Wireless Bridge

[Mainstay]

Hi All,

I have a site that has a wireless bridge from a pole on the shoreline to a shed on an island about 250 meters away. The wireless bridge is achieved using Engenius panels and is solid and happy. The panels themselves are not readily accessible so I am very reluctant to make a change that would require me to get physical access (to reset them, for example).

Previously, the router was located at the pole on the shore. The wireless panels have static IP addresses (192.168.0.250 and .251) and a gateway pointing to the shore router (192.168.01). However, we had to install a better router on the island and turn the the router on the shore into a bridge modem (one of those ISP provided combo units).

So now we have a modem running with a dynamic WAN IP feeding the wireless bridge with a router connected downstream.

To get proper data flow, do I set the Engenius panels to acquire a dynamic IP address? Does the dynamic WAN IP get passed along down the line to the router on the island? Is there a proper setting in the Engenius panels that facilitates this?

Thank you for taking the time to read this and for any advice you may have!

Matthew

 

[Mainstay]

my worry is that if I change the IP addresses of the units from fixed IP to dynamic, I won't be able to "find" them again on the network to set them back...

 

[HCHTech]

I won't be able to "find" them again on the network to set them back...

You should be able to run an IP scanner to find them if this happens. There are several out there. Angry IP Scanner comes to mind, but there are others.

 

[mikeroq]

I'm not really into Engenius stuff myself. But they should have a network discovery tool that will scan and discover their hardware.

Something like this:

Look up the model on their site for a download.

Without the model I can't speak to the capabilities but some wireless bridges can operate as a transparent bridge. I've never setup a bridge between a modem and the WAN of a router.

I would just keep the modem on the shore side in router mode. Then you can either use the router on the island as a router with it's own network or as an AP and let the shore modem handle the network.

I am assuming this shore side is just to deliver internet to the island and there are no other network devices on the shore side.

 

[Mainstay]

You should be able to run an IP scanner to find them if this happens.

From the Shore side, between the modem and the first panel, I am not sure how I would do this. How do I put myself in the middle of that connection?

From the Island side, we could look at the feed, but that is a boat ride away.

Without the model I can't speak to the capabilities

ENH500

I would just keep the modem on the shore side in router mode.

We tried but the cameras and house control systems were not properly passing through the modem/router's firewall (even with port forwarding and even with DMZ enabled). So we turned the combo router back into a modem (SurfBoard SBG6580).

But I'm not sure if the gateway in the static IP address assignments in the panels are actually honored. I am 95% certain that these panels were originally set up in WDS bridge mode with a completely different subnet (192.168.1.250 / GW: 192.168.1.1) with a "real" modem upstream.

Just don't want to make repeated trips to a really hard to reach location.