WGPS606 used as a bridge

I originally posted this in the Orange forum, I think it's more likely to get a response here.

I've got a laptop and 2 PCs connected wirelessly into an Orange Livebox. The laptop connects directly but the 2 PCs are wired into a Netgear wgps606 which then connects wirelessly into the Livebox.

All PCs can browse the internet, all of them can ping the livebox and the wgps606 and they can all print (the wgps606 is also a wireless print server).

The problem I have is that connection between the laptop and the two PCs is flakey. I can ping the laptop from either PC, but the laptop cannot ping a PC until that PC has pinged the laptop. It's almost as if the wgps606 needs to "wake up".

If I take the laptop upstairs and plug it into the wgps606 then all 3 PCs can happily browse each others shared directories, it's only when the laptop is connected to the Livebox that it all goes wrong. IP addresses are all in the same subnet (192.168.1.X).

Help!

Edited by RobP (Sat 26-May-07 13:25:03)

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IP addresses are all in the same subnet (128.168.1.X).

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Is that a typo on your part? These are public IP addresses, and unless your ISP has given you a range of IP addresses, it looks like your system heads of for the WAN side of the router to find the IP address in question. RFC 1918 refers for private address ranges.

Post deleted by RobP

You can edit the typo in the original post to save anyone else getting confused

Sorry I can't help with the actual problem.

I think it could get stuck on this: How does the wgps606 know to go to the livebox, if it can't find the laptop directly by wireless or on the wires?

I don't know whether it should, but I think that wireless is not envisaged as a bridging network link, rather, it is expected always to be a 'leaf' network. Hence, if it is not found on the wires, then the wireless interface is searched, but no futher

what default gateway is allocated to each PC in the system ? What encryption is in use ?

The livebox is 192.168.1.1 so all PCs / laptops have 192.168.1.1 as the default gateway and 192.168.1.1 as the DNS server.

I'm using WPA-PSK security with TKIP encryption.

I've disabled DHCP as the livebox doesn't allow me to allocate IP addresses to MAC addresses and the WGPS606 needs to be static to allow printing. I've given the WGPS606 192.168.1.100 with everything else 192.168.1.2 to 192.168.1.6

All devices can access the internet, all of them can get to the web config page of the livebox and the WGPS606. The PCs connected into the WGPS606 can see each other and the livebox, the WGPS606 remains invisible although I think that's how it is meant to be anyway.

I can connect from a wired PC (on WGPS606) to the wireless laptop if I use the IP address in windows explorer. Trying to access a share on a PC from the wireless laptop using an IP address doesn't work unless I ping or connect to the laptop from the PC first!

The manual for the WGPS606 does say that it's bridge functions don't work when using WPA, but this was later corrected on Netgears support site.

Edited by RobP (Sat 26-May-07 16:11:21)

there's no need to diable DHCP, just constrain its range and put the bridge thing above that range. It is possible that things would work better if the Livebox had allocated the IP address and clocked the MAC. Worth a try.

Browsing of networks with windows networking is notoriously wobbly anyway. It is possible that the Livebox has a firewall or other measure that is seeking to isolate the broadcast network browse traffic.

I've seen this "need to ping from the other end" thing before, Googling for "master browser" may lead somewhere.

Good idea, I think I just sulked when I found I couldn't allocate IP addresses to MAC addresses.

Will try reducing the "level" of the firewall on the livebox, each PC has a firewall anyway so shouldn't be too much risk.

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Googling for "master browser" may lead somewhere.

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'master browser' is a netbios concept. 'A cannot ping b until B has pinged A' is an IP layer concept. The TCP layer sits above IOP and netbios atop of that. I don't think it would have much to offer??