Does the airport base station have to be hooked up to a computer?

[mac_guy_23]

I'm getting a airport base station soon so I can have wireless to my imac and macbook in my house. My original idea was to hook the airport base station into the imac and from there wireslessly be able to connect my macbook. The problem is I don't really have any availalbe cable ports for interent downstairs which is where I want to put my imac. So I can't hook my base station up downstairs. So what I was going to do then was just hook my base station up in one of my availible cable ports with internet running in in my upstiars room and let it wirelessly transmit internet to my imac and macbook. So I wouldn't have any computers hooked directly into the wall through the base station. Will it still work to just have the base station hooked into the internet in the wall by itself without a computer hooked to it? How would I go about setting everything up without a computer hooked into the base station? Basically does anyone know if it's possible to have my base station be by itself hooked into internet upstairs while I transmit wireless to all my computers in the house downstairs?

 

[goobimama]

You hook your internet into the base station, and then wirelessly connect using your iMac. In most probability, it will show a pop up of "Do you want to connect using this network?". Just select yes, and it will be connected. That's what a base station is for. You don't have to have any computer on to have the base station working...

 

[baggss]

I'm getting a airport base station soon so I can have wireless to my imac and macbook in my house. My original idea was to hook the airport base station into the imac and from there wireslessly be able to connect my macbook. The problem is I don't really have any availalbe cable ports for interent downstairs which is where I want to put my imac. So I can't hook my base station up downstairs. So what I was going to do then was just hook my base station up in one of my availible cable ports with internet running in in my upstiars room and let it wirelessly transmit internet to my imac and macbook. So I wouldn't have any computers hooked directly into the wall through the base station. Will it still work to just have the base station hooked into the internet in the wall by itself without a computer hooked to it? How would I go about setting everything up without a computer hooked into the base station? Basically does anyone know if it's possible to have my base station be by itself hooked into internet upstairs while I transmit wireless to all my computers in the house downstairs?

In short, yes. What you just described is exactly what I have at home.

Set the airport to assign IP addresses using DHCP and NAT and set each computer to get an address via DHCP.

Additionally, my home is ethernet wired, so I have the WAN port on the Airport plugged into the wall. In my data closet I have an Ethernet Hub that splits the signal to the rest of the ports in the house. This way I have the option of going hardwired if desired.