Connecting BBA via PC

[brourke228]

I should be able to help you set this up. When I first moved into my apt 2 years ago I didn't have internet yet and I was using my neighbors unsecured wifi with my laptop then bridged to my laptops ethernet port. From there I had it connnected to the internet port on my router and then my desktop and other devices were connected to the LAN ports. I had dreamcast connected at the same time via PC-DC server to the laptop. It was pretty badass..lol

Anyway what do you have to work with? If it is just your PC and dreamcast you will need a crossover ethernet cable. Bridge the connections and connect them directly. If you have a router you will want to bridge the wireless to your PC's ethernet port then connect that to the router's internet port. The gateway of your router will be your PC's IP address. Then make your router's LAN-side a different subnet.

If you have a router that works with DD-WRT http://dd-wrt.com/site/index you also have the option to flash that onto your router and use your router as a wireless client bridge. Then you would have your router directly connected to the landlord's wifi and all devices on the LAN-side ethernet would be connected to the internet all the time.

BTW i can't help you with setting up the web browser because I do not personally have a BBA, but I should be able to tell you what network settings it should use based on what you are trying to do.

I'll try to be more specific after you say how you want it setup.

[Alec1382]

Anyway what do you have to work with? If it is just your PC and dreamcast you will need a crossover ethernet cable. Bridge the connections and connect them directly. If you have a router you will want to bridge the wireless to your PC's ethernet port then connect that to the router's internet port. The gateway of your router will be your PC's IP address. Then make your router's LAN-side a different subnet.

If you have a router that works with DD-WRT http://dd-wrt.com/site/index you also have the option to flash that onto your router and use your router as a wireless client bridge. Then you would have your router directly connected to the landlord's wifi and all devices on the LAN-side ethernet would be connected to the internet all the time.

I actually went out and bought 2 routers last Monday with the intention of using DD-WRT. I don't have a phone, so I couldn't check whether the models I was looking at were compatible, so I took a gamble. Turns out they aren't, but they should still be useful.

Would this be easier to do with a crossover cable, since it would bypass the IP garbage associated with the router? Either way, I don't currently have one, and I'd like to work with what I have at the moment.

[brourke228]

It might be slightly easier with crossover directly to dreamcast, but i think you would be happier with it bridged to the router in case you have anything else connected. Obviously all the devices would share the single connection though so the connection speed would depend on how good your wifi adapter is and the signal strength.

I might have to look this up real quick I don't remember how to bridge them on windows xp unless you've already got that part set up. I was using linux when i had shared my connection couple years ago. I know you can use ICS to do this though.

[brourke228]

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/306126

After ICS is setup before doing anything check the ethernet port IP address by opening up command prompt and typing "ipconfig". In that support article it has the ethernet IP as 192.168.0.1 so I'll write this up assuming that to be the ip of your NIC.

The way I understand this the ethernet port will be on a different subnet than your wifi adapter. The gateway IP you will be using is your PC's ethernet IP address. What is going to happen if you put the ethernet cable to the internet port on your router is you will have three subnets in total.

Lets say for example your PC has an IP of 192.168.1.150 assigned from your landlords wifi. It is then shared to the ethernet port which has an IP address of 192.168.0.1 . The gateway of your router would be 192.168.0.1 and the WAN IP of your router could be say 192.168.0.2 . Then the LAN-side would have a third subnet. The LAN IP for your router could be 192.168.2.1 and all connected LAN devices as 192.168.2.x .

Personally, I would avoid doing it that way because it is way too many subnets. You should use your router instead as a dummy network switch just to split the connection amongst it's LAN ports. To do this you will instead connect the ethernet cable from your PC's ethernet port to one of the LAN ports on the router. Then you must disable WAN connection on your router (if that's an option) and disable DHCP on the router. Then change the LAN-side IP address of your router to 192.168.0.2 and the default gateway on the LAN-side to 192.168.0.1. Subnet mask will be 255.255.255.0. Set the primary DNS to 192.168.0.1. On Dreamcast set the IP address to 192.168.0.3, the default gateway to 192.168.0.1, subnet mask 255.255.255.0, primary dns to 192.168.0.1

[Alec1382]

Then you must disable WAN connection on your router (if that's an option) and disable DHCP on the router. Then change the LAN-side IP address of your router to 192.168.0.2 and the default gateway on the LAN-side to 192.168.0.1. Subnet mask will be 255.255.255.0. Set the primary DNS to 192.168.0.1.

Okay, so all I need to know is how to do all this router configuration. I assume all these settings would have to be modified in some kind of software, since I see no corresponding buttons or switches on my router. So where do I find this software? My router didn't come with any.

[brourke228]

What is the router you are working with? You will be able to access the router configuration page by connecting a device to one of its LAN ports then typing the LAN-side ip address of your router into your web browser. I would disconnect from wifi while doing this if you use the same PC to set it up because if your router and your landlords router share the same IP like 192.168.1.1 for example, there will be an IP conflict and you will not be able to access your local router. If the router you are using is a wireless router I would also suggest disabling the wireless radio on it as well.

[Alec1382]

What is the router you are working with? You will be able to access the router configuration page by connecting a device to one of its LAN ports then typing the LAN-side ip address of your router into your web browser.

I'm working with either a Linksys RT31P2 or a D-Link WBR-1310. I couldn't find any IP address on the Linksys, but the D-Link had a "default router settings" section on the label, with the IP 192.168.0.1 on it, so I tried that. It didn't work, probably because I don't have a device to connect to any of the LAN ports.

[brourke228]

Well obviously to access it you must have a computer or something connected to one of its LAN ports. I would go with t he D-Link because you know the default settings already. Make sure that your PC's ethernet port has an IP address that is on the 192.168.0.x subnet, but it cannot be 192.168.0.1 while you're configuring the router because the router already uses that IP address. Then once you've done that type 192.168.0.1 in your web browser. If the router you're using is used it could be that it is not using the default settings, in which case hold down the reset button with it powered off and then continue holding it down for 30 seconds after powering it on. It should then reset to default settings.

[Alec1382]

Well obviously to access it you must have a computer or something connected to one of its LAN ports. I would go with t he D-Link because you know the default settings already. Make sure that your PC's ethernet port has an IP address that is on the 192.168.0.x subnet, but it cannot be 192.168.0.1 while you're configuring the router because the router already uses that IP address. Then once you've done that type 192.168.0.1 in your web browser. If the router you're using is used it could be that it is not using the default settings, in which case hold down the reset button with it powered off and then continue holding it down for 30 seconds after powering it on. It should then reset to default settings.

Well yeah, the computer is plugged in, but to the "internet" or "WAN" ports, not the LAN ports. Looking up my PC's IP, the "Default Gateway" is 192.168.1.1. Is this the problem? How would I change it to 0.2 instead of 1.1?

[brourke228]

Connect the cable to a LAN port not the WAN. You cannot access your router from the WAN port unless you have remote access enabled which wouldn't be enabled by default.