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Connect a 2950 switch to a wireless bridge

james.leavers
Level 1
Level 1

I often connect a wireless bridge to routers when I want to test something without trailing additional cabling everywhere.

I use a little Netgear WGE111, which even though it was marketed as a gaming adapter, has always worked perfectly when plugged into a Cisco router's ethernet interface. It connects to the wireless access point and as far as the Cisco router is concerned, things work just the same as if it was connected back to the other end using an ethernet cable.

However - I have just tried to do the same thing with a 2950 switch, and it didn't work.

- If an ethernet cable is hauled across and connected back to the wired network, the fastethernet interface comes up, the vlan1 interface comes up, the VLAN interface's IP address 192.168.1.xxx is pingable, and traffic passes to/from devices attached to the switch ports.

- If the same cable is connected to the wireless adapter, both the fastethernet and VLAN interfaces show as up, but the VLAN interface isn't pingable and no traffic passes to/from any device attached to any of the switch ports.

- I tried a straight-through cable and a crossover with the same result.

So obviously I have done something wrong! Any advice would be great.

7 Replies 7

mrmozaffari
Level 1
Level 1

Hi

Change the duplex and speed setting may be helpful.

Thanks.

Hi,

Thanks for the reply. I've tried changing those settings as suggested, but it didn't seem to have any effect unfortunately.

When connected using wired ethernet:

cisco2950#sh int f0/1

FastEthernet0/1 is up, line protocol is up

Hardware is Fast Ethernet, address is 000a.4191.7901 (bia 000a.4191.7901)

MTU 1500 bytes, BW 100000 Kbit, DLY 1000 usec,

reliability 255/255, txload 1/255, rxload 1/255

Encapsulation ARPA, loopback not set

Keepalive set (10 sec)

Full-duplex, 100Mb/s

input flow-control is off, output flow-control is off

ARP type: ARPA, ARP Timeout 04:00:00

cisco2950#sh int f0/1 status

Port Name Status Vlan Duplex Speed Type

Fa0/1 connected 1 a-full a-100 10/100BaseTX

D:\>ping 192.168.1.204

Pinging 192.168.1.204 with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 192.168.1.204: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=255

Reply from 192.168.1.204: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=255

Reply from 192.168.1.204: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=255

Reply from 192.168.1.204: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=255

Ping statistics for 192.168.1.204:

Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),

Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:

Minimum = 1ms, Maximum = 1ms, Average = 1ms

(192.168.1.204 is the VLAN interface.)

When connected to wireless bridge:

cisco2950#sh int f0/1

FastEthernet0/1 is up, line protocol is up

Hardware is Fast Ethernet, address is 000a.4191.7901 (bia 000a.4191.7901)

MTU 1500 bytes, BW 100000 Kbit, DLY 1000 usec,

reliability 255/255, txload 1/255, rxload 1/255

Encapsulation ARPA, loopback not set

Keepalive set (10 sec)

Full-duplex, 100Mb/s

input flow-control is off, output flow-control is off

ARP type: ARPA, ARP Timeout 04:00:00

cisco2950#sh int f0/1 status

Port Name Status Vlan Duplex Speed Type

Fa0/1 connected 1 a-full a-100 10/100BaseTX

D:\>ping 192.168.1.204

Pinging 192.168.1.204 with 32 bytes of data:

Request timed out.

Request timed out.

Request timed out.

Request timed out.

Ping statistics for 192.168.1.204:

Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 0, Lost = 4 (100% loss),

Reconfigured speed and duplex as follows:

cisco2950#sh int f0/1 status

Port Name Status Vlan Duplex Speed Type

Fa0/1 connected 1 half 10 10/100BaseTX

D:\>ping 192.168.1.204

Pinging 192.168.1.204 with 32 bytes of data:

Request timed out.

Request timed out.

Request timed out.

Request timed out.

Ping statistics for 192.168.1.204:

Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 0, Lost = 4 (100% loss),

Shutting and re-opening the interface and powercycling the wireless bridge don't have any effect either. Can you suggest any other port configuration changes?

Thanks very much!

Hi

I presume that you are detaching the lan cable while connecting the bridge. Moreover, can u try disabling the lan port and disabling/enabling the wireless port?

Regards

JD

Hi,

The way I set this up in the example in my previous post was:

1. Wired ethernet (worked)

Cisco2950 ---> long untidy ethernet cable ---> wireless router

2. Using wireless bridge (didn't work)

Cisco2950 ---> short ethernet cable ---> wireless bridge ---> wireless router.

The wireless bridge remains pingable when it is in use so there is no wireless problem.

Q. "I presume that you are detaching the lan cable while connecting the bridge."

A. Yes, in the example in my previous post the long ethernet cable of scenario 1 was connected to f0/1. Then when swithing to scenario 2 this was removed and replaced with the short ethernet cable linking the switch to the wireless bridge.

Q. "Can u try disabling the lan port and disabling/enabling the wireless port?"

I have tried disabling the interface on the switch and re-enabling it. The wireless functionality of the bridge can't be disabled in its config but I have tried switching it on and off.

It isn't a problem with a particular port on the switch as I have tried others:

cisco2950#sh int f0/16 status

Port Name Status Vlan Duplex Speed Type

Fa0/16 connected 1 a-full a-100 10/100BaseTX

cisco2950#sh ip int b f0/16

Interface IP-Address OK? Method Status Prol

FastEthernet0/16 unassigned YES unset up up

cisco2950#

cisco2950#sh ip int b vlan1

Interface IP-Address OK? Method Status Protocol

Vlan1 192.168.1.204 YES NVRAM up up

cisco2950#

jim@ubuntu:~$ ping 192.168.1.204

PING 192.168.1.204 (192.168.1.204) 56(84) bytes of data.

From 192.168.1.100 icmp_seq=1 Destination Host Unreachable

From 192.168.1.100 icmp_seq=2 Destination Host Unreachable

From 192.168.1.100 icmp_seq=3 Destination Host Unreachable

From 192.168.1.100 icmp_seq=4 Destination Host Unreachable

From 192.168.1.100 icmp_seq=5 Destination Host Unreachable

From 192.168.1.100 icmp_seq=6 Destination Host Unreachable

From 192.168.1.100 icmp_seq=7 Destination Host Unreachable

From 192.168.1.100 icmp_seq=8 Destination Host Unreachable

From 192.168.1.100 icmp_seq=9 Destination Host Unreachable

--- 192.168.1.204 ping statistics ---

12 packets transmitted, 0 received, +9 errors, 100% packet loss, time 11041ms

, pipe 3

jim@ubuntu:~$

I have also tried a Cisco 2924 today and the same thing happened.

cisco2924#sh int f0/1

FastEthernet0/1 is up, line protocol is up

Hardware is Fast Ethernet, address is 0030.8545.8581 (bia 0030.8545.8581)

MTU 1500 bytes, BW 100000 Kbit, DLY 100 usec,

reliability 255/255, txload 1/255, rxload 1/255

Encapsulation ARPA, loopback not set

Keepalive not set

Auto-duplex (Full), Auto Speed (100), 100BaseTX/FX

jim@ubuntu:~$ ping 192.168.1.103

PING 192.168.1.103 (192.168.1.103) 56(84) bytes of data.

From 192.168.1.100 icmp_seq=1 Destination Host Unreachable

From 192.168.1.100 icmp_seq=2 Destination Host Unreachable

From 192.168.1.100 icmp_seq=3 Destination Host Unreachable

From 192.168.1.100 icmp_seq=4 Destination Host Unreachable

From 192.168.1.100 icmp_seq=5 Destination Host Unreachable

From 192.168.1.100 icmp_seq=6 Destination Host Unreachable

--- 192.168.1.103 ping statistics ---

7 packets transmitted, 0 received, +6 errors, 100% packet loss, time 6025ms

, pipe 3

jim@ubuntu:~$

However - I was actually in the same room today which helped - I saw that when the interface was enabled on the switch, all the lights on the wireless bridge flashed as if it was rebooting. The light to indicate that a host is connected to it then came on (and the interface came up on the switch).

The lights don't flash on the bridge like that when it is connected to a Cisco router or a PC so perhaps it doesn't handle Cisco switches very well, or that Cisco switches don't handle wireless bridges very well!

Hi

What is the wireless bridge/ router config?

Can u try making the switch side AP and the pc side as client?

Or WDS would also do.

Regards

JD

Sorry for the long delay!

There is very little that can be configured on the little wireless bridge... just the LAN IP and the wireless encryption.

However - I previously said that I noticed the lights on the bridge all blip off when I connected the cable. I was connecting one to a PC recently and I accidentally cabled it up with a crossover cable instead of a straight-through cable - the same thing happened (and it didn't work until I changed the cable obviously!)

So I think that's something to do with it, although since I've tried both straight-through and cross-over cables swith the switch I really couldn't say what.

try to make speed and duplex auto on the switch.

When the port is set to auto auto, the port will also negoitate MDI-X.

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