NetGear Wifi bridge adapter file sharing problem

[macclassic]

I have a NetGear WNCE2001 (RJ-45  Ethernet to 802.11) WiFi bridge adapter connected to the ethernet card in my SE/30 and I can ping the SE/30 from a Classic connected to my internet router via an Asante EN/SC and a 10T hub.

 I'm running system 7.5.5 on the SE/30 and whether using MacTCP or Open Transport my Classic doesn't show in the SE/30's chooser window, yet the SE/30 shows in my Classic's chooser window but doesn't respond.

And if both machines are hardwired to the 10T hub then file sharing works perfectly.

So how can I be losing file sharing with the NetGear adapter ?

 

[cheesestraws]

I don't know about the WNCE2001 but a number of wireless bridges have issues with AppleTalk but pass IP through fine.  So that would result in a situation where pings worked (because ping is ICMP on top of IP) but file sharing and other AppleTalk services would not.

This is partly because people didn't test with AppleTalk but also because as I understand it there was a slightly... questionable design decision made about how the headers on an EtherTalk Phase 2 frame worked that gave bridge manufacturers/standards designers a bit of a headache [1].

Remember that 802.11 wireless is closely related to Ethernet but it is not Ethernet; and, despite the best intentions of the standardisers (they did try), converting an Ethernet frame to a 802.11 frame and back again is actually slightly lossy and, as I understand it, this is what breaks AppleTalk...

[1] http://www.ieee802.org/1/files/public/docs2009/h-nolish-mickonh-0509-v01.txt

 

[macclassic]

Thank you for replying.

(sharp intake of breath) I get some idea of the issues described in that document but certainly not everything, and I wonder if the problem is down to my router port-blocking AFP.

And I can still move files around by FTP with Netpresenz running on the SE/30 when even using my iPhone but I still hanker after the ease of file sharing

 

[cheesestraws]

AFP doesn't have a "port" in IP terms, because it doesn't run over IP (at least, not the version in System 7).  AppleTalk is a completely separate protocol stack from IP, the addresses are completely different, the way that socket numbering works is completely different, the packet format is different etc., etc.  So if they wanted to make either the router or the WiFi bridge cheap they might have gone "well, 99% of our customers only care about IP, let's just drop everything else on the floor, especially as AppleTalk is a bit troublesome".  So it won't be a port block, but either the router or the bridge might just not care about AppleTalk.

I don't know if this is what is going on, but I would not be entirely surprised, shall we say.

If you have a Linux/UNIX/OS X box on the wireless side, I'd love to see a pcap (traffic capture) of the SE/30 trying to connect.  Happy to give instructions as to how to generate one of these if you do .

 

[Fizzbinn]

@cheesestraws is correct. Networking these days pretty much is all TCP/IP protocol. Back in the day there were a lot of other protocols, AppleTalk being just one, that could work in parallel over a physical network layer. The physical network layer today is pretty Ethernet and WiFI (and cellular LTE, etc.), anyone miss Token Ring or FDDI? Apple of course had their LocalTalk serial port based physical network which as far as I know only ever had the AppleTalk network protocol implemented on it.

There may be some other devices, but the easiest way to donAppleTalk network protocol Ethernet-WiFi bridging is to use an old Airport base station. You can find them on eBay pretty cheap. 
 

I’m not sure this feature stayed through to the last 802.11ac “tower” AirPort Extreme units, but I have 802.11n “simultaneous dual-band” one I use for this. I’d avoid the original silver non-Extreme “UFO“ units and original 802.11g Express models unless you want to chance a recap project. 

 

[Cory5412]

To add:

7.5.5 with appleshare updates and opentransport installed can access appleshare-over-IP servers (what we think of as "AFP" because the protocol on OSX is AFP://), which can be run by system 7.6.1 and newer using appleshare IP 5 or 6. I believe the ASIP bits were added to built-in filesharing sometime in the 9 era, or were made available as a free lite version of a third party sharing product, I'd have to go look.

Unfortunately, OpenTransport is kind of heavy, your SE/30 would need a fair bit of RAM, and your Classic might not run it at all.

Depending on what all you have, you might be able to set up a third machine as an ASIP/AFP file server and put your SE/30 back on the wifi bridge and use plain appletalk to connect to it over ethernet.

I’d avoid the original silver non-Extreme “UFO“ units and original 802.11g Express models unless you want to chance a recap project. 

Is that a thing already? Wow.

There may be some other devices, but the easiest way to donAppleTalk network protocol Ethernet-WiFi bridging is to use an old Airport base station. You can find them on eBay pretty cheap. 

Nice! Depending on where you (anyone) lives, there's sometimes loads of these things in thrift stores. Generally, having a good ethernet to wifi bridge is just nice anyway. I don't happen to remember seeing any here, but I may keep my eyes open for one. (However I'll admit to having bought a 100-foot ethernet cable that I've strung all over my house so I just have a full ethernet switch in my back room.)

anyone miss Token Ring or FDDI?

We have our fair share of modern curses: nvme over fiberchannel over ethernet.

You can also run iscsi over IP over FC.

 

[macclassic]

@cheesestraws is correct. Networking these days pretty much is all TCP/IP protocol. Back in the day there were a lot of other protocols, AppleTalk being just one, that could work in parallel over a physical network layer. The physical network layer today is pretty Ethernet and WiFI (and cellular LTE, etc.), anyone miss Token Ring or FDDI? Apple of course had their LocalTalk serial port based physical network which as far as I know only ever had the AppleTalk network protocol implemented on it.

There may be some other devices, but the easiest way to donAppleTalk network protocol Ethernet-WiFi bridging is to use an old Airport base station. You can find them on eBay pretty cheap. 
 

I’m not sure this feature stayed through to the last 802.11ac “tower” AirPort Extreme units, but I have 802.11n “simultaneous dual-band” one I use for this. I’d avoid the original silver non-Extreme “UFO“ units and original 802.11g Express models unless you want to chance a recap project. 

SOLVED.

I dug out an Airport Extreme base station, plugged it into a spare ethernet port on my router and set it up in bridge mode with another wifi network, then plugged an Airport Express into my SE/30' ethernet port and it works fine.

Many thanks for the help 

 

[cheesestraws]

You can also run iscsi over IP over FC.

In a previous life I was responsible for a setup not unlike this.  I am so grateful not to be responsible for it any more.

I dug out an Airport Extreme base station, plugged it into a spare ethernet port on my router and set it up in bridge mode with another wifi network, then plugged an Airport Express into my SE/30' ethernet port and it works fine. 

This is useful to know.  Thankyou!