunately, even though the salesman assured me that the wireless router he sold me was capable of functioning as an access point, it flat out refused to take its DHCP cues from my router through the basement switch. I reset it to factory specs 3 times and reconfigured it four times. On the fourth try, I said 'screw it,' let the thing think it was a router, layered that behind my actual router, assigned a fixed IP address to the wireless box in the actual router, set it to gateway mode so that it might mistake my router for the actual ISP, restarted everything... and holy @$#! it worked.
It shouldn't have worked. And it's definitely a hell of a lot less than optimal; I shouldn't NEED two DHCP servers for a network that has (at most) three computers active at once.
But it's working.
And to top off the fun and games, the place I was planning to plug it in so that it would be in range of both a network connection and a power plug? That would be on my laundry room's closet rod. Since the insane previous homeowner left most of the power plugs and half the light switches that the basement provides affixed not to the walls, but to the CEILING.
But the nearest available power plug was not only on the ceiling, but also attached to the light switch that controls the outdoor shop lamp that is my only light in the laundry room, also courtesy of aforementioned insane previous homeowner.
So whenever I turned off the laundry room light, the wireless network went with it. @_@
I have now attached the wireless box to one of the floor joists halfway into the laundry room with a combination of nails, careful bracing on a black metal pipe which I think might be a gas line, and duct tape, because somehow I just don't have the ambition to rewire the house's network cabling this evening and I don't trust myself to rewire electrical outlets. The worst mistake you can make with network cabling involves no network connection. The worst mistake you can make with electrical outlets involves potential for ambulances and general deadness.
So yeah, it's 4 pm and I've got somewhere to be in half an hour and this sure wasn't how I'd guessed I was going to spend today.
BUT the damn thing works!