Connecting two wireless access points
I had a couple of dead spots in my house with my wireless signal and wanted to get a little more coverage in the house. I already had a Linksys WAP54g wireless access point so I went out and grabbed another one. Here are the steps that I did to have 2 wireless access points connected to my network:
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Since both of these wireless access points come configured with the same ip address, you need to change one of them. I connected to the one already on my network and changed the ip address. Your address should be 192.168.1.245. Log into it and right on the main screen you will see where you can change it. I changed mine to 192.168.1.246.
After you change the address, make sure you click the “Save Settings”. You router will save the changes and then you will be prompted to log into it again. After you log into it, you will need to grab your routers MAC address. This will be needed to configure your second access point.
To get the mac address, from the main page, click on the “AP mode”. You will see this screen which will have your mac address:
2. You will now go to your second router and log into it. You are going to use 192.168.1.245. You will need to once again click on the “AP Mode”. You will want to change the mode from “Access Point” to “AP Client”. You will also need to enter in the “Remote Access Point’s LAN MAC Address:
Go ahead and click on the “Save Settings” button.
Since adding the second Access Point, I have complete coverage throughout my whole house now. Don’t forget to make sure that you have changed the password on each of your routers. Out of the box brand new the default password in “admin”. Since everyone who works with Linksys knows this, you really need to make sure you change it.
I also want to point out that it is a good idea when building your home network to stick with the same brand of networking components. For example, the option that I used for “AP Client” on the second router will only work if you are using LinkSys access points.