Gateway/Bridge config help

[Accolade83]

Here's my setup:

On the first floor I have a cable modem leading to a wrt54g V.6 with firmware version 1.02.0. Two pc's are connected to that router via Ethernet cable.

Then just recently I took an old wrt54g v.5 and put the 3rd party dd-wrt firmware on it and set it up according to a guide on the web to use it as a gateway/wireless bridge (not sure which term is correct in this situation) and put that in my basement so I could connect an xbox 360 to my internet. It works beautifully and I was a little surprised. However, I want to be able to share media from a PC connected to the main router to the xbox. Right now they the main router and gateway are on seperate networks. I writing this post on the PC I want to share media from and right now it can't ping the xbox, obviously.

The main router is using basically linksys default settings with DHCP enabled starting at 192.168.1.100 subnet 255.255.255.0

the gateway router has it dhcp starting at 192.168.1.149 subnet 255.255.255.128

I know that getting these things on the same page has something to do with how these setting are configured but I don't remember how to set it up. With the second router being a gateway, is it even possible to do what I want? Also, I have a laptop that connects thru wireless that I want to be able to share media from if possible. Can that be done as well?

Sorry for the long post. I hope I haven't left out any vital information. If I have just ask and I'll respond asap. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[johnwill]

You don't want multiple DHCP servers or NAT layers running in your situation.

I don't know the capabilities of that firmware load, but what you want is a wireless bridge. You're on the same subnet for one, the issue here appears to be you need to simply totally disable the DHCP server on that wireless bridge. You want it to be transparent, basically a wireless wire.

[Accolade83]

But if I did that, the xbox wouldn't get an ip assigned correctly would it?

[johnwill]

Sure, the DHCP server on the router will assign the IP address. As a bonus, they'll all be in the same subnet with the same subnet mask, so they'll also be able to share files and the Internet connection.

The secondary router/bridge/access point wants to be transparent, you do NOT want multiple DHCP servers in the network!

[Accolade83]

Hmmm, ok well I'll give that a shot. I'll be sure to come back and tell if it worked or not.
Thanks a bunch :)

[Accolade83]

OK here's an update

I went to the forums for the dd-wrt firmware and found a little guide on using its client bridge mode to make itself transparent and any devices behind it will get assigned ip addresses from the main router. Now I only have one device behind it and its the xbox 360 and it everything worked out and it found the dhcp server, got its ip, and it now connected to the internet again.

However, I have a new problem. No computer on this network can ping the xbox. I can ping both routers from my desktop and my laptop and they can all ping each other etc.
Everything except the xbox. So what can I do about this because the whole point of doing this was to share media from these pc's to the xbox. Any help or ideas would be greatly appreciated.

[johnwill]

If you connect the XBOX directly with a wire to the primary router, does it work then? Perhaps this is not the wireless link, but rather a setting on the XBOX.

[Accolade83]

Well I can't really do check that as I would have to unhook alot of things just to get it up to the other router and even if i did that there is no tv up there that i can hook it up to so i can see what i'm doing. Also, the only networking settings you can change on the xbox is whether or not it is assigned an ip address automatically or manually.

An interesting note. When I run a connection test on the xbox, it becomes pingable during that period of time until the test finishes. Then it goes away again...

any ideas?

[johnwill]

I don't really know much about the XBOX, so I'm not much help there. I guess I don't see why a long Ethernet cable can't be connected between the current locations to test the wireless vs. wired issues.