Wireless/Wired Bridge with AirPort Express

How to use an AirPort Express as a wireless bridge when connecting it to an existing AirPort network via WDS

This one had me going for a while, but I eventually got it sorted out, and when I got it, the answer was really quite straightforward and easy. I guess my problem was looking for the hard way to do it - and this just didn't work.



Here's a bit of history to set the scene:

I started my AirPort network out with just an AirPort Extreme Base Station, using this to connect to my cable modem and share the internet between a PC via wired Ethernet and my Mac via AirPort. This was all good, and easy to configure.


Then, Apple released the AirPort Express. AirTunes was the deciding factor in purchasing this unit, and I quickly added it to the AirPort network. Now, this was a couple of years ago now, and I can't remember exactly what I had to do to configure it, but I eventually got it all working so that the wireless network was extended by the AirPort Express, I could play music through the AirPort Express and I could plug something else (a friends laptop, for instance) into the wired Ethernet port on the AirPort Express and it could use the internet etc. At the time I set it all up, the firmware was in it's early stages, and getting WDS to happen wasn't as easy as it should have been. From memory, I put the same settings in about four or five times and it magically worked. All was good.

Until, at least, the AirPort Express died. Yep, dead.

I got a brand-new AirPort Express and went to set it all up as it was before. This time, with the new firmware I could use WPA with WDS (whereas the old one had to use WEP) but try as I might, I couldn't get it to use the ethernet port.

This became a problem recently when I wanted to use a friend's Xbox 360 on Xbox Live, and he didn't have a wireless adapter.
Every time you go into the AirPort Admin utility and tell the AirPort Express to join an existing wireless network, it disables the Ethernet port completely.


Eventually I reset everything to factory defaults and started all over again. I then configured the main base station (the Extreme) and then went to configure the remote base station (the Express) and still couldn't set it to join an existing wireless network (on the AirPort tab) and have Ethernet enabled.

Taking a step back, I approached the problem from a different angle, and here's the steps that need to be done in order to get it to all work:

Configure the main base station, however you want. I set it up to share the internet connection on the WAN port to both the LAN port and the AirPort. I set it to be a DHCP server and hand out a range of IP addresses automatically. I set it to have a different network name, and set the name of the base station appropriately. I then enabled WPA2 encryption on the AirPort and all was good with it.

Next, I reset the AirPort Express to factory defaults and plugged it into my Mac via wired ethernet. This is one of the key steps - at this stage I'm connected via AirPort to the network I have just set up, and I've got an unconfigured base station connected via wired Ethernet.

In the AirPort Admin utility, I went into the configuration for the MAIN base station and enabled the base station as a main base station. I also ticked the box to allow wireless clients on this base station. Lastly, I hit the + next to the list of wireless networks and base stations to allow for WDS. Once I'd done this, I could select my unconfigured base station to join it to the network.

The AirPort Admin utility automatically configured the AirPort Express base station with the appropriate settings, and set up WDS on the AirPort Extreme base station all in one go.

Lastly, in order to keep everything neat and tidy, I manually configured other settings in the AirPort Express, such as the base station name, and turning on AirTunes, just to round it all out.



The end result is a working wireless network, using WPA, and an Ethernet port on the remote base station in my loungeroom that is bridged to the main network, so it can automatically receive an IP address, surf the internet, see other devices on the LAN and generally just work.

Easy when you know how!