The Glade 4.0

So I have an apple airport express in the bedroom for printer & music, and a time capsule in the living room for all the consoles and pvr stuff.

Theres ethernet through the house over homeplug AV (200mb network over the power cables).

Im a gadget nerd. You probably know this.

I've used the apple setup utility to extend my wireless network over the ethernet between the two access points, meaning local wifi in the bedroom and living room.

Weird thing though... both seem set to 'create a wireless network' , rather than one set to create and one set to extend. I guess this might be considered 'right' instead of WDS, by not having them split wifi bandwidth with signalling, but it seems odd.

Should I reconfig one to use WDS? will it send the WDS signalling over the ethernet? Why do my socks itch?

These questions need answers!

So the two APs (the airport and the time capsule) are connected via wired ethernet? In that case, yes, you want both of them to be discrete access points, and not meshed via the wireless. If you try to mesh both via wireless and connect via wired ethernet, you will cause a loop, which you don't want to do. The way you are currently configured, both access points can devote full bandwidth to wireless devices, which is what you want.

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But then I dont get smooth wireless handoff from one network to the other right? It's drop and reconnect?

I thought you could have both systems sharing the wireless network from a client perspective and using the ethernet for the signalling to one another. oh well.

;-p

Roaming is another matter. I would think that the Apple Setup Utility you used should have some options to configure that, if both the airport and the time capsule support the capability. I found this article about active roaming with a quick search: http://support.apple.com/kb/TA25991?viewlocale=en_US
I would think that your airport and time capsule should both be capable of it, but I don't really know.

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Suineko,

There are the LAN (<...>) ports and the WAN port (row of circles) on the back of the AirPort/Time Capsule.

So you have ISP -> WAN on Time Capsule -> wall plug/power network (using a LAN from Time Capsule) -> WAN on AirPort #2?

Manuals here

The one you're most likely to find interesting is here.

Page 41 or so.

That shows for roaming you have the Time Capsule do DHCP and the AirPort set up in bridge mode (and the rough network topology I sketched out above, once you change the LAN to WAN into LAN to LAN.)

Please let me know if that helps.

Thanks!

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Once, I was a ranger
Then, I was a warlock
And a mage
And a paladin
Now, I seek to be myself

Active Roaming was a useful term for google didnt know that one before.

I actually have DHCP done from the ISP supplied router, and both the time capsule and airport express in bridge mode/no DHCP.

Just an aside, I have 2 airport extremes, the "old" one and a "new" (2 channel) one. Used with my DOCSIS 3 modem, the airport I used as a router would lose connection to the modem several times a week, typically when one of my Mac's started a timemachine backup.

I ended up buying a Netgear WNDR3700 and haven't had a single problem since. I use the airports in bridge mode to provide switch ports to other systems in my home and to serve up the volumes I use for timemachine backups.

It's kinda interesting - when a timemachine backup starts, my network STILL hangs but only for 20-30 seconds or so, then clears up. I've not been able to find much about this issue on-line, but now that I've got the new router I'm really not too concerned.

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In time, this too shall pass.

Am I reading this right -- you guys are running backups over a wireless connection?

Ballsy.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

They must like to share.

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

What? I've been doing it for two years!

Thanks to this baby...

And you can do it from Mac 1 to Mac 2 as long as both are OS X 10.5 or later...

In fact, if you Google Time Machine, look at the top hit.

Not much different than CrashPlan Pro which Stanford reviewed a while back.

_________________
Once, I was a ranger
Then, I was a warlock
And a mage
And a paladin
Now, I seek to be myself

Time machine is delta based, and kicks off every 10 mins or so. The filesystem monitors changes, so it doesnt have to compute the diff. Because it's doing it so regularly each change is small. The wifi is WPA2. Why not?