Wireless Clients or Wireless Internet
Wireless Clients or Wireless Internet
Wireless Clients and Wired Internet: The most common use for the airGateway is to allow wireless clients (Laptops, Tablets, or Smart Phones) to connect to a Node on the Mesh. Procedures for doing that were outlined on the previous page.
But, what if you are on the road and out of RF range to a Node on the Mesh? In that case you can use the airGateway to connect your Mesh Node (with the Tunneling Client software installed) to a Node (with the Tunneling Server software installed) on the Mesh. This uses the hotel's WiFi to provide a path to the internet. This configuration is refereed to as Wireless Internet and Wired Clients.
Wireless Internet and Wired Clients configuration.
Sorry, this does not work :(
I originally thought that the AirGateway could be used to connect a mesh node to the hotel Wi-Fi for the purpose of tunneling. Sadly, this is not the case BECAUSE the ARDEN firmware requires packets coming from the Internet to be tagged with VLAN ID tag 01 and it tags packets bound for the internet with the 01 tag. But the AirGateway does not set or look for these VLAN ID tags.
If you want to connect your node to the hotel (or your home Wi-Fi) then you are going to need a VLAN switch such as the Netgear GS105E, GS108E, or GS116E. The "E" signifies that that model supports VLAN tagging. Don't get the GS105, GS108, or GS116 unless you just want a 'dumb' switch.
You will need to get a Wi-Fi router that you can configure as a client (it looks for available ssid's rather than broadcasting an ssid like an access point). Put the router in bridge mode and connect one of the router's wired LAN ports to the port on the Netgear switch that you configured as the Internet port.
If you need a review of Internet Tunneling click here.
The airGateway Provisioning Gateway Installer allows for powering the node from a 5V battery. It also provides two reset buttons. One for resetting the airGateway and the other for resetting the attached node.
For additional information on the airGateway Provisioning Installer see:
Note:
Default LAN IP Address: 192.168.1.1
Default fallback IP Address:192.168.10.1