AirPort 5.0 Help
Setting up your base station as a bridge
You can turn off the base station’s Internet sharing features (providing IP addresses to AirPort computers using DHCP or NAT) to allow bridging between the network’s wireless and wired computers. With bridging turned on, AirPort enabled computers have access to all services on the Ethernet network. The base station does not provide Internet sharing services.
Using the base station as a bridge can address incompatibilities between the base station’s Internet sharing features and your ISP’s connection method.
If your base station connects to the Internet using PPPoE, you can't set it up as a bridge. When your base station is using PPPoE, it is acting as a router and distributes IP addresses to clients on the network using DHCP and NAT.
To set up your base station as a bridge:
- Open AirPort Utility, located in the Utilities folder in the Applications folder on a computer using Mac OS X, and in Start > All Programs > AirPort on a computer using Windows.
- Select your base station and choose Manual Setup from the Base Station menu. Enter the base station password if necessary.
- Click Internet in the toolbar, and then click Internet Connection.
- Choose Off (Bridge Mode) from the Connection Sharing pop-up menu.
To use the base station as a bridge, all AirPort and Ethernet computers need to have IP addresses set manually and use the same subnet mask.