Page 63 - Take Control of Wi-Fi Networking and Security_Neat

You may need to restart the access point after setting up DHCP reser-

vations. After you restart, all devices you reserved addresses for receive

those IP addresses from the DHCP server.

Passthrough and Bridging

For networks in which the access point is connected to a larger LAN or

you rely on a broadband modem that has gateway features, you may

already have a DHCP server running that handles address distribution.

In many cases, you might be adding Wi-Fi gateways specifically be-

cause you want this access point feature.

In any case, you need to disable DHCP and NAT, and allow those

messages to pass through. If you leave them enabled, you’ll get unpre-

dictable results.

Note: The dreaded double NAT is something you want to avoid:

that’s when your device gets assigned a private address that’s routed

via a NAT gateway that, in turn, gets its private address routed

through NAT. Double NATed networks are often unreachable from the

rest of the internet for remote-access services, like remote screen

control or smarthome device control.

The term used in each gateway will vary for disabling DHCP and NAT.

In some cases, you’ll be able to set “DHCP” to “off” via a radio button

or button menu. In others, you’ll need to select an item that reads

“Bridging” or “Passthrough.”

When you disable DHCP on the LAN side, gateways will be assigned a

LAN network address that’s in the same range as the rest of the devices

on the LAN.
63