How to use Airport Extreme as airport 'card' for Mac Pro?

[Sharky II]

Hi,

I don't have a wifi card in my 2009 Mac Pro (upgraded and flashed to 5,1 etc) - I do have an unused Airport Extreme, though.

I've read that it's possible to use it as a wifi 'card' for the Mac Pro, connected via ethernet. I think that I did something similar years ago, with an Airport Express and my old Mac Pro (or possibly Powermac G5!).

I mainly want to use it to create an Ad-Hoc wifi network so that I can use the Logic Remote app with my iPad, but i'd also like to be able to connect to a local wifi network too.

I can't seem to find the instructions on how to do this. Is anyone familiar with setting this up?

Cheers!

Ed

 

[h9826790]

AFAIK, only Airport Express has this function, but not Airport Extreme.

Airport Express has "Join a wireless network"

AirPort Extreme does not have that function, but only "Extend a wireless network"

 

[Auggie]

To connect to a local network wirelessly, I've only done this with Apple Airport WiFi appliances, but it's called "Roaming Network" in which you wirelessly extend a primary Apple Airport device with one or more extended base stations.

I've done this successfully with an Airport Extreme Base Station set as primary (both the older generation flat square model as well as the current generation tower model) with a previous generation flat square Extreme Base Station, a previous generation Express and a current generation Express set as extended base stations. I set the extended base stations on "bridged" mode so they are not DHCP servers; only the primary base station is the network DHCP server.

This was done sometime ago when I owned a commercial print shop in a 6,000 sf business condominium and back at the printing presses there was no hardwired Ethernet so I just built the roaming network I mentioned to get my computers out back (PCs) to connect to my graphics design studio (Macs) network up front.

Obviously, you need two Apple Wifi appliances for the local network connection. I'm sure it can be done with non-Apple network appliances, but not sure which ones have that capability.

If you just want to create an isolated Wifi network for your iPad scenario to control your Mac Pro, then you only need one wireless access point, and it can be any brand.