This is purely theoretical, but if you had the Vigor 3900 as your main router/firewall and the Vigor 2860 as your managed wireless AP controller, how would link the 3900 and the 2860 together?

Would you:

1) Have the NAT IP and Subnet Mask of the 2860 set to that of the 3900, disable DHCP on the 2860, and connect the two together LAN-to-LAN.

2) Have the NAT IP and Subnet Mask of the 2860 set to that of the 3900, set DHCP relay agent to that of the 3900 on the 2860, and connect the two together LAN-to-LAN.

3) Have the 2860 set up using it's own DHCP server and NAT IP/Subnet Mask, and set a static route from the 2860 to the 3900, with them plugged in LAN-to-LAN

4) Have the 2860 set up using the 3900's DHCP server and using it's own NAT IP/Subnet Mask, and set a static route from the 2860 to the 3900, with them plugged in LAN-to-LAN

5) Something else.

Number 3 or 4 seems the correct one to me, but don't know if that solution is OTT.

Regards: Elliott.

1 - yes
2 - well it would work but why do it? it's overcomplicated, less reliable.
3 - probably wrong, might work but more likely to be a complete failure, probably should be 2860 WAN2 --> 3900 LAN, but very complicated, unnecessary and prone to all sorts of pitfalls.
4 - Ditto, but sounds like every client on your lan would fail randomly too.

If you just want a 2860 as an AP, one would be the right way to go.

NEVER have two DHCP servers on your LAN unless you absolutely know exactly what you are doing. So many people try and end up with random problems the don't know how to trace.

When you say using the 2860 as a AP, do you mean in as a managed AP controller.

Does the 3900 have a radius server built in that the AP-902's can make use of like the 2860? I know it can't manage AP's.

eveares wrote: When you say using the 2860 as a AP, do you mean in as a managed AP controller.

Either way, the question of how you connect to the lan does not really affect the manager unless, some of your other aps are remote on public ips, in which case none of these solutions would be any better (not saying that wouldn't work, just not too sure). 99% af the time it's better if your managed network infrastructure devices have static addresses or you cannot find the little so-and-sos when you need to access them! Oh, and by the way, doing it that way makes it work with IPv6 really easily too. Strike that bit about IPv6, it depends on too many factors.

eveares wrote: Does the 3900 have a radius server built in that the AP-902's can make use of like the 2860? I know it can't manage AP's.

Not sure on that one, I have no 3900 experience.