Linksys WAP54G setup procedures

Introduction:.........................................................................................................................1
First things first:...................................................................................................................2
Assumptions:........................................................................................................................2
Connecting to your WAP54G (first time or reset):..............................................................2
Private IP information:.........................................................................................................2
Some IP tricks:.....................................................................................................................3
Industry standard addressing:...............................................................................................3
Hints:....................................................................................................................................3
A word about various Modes:..............................................................................................3
How to setup a single WAP54G as a standalone device:....................................................4
How to setting up a single WAP54G to work with a wired Router:....................................4
How to setup a single WAP54G to work with a wireless Router:.......................................4
How to setup multiple WAP54Gs without a Router:...........................................................4
How to setup multiple WAP54Gs with a Router:................................................................4
Setting up a Wireless Bridge:...............................................................................................5
Resetting your WAP54G:....................................................................................................5
Resolving Connection Issues:..............................................................................................5
A word on Antenna:.............................................................................................................5
Signal Strength Issues:.........................................................................................................6
A word about naming conventions:.....................................................................................6
Generic Configuration:........................................................................................................6
Testing:............................................................................................................................6
Trouble shooting wireless networks:...................................................................................7
Information on how to de-brick your WAP54G:.................................................................7
Firmware:.............................................................................................................................7
About Me.............................................................................................................................7

Introduction:
This document is designed to compliment the information contained within the
documentation supplied with your AP. It in no way should be considered a replacement
for the documentation supplied with your AP. Linksys have had no involvement with
this document. The information contained within this document is information I have
obtained/discovered/found out as a result of my dealings with the WAP54G and some of
the circumstances/situations I have had to resolve.
First things first:
As with all networks you should always setup any new device prior to adding it to your
network. This means connecting directly to your WAP54G via Ethernet (not wireless) to
configure your WAP54G.

Assumptions:
The IP of the Router is 192.168.1.1
The WAP54G you are working with is set to Factory Defaults.

Connecting to your WAP54G (first time or reset):

After taking your WAP54G out of the box (or after a reset) you are probably going to
want to configure it prior to connecting it to your network.
Plug an Ethernet cable from your PC to you WAP54G
Set the IP of your PC to 192.168.1.240/255.255.255.0
You don’t need to setup any DNS or Gateway at this point.
Now open up your web browser and point it to http://192.168.1.245
At the login screen leave the user name blank and use admin as the password.
Now you can configure your WAP54G.
Once you have finished you can return your PC to its original IP settings.
Something to consider when setting up your WAP54G, setup the new IP address first or
last as you will need to change the address in your browser to match and you don’t want
to be doing that half way through your new setup.

Private IP information:
There are a number of Private IP addresses that you can use on your network.

number of classful largest CIDR

Name IP address range defined in
IPs description block

24-bit 10.0.0.0 – RFC 1597

16,777,216 single class A 10.0.0.0/8
block 10.255.255.255 (obsolete),
RFC 1918

20-bit 172.16.0.0 – 16 contiguous

1,048,576 172.16.0.0/12
block 172.31.255.255 class Bs

16-bit 192.168.0.0 – 65,536 256 192.168.0.0/16

block 192.168.255.255 contiguous
 class Cs

Some IP tricks:
If you live in an area where there is a lot of wireless traffic you may experience some
difficulties with other devices on the same or adjacent channels with the same IP subnet.
To get around this try using a different subnet within the same Private IP range.
An Example would be: 192.168.88.40/29 this would give you an IP range of
192.168.88.40-192.168.88.46 and the subnet mask would be 255.255.255.248
Your Router/Gateway/AP/Clients would all have to be within these 6 IP numbers.

Industry standard addressing:

It is generally accepted that Routers/Gateways/firewalls occupy the top end of the IP
range (250-255) whilst servers occupy the bottom end of the range (1-50) and
workstations/clients occupy the middle range.

Hints:
Don’t use the IP address of 192.168.1.245 on your network as this is the default IP of
your WAP54G
Do NOT use DHCP to set the IP of your WAP54G. The reason for this is that the IP will
be set to anything within the DHCP servers IP range and can change with every restart.
Now ask yourself, how can I find out what the IP is of my WAP54G if it is using DHCP.
Your answer is bound to be “I don’t know”. So ask yourself the next logical question, if
you can’t find out the IP of my WAP54G then how am I going to re-configure it later?
The answer you are going to give is “I don’t know”. Enough said.

A word about various Modes:

AP Mode: It is generally accepted that AP mode allows almost anything to happen,
including any security mode available. It will allow wired and wireless clients.
AP Client Mode: This mode places the WAP54G in client mode so that it can be
connected the the LAN port of a client to act as though it were a wireless card in your
client allowing a connection to another AP or router.
Wireless Repeater Mode: This mode shouldn’t have a LAN connection.
Linksys also seem to allow clients to connect to a repeater and whilst this is NOT strictly
a repeater I guess they had to call it something.
Wireless Bridge: In this mode both ends should be connected to a LAN and no
clients should be connected wirelessly to it. It is meant to act as a piece of wire on a
network. Clients get access to the bridge via the LAN. Also note that Security has
various limitations in this mode. You will not be able to use WPA even though you have
access to it.

How to setup a single WAP54G as a standalone device:

Pretty much take it out of the box and plug it in. In this situation you are using the
WAP54G as if it were a Wireless Ethernet Switch.

How to setting up a single WAP54G to work with a wired

Router:
Set the IP of your WAP54G so it is on the same network as your Router. IE. If your
router is on 192.168.1.1 then put your WAP54G on 192.168.1.2
Change the Default Gateway to point to the IP of your Router. In this example it would
be 192.168.1.1
Set your WAP54G to operate in AP mode. Sometimes you may experience difficulties in
AP mode, so try AP Client mode. There is no explicit hard and fast rule when it comes to
mode. Sometimes you just have to test to see what works for you.

How to setup a single WAP54G to work with a wireless

Router:
The setup is for the most part the same as above. Just make sure that if there is any
security on the Router you will be limited to the modes you can use on your WAP54G
(see notes above on modes). Set the channel to the same as the Router. You can set the
SSID to the same as the Router of you want. The effect is that your wireless network will
look like a single network. Some people have experienced issues with this so you may
have to set the SSID different to your Router. Always ensure that the Device Name is
different for every device on your network. Set the Default Gateway t point to your
Router as above.

How to setup multiple WAP54Gs without a Router:

The setup is the same as for a stand alone WAP54G. Just ensure that each device has its
own IP. The default gateway should be empty or can have the IP of the device you are
configuring. IE. If you are working on device 192.168.1.33 then the default gateway
would be 192.168.1.33. This is done because there is no Router or Gateway to send data
not destined for the LAN.

How to setup multiple WAP54Gs with a Router:

This setup is the same as for Multiple WAP54Gs except you point the Default Gateway
to your Router.
Setting up a Wireless Bridge:
In this mode you will need only 2 WAP54G devices. They must be on the same channel
and have the respective MAC addresses loaded at both ends. In this mode you will NOT
be able to connect a wireless client to the AP and the AP must be terminated to a LAN.
As mentioned above you will not be able to use WPA mode, and I recommend not using
any security in this mode. This is because someone would have to know the MAC
address and IP range of your bridge to gain access to it. Only you’re most avid and
serious hacker would know how this is done.

Resetting your WAP54G:

Turn the power on and wait for all the lights to come up. Press and hold down the reset
button on the rear of the unit until the ACT light goes out completely. Release the reset
button and wait for the lights to come back up. Your WAP54G should now be reset to
factory defaults. To configure your WAP54G point your browser to 192.168.1.245.
When the login screen appears leave the user blank and use admin as the password.

Resolving Connection Issues:

Sometimes you may experience connection difficulties. Below are some symptoms and a
probable cause and solution. Note that these are things I have experienced and done to
resolve them; these may not be the only probable cause or answers.
Unable to see the wireless connection: This can be caused by a number of
issues including SSID Broadcast turned off or poor signal just to name 2. A basic check
to see if SSID Broadcast is turned on or a signal test will reveal the problem. You may
also have MAC filtering active on the AP, this may have the effect of making the AP
invisible.
The connection is established then dropped: The most probable cause
of this is security. If the security setting on your laptop doesn’t match that of the
WAP54G then it will drop the connection. Another cause of this can be a corrupt profile
on your laptop. To resolve this you need to delete the Preferred Connection Profile
stored on your laptop and connect again.
I can see the wireless connection but can’t connect: A corrupt
profile can cause this, just delete the Preferred Network Profile on your laptop and
connect again.

A word on Antenna:
This subject is far beyond the scope of this document. All I can say about them is that if
you have to put a high gain antenna onto a WAP54G do NOT under any circumstances
put two differing antenna onto the connectors. You will succeed in upsetting it badly as
the AP by default operates in Diversity Mode where both antenna work at the same time.
I operate 24db Grid arrays on a number of my WAP54G devices and I set the output to
the side I have the antenna connected to. I have attempted to put a Grid Array on 1 side
and a 9db Omni on the other and it didn’t work very well at all. I have never tested
putting Grid Arrays on both connectors in different directions although this should work.

Signal Strength Issues:

Many things can influence signal strength from obstacles/structures to the weather, or just
plain old inferior equipment. But here is something to try. We have tested this and it does
work. Put your WAP54G in B Only Mode. It’s that simple. Pros and cons; the down
side to this is that you will loss data throughput; the up side is that for the most part WIFI
radios seem to have a better sensitivity in this mode (as much as 20db) and this means
better signal strength especially over longer distances. Our long hall sections 2.1km &
9km) all run B Mode Only with VoIP with no significant issues.

A word about naming conventions:

It is generally accepted that when you name your device (including the SSID) that it
doesn’t contain illegal characters. This means no punctuation (,./;:’ etc) or spaces.

Generic Configuration:
Router IP=192.168.1.254/255.255.255.0
AP1 IP= 192.168.1.253/255.255.255.0
AP2 IP=192.168.1.252/255.255.255.0
AP3 IP=192.168.1.251/255.255.255.0
Set the Default Gateway on ALL APs to 192.168.1.254
Set ALL APs to AP Mode
Set the SSID for ALL devices as the same “MyWireless”. Ensure SSID Broadcast is
turned ON.
Set the Device Name to something unique for ALL devices. AP1, AP2, AP3
Your Router should be setup as a DHCP server. This is beyond the scope of this
document.

Testing:
With the above configuration your wireless network will appear as a single network and
NOT as individual devices.
Connect to your wireless network.
From a command prompt type “ipconfig /all” within windowz, or “ifconfig” with Linux.
Your IP should be within the same network (subnet) as your wireless network.
Now “ping www.google.com” to see if the name is resolved to an IP. This tests that your
DNS setting are correct.
Congratulations, your wireless network should be going.
If it isn’t, go back and check your work.
Trouble shooting wireless networks:
Trouble shooting network can be difficult let alone wireless networks, but there are some
things you can do to make things easier on yourself.

First and foremost when debugging a wireless issue, turn off all sercurity, this includes
MAC filtering. Run your APs in AP mode. You can always turn it all back on after you
have resolved your problem. And after all, the problem may be in your security setup.

If you have multiple APs on your network try giving them all different SSIDs. Then
connect to each device separately to debug any issue/s.

When connected to your AP check that the client has a valid IP (assuming your network
is setup by DHCP).

Make sure you can ping other devices on your network (routing test)
Make sure you can ping www.google.com (DNS resolution)

Information on how to de-brick your WAP54G:

http://wiki.openwrt.org/WAP54GHowto
http://gawth.com/index.cgi/WAP54G
Note that performing any of the procedures in any of the links above will void your
warranty.

Firmware:
There are different firmwares for different hardwares. Do NOT put the wrong version of
firmware on the wrong version of hardware or you WILL Brick your AP.
Here is a short list of known firmwares for various hardwares.
Hardware version 1 can be flashed with firmware version 2.07 (HW ver 1 only)
Hardware version 2 can be flashed with firmware version 2.07 (HW ver 2 only)
Hardware version 3 can be flashed with firmware version 3.04
Special Note: There are 2 different versions of firmware 2.07, 1 is for HW ver 1 and the
other is for HW ver 2. If you flash the wrong version you WILL brick your AP.

About Me
My name is Fred Zinsli. I have been in the IT industry since 1985 (20Years). I have no
formal qualifications, I am industry trained. I have my own network at home
(http://www.shooter.co.nz/network.pdf) plus a wireless network comprising of WAP54G
devices. Most of my network experience has been in NT4/NT4TSE, in recent years I
have moved from MS products in favour of Linux with my preference being fedora Core
or Debian. I don’t claim to know everything, but I do like to share the knowledge I have
as this is how we all learn, and I am learning every day. I hope that someone finds the
information contained within this document helpful in some way. If by chance you have
a tip/trick with the WAP54G then please contact me as below and I will test it and add it
to this document. Also if I haven’t explained something particularly well then let me
know.

I will update this document from time to time as I find specific information gleaned from
various sources.

If you would like to contact me, send me a PM on the Linksys Forums.

http://forums.linksys.com/

OR

You can contact me at my website where you will find this and much more information.
http://wap54g.corpcomp.co.nz

FredZ