[carjic]

Sorry for the vanity. My son is at Hillsdale College as a freshman. They said he could use a wireless router in the dorm but it had to be "Bridge Mode" instead of NAT mode. I asked many people including Best buy and no one had any idea what I was talking about. IT dept wont help him. I bought him two different routers and he has been quarenteened because he is operating in NAT mode. I am now 1700 miles south and can't help him. The one he has is a Linksys Wireless-N router. WRT160N Does anyone have any idea how I can get him operating again? Thanks in advance

[ShadowAce]

[ShadowAce]

I have that router.

However, I have flashed it with a different firmware (dd-wrt), so I cannot give step-by-step instructions.. Go into the web interface (point a browser to 192.168.1.1, I think is the default IP), and log in. In there under "Routing" or maybe "Advanced" is a setting for "Operating Mode" with options like Gateway and Router.

His is probably set to Router. Have him set it to Gateway.

[Billthedrill]

Try linksys.org (you do have to register) and download Tofu's third-party firmware. There is an Ethernet bridge option. Pertinent article HERE.

[A_Tradition_Continues]

This this http://www.wi-fiplanet.com/tutorials/article.php/3639271/DD-WRT-Tutorial-3-Building-a-Wireless-Bridge.htm

[Keith in Iowa]

http://www6.nohold.net/Cisco2/ukp.aspx?vw=1&docid=8970793be6034830941854eb8b66b5a7_4194.xml&pid=1&slnid=4

[kaizen]

Have him go tho this website for support. http://homesupport.cisco.com/en-us/wireless/lbc/WRT160N
on the bottom of the page there is a slot to enter questions or terms like bridge mode.

[steveo]

My son is at Hillsdale College as a freshman.

Congratulations...

Kind of surprised their IT dept. couldn't provide assistance. What OS is using?

If he has an apple machine that could mess it up. My daughter cannot use our wireless in the house, she has to connect directly to the router with cat5.

[cripplecreek]

My son is at Hillsdale College as a freshman.

I can't help you with your question but your son is in good hands even in Michigan. I grew up less than 20 miles from Hillsdale and can testify to the fact that he's in a good safe place.

If he's voting here, be sure he votes Walberg for 7th district congressman.

[markomalley]

Big brother in action (well, considering college students, fully understandable).

The bottom line is that they want to be able to fully control their network...that means that they will want to be able to actually see your son's computer from their network operations center. That is a very difficult task if there is a random firewall in place that performs network address translation (NAT).

Bottom line is that what your son really needs is a wireless access point (WAP), not a wireless router.

But WAPs are a lot more difficult to come by nowadays.

Here is the manual for the wireless router you specified. You can turn off NAT by following the instructions on page 10 of the manual (NAT enabled/disabled). He will probably also be told to turn off the firewall. That is on page 17 of the manual. (The WAP610N is the equivalent WAP that would probably work for him).

[JABit]

From a retired network engineer, may I first offer my congratulations on your son's acceptance into Hillsdale. Secondly, please look at the Buffalo Technology wireless router model WHR-HP-G54 . It has been my experience that this particular router is low-cost, bullet-proof, and operates flawlessly in bridge mode. I have been running three of these routers as a bridge for a couple of years. You can purchase this router on-line at http://www.provantage.com/buffalo-technology-whr-hp-g54~7BFLO022.htm for $58.09 . I hope this helps.

[Tijeras_Slim]

I don’t know squat about the question, but congratulations on your son being at Hillsdale. Nice to not have to worry about him coming home indoctrinated with Marxist BS.

[mockingbyrd]

Don’t have any advice, but my sister is a Junior there. She’s loving it, and I don’t remember her having any problems getting online. He should find an upperclassman and have them walk through .however they got online initially

[Dogfaced Soldier]

Can’t help you on the router, but my daughter graduated from Hillsdale in 09. She enjoyed her education and her classmates and I recommend it strongly - however I’ll also tell you that their career placement is pretty regionally focused on the mid-west. Nice people, helpful but they do not have a strong network elsewhere. If your son wants to work 1700 miles south when he graduates, they won’t be of much help.

[SgtHooper]

Simple. Ask IT what they suggest as the proper device.

[antiRepublicrat]

The answer was given below, but for clarification for the clueless Best Buy guys, bridge mode means you are extending the current network with its IP addresses into wireless. In wireless NAT you create your own network with its own IP addresses. The latter is what the Best Buy guys are used to.

His WRT160N is on the compatibility list for DD-WRT. Download, install and enjoy.

[carjic]

Thanks to everyone who helped. IT has finally told him to bring router to them and they would fix him up. Thanks again.

[SunkenCiv]

The D-link dkt-401 router is about $45 at a local Menard’s (I was surprised). It immediately grabbed my interest because it comes with the USB dongle to network the computer to the router. Ordinarily routers and dongles come separately. The cheap dongles (and this is a slow 150, like the cheap ones are, such as the Belkin dongle) is in the $30+ range, with the better dongles around $60. Naturally this isn’t an issue for those (unlike me) with the wireless N etc built right into their notebooks and netbooks.

Anyway, anyone know anything about this router? It seems to have been on the market since 2007?

aside to Swordmaker: the 2 TB GoFlex is $119 and change at the warehouse club; the 500 GB is still the price I mentioned before. This is a tremendous deal, but the storage is far too large for people like me who don’t stream video. :’)