Trouble setting up IP CAM w/AEBS Roaming Network

[baddaddy171]

First off, let me say I hate linksys because of poor software and nonexistent support. There I feel better.

I'm looking for some help connecting linksys IP Cameras to my home network to monitor my property when I'm travelling. I used to do this with linksys WAPS, but since I've discarded all my old linksys networking and standardized on airport, I can't get these things working. I know that I have to identify my camera through the DHCP table and set up port forwarding and there is the problem.

My network consists of 4 base stations set up in a roaming network - same network name and passwords. I need to do it this way so I don't have to switch network when I move from one side of the house to the other, go to the cabana, or my shop in the barn. The network works pretty well since I went to a roaming set up. Good performance, yata, yata, yata.

However, the roaming network requires the AEBS's to be set up in bridge mode, rather than sharing an ip address. When the AEBS is set to bridge mode, you don't see a DCHP table or have the ability to identify your IP Cam through the AEBS - and hence, no port forwarding.

I am able to identify and set up my Linksys IP Cam by locating the ip address on my FIOS router, even though, it's plugged into an AEBS. I set it up, see the video, remove the ethernet cable from the IP Cam, restart - and I can't get to it from an AEBS. In researching this, it appears, I should be setting up the AEBS to "share an IP Address", going to the DHCP table and identifying the camera's IP address and setting up port forwarding. However, you don't see any of the DHCP or port forwarding options in Airport Network Utility when configuring in bridge mode.

I'm hoping I'm missing something here and that the solution isn't to set it up at the FIOS router level, but I'm beginning to think that's my only hope. What concerns me there is that I should be able to see the IP cam on the network without port forwarding since I'm not coming from outside, and I can't even do this unless it's connected hard wire.

I'd appreciate any insight into this that anyone might have. I've hit the wall with what I know.

 

[mainstay]

You set up the AEBS stations in this manner:

First AEBS is set as the "main" base station. This has DHCP enabled, and it's internet connection is set to Share a Public IP Address. The WiFi network is created here and is set to allow extending.

The second, third, and fourth AEBS's are set to Extend the First AEBS's wireless network and their internet connections are set to "Off (Bridge Mode)".

For ease of use, I often reserve the mac addresses for these extending devices in the routing table of the first router's DHCP settings.

All of your reserved settings and port forwarding NAT are set in the first router. The other guys are left alone and are simply set to extend.

Easy, fast, and it works.

 

[baddaddy171]

Thanks. Makes sense. I'll try that but I do have a question for you on shared IP addresses. In debugging this problem, and in an attempt to resolve it without disrupting the main network, I took one of the AEBS and set up a completely different network - different name, and tried to set up using shared IP addresses and thought that would work. However, It always had a conflict with beginning and ending IP addresses (192.168.1.2 thru 192.168.1.200). I changed to 10.0.1.2 thru 10.0.1.200, and got a double NAT error and essentially nothing worked. Is that because the first network already reserved these addresses? It appears that you can't establish a bridge network on a FIOS router and then follow with a separate "shared IP address" network without having a NAT conflict. So with that said, I should disconnect all my AEBSs and reconfigure my main TC AEBS as you suggested, and then reconnect my other AEBSs already set to bridge mode. I'll try this. Thanks for your help.

 

[baddaddy171]

Frustrating. Set up the first AEBS as shared IP address and took other AEBSs off network for simplicity. After resetting the linksys IP Camera (wvc54gca), I was able to locate in in the TC AEBS DHCP table, access it, set it up, and view when it is connected via ethernet cable. I cannot for some reason then see the camera wirelessly. I'm baffled.

 

[steve123]

I think you may still have a double NAT situation with the wireless. In your last message you mention a TC in the network. Is it set to share an IP address? If so then you have double NAT again I think. You need to set the AEBS to bridge mode and extend the TC network.