Adding Time Capsule to existing Airport Graphite Base Station

I just bought Time Capsule and want to add it now to my legacy home network (will do the same to AppleTV too, next week when I receive it from the AppleStore). This legacy home network is slow and partially wired. I want to make the network faster where it can for the fast machines, for Time Machine and for distributing movies to AppleTV.

EXISTING

Inovia ADSL bridge to my ISP (1 Meg) connected to a legacy slow Airport Base Station V4.0.9 (connects to the internet via PPPoE), connected on its LAN side to a legacy Ethernet 10BaseT hub serving:

1 - By Ethernet cables:

A Mac SE (slow)
A LC 475 (slow)
An Epson Stylus Color 850 Ethernet printer (accessed through AppleTalk using GIMP-PRINT)

2 - Wireless (slowly, so far) by DHCP and NAT

An iBook (5 GHz capable)
An iMac (5 GHz capable)

FUTURE

Time capsule is fast (5 GHz capable) so I want to create a wireless network (5Ghz: call it "Fast") around it serving the iBook, the iMac and a future AppleTV and leave a separate wired and wireless slow network (2.4GHz: call it "Slow"). That makes two Wi-Fi networks in my little home

My first failed attempt was to leave the "Slow" network as it is now and simply connect to its 10BaseT hub, by Ethernet, the WAN side of the Time Capsule. Can't make it work so far

I saw on page 48 of the notice <http://manuals.info.apple.com/en/Designing_AirPort_Networks_10.5-Windows.pdf> that Apple seems to propose the other way around (connect the Time Capsule directly to the ADSL bridge and connect the legacy Airport Base Station by Ethernet to the LAN side of Time Capsule. Why not ?

Can anyone explain the best way to go as my brain has stopped to function at this step? I will spare no time in testing and will summarise. TIA

You have to setup the router functionality of TC using Airport Utility first. To do that connect the Ethernet cable from your 10baset Hub to the WAN port in TC , open Airport Utility and follow the onscreen instructions.

Also check this out.

http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=638153#post638153

mojonandha said:

You have to setup the router functionality of TC using Airport Utility first. To do that connect the Ethernet cable from your 10baset Hub to the WAN port in TC , open Airport Utility and follow the onscreen instructions.

Also check this out.

http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=638153#post638153

Click to expand...

This is soo great, Mojo, thanks. I had not seen this huge post of yours (deserves a sticky IMHO)

Now, after posting, I had continued work, succeeded to establish a working network and came out with questions.

FIRST, WHAT DID I DO AND ACHIEVE

As you can see, Instead of stating I do not have any network, I started by saying the truth, which is that I already have one

"I have a network and want to add Time Capsule to it"

"I want to connect Time Capsule to my network via Ethernet to create another network connected to my existing Airport Base station"

"I want to create another network because I want to connect Time Capsule via Ethernet and so create a 5GHz network in addition to my existing network"

Network name: ---
WPA/WPA2 Personal ---
Mode: Bridge
Configure TPv4 via DHCP
DNS servers (leave in blank)
Domain name wanadoo.fr

This works .... (great !, but...)

SECOND, MY QUESTIONS

BRIDGE OR ROUTER. According to Steve Gibson suggestions in his talks "Security Now": <http://www.grc.com/sn/SN-003.htm> and explained in his paper "Multi-NAT routers configuration details: <http://www.grc.com/nat/nats.htm>, I wanted to set up a second NAT router after the first NAT router but configured the Time machine as a bridge instead because I failed to do otherwise. Can I set-up the Time Machine as a router also ? How ?

Protection of the Time-Machine Sub-network. Is a bridge a firewall as efficient as a NAT router ? The original network is not (or weakly) protected, I reserve it for multiplayer internet games. Is my Time-Machine's subnetwork correctly protected with a bridge connection to a loosely-protected network created around an antiquated Airport snow base station ?

APPLETALK. I used to access to the Epson printer via AppleTalk. AppleTalk does not appear to pass through the time Capsule router (check made with atlookup). Can I use AppleTalk through Time Capsule ?

SUBNETWORK SPEED. I want Time Capsule and its subnetwork to run at 5 GHz, mainly for subsequent film streaming to AppleTV, but the only way I could configure time Capsule and see the network appear was to configure it 802.11n (compatible 802.11b/g). Is this a 5GHz network ? How can I verify that ?

TIA

Even though you setup TC in bridge mode, you should still be able to use TC as a router. By router i mean your Mac and PC's or any wireless capable device can connect to the network you created in the TC. Also you can use ethernet cables to connect to other ethernet capable devices.

The default network when created first time in the TC is a 5Ghz network so yours should be 5ghz too.

This document will answer a lot of your questions. Check it out

Designing AirPort Networks 10.5 + Windows (Manual)

http://manuals.info.apple.com/en/Designing_AirPort_Networks_10.5-Windows.pdf

Also check this out. This gives you more info on TC's 5Ghz network.

http://www.appleinsider.com/article...e_capsule_wifi_802_11n_and_the_5ghz_band.html