I want to add wireless capability to my home network. I already have a central switch and Ethernet cable in the walls, plus two network drives, a cable “modem”, two more network drives hanging off their own local hub, a router doing NAT so my cable modem can be a DHCP host while my network uses fixed IP, and an Apple Time Capsule. The Time Capsule is a network drive dedicated to automated backup of my iMac, plus an “Airport” wireless access point that is currently turned off. The other drives are for general use and manual backup for the iMac and Mrs. Napier’s Windows laptop.
I’d like to turn the wireless access point on to be able to use laptops and a new Kindle wirelessly, but keep using the Ethernet where it’s already wired (it’s faster and more secure). I think I’d like to retire two of the older network drives, which cannot be DHCP clients; this would let me switch my wired network to use DHCP. I played around a little with the Time Capsule Airport but things were complicated and confusing, thus several questions:
Am I right to assume it is straightforward to have a network that includes wired and wireless components? Or would this be two networks? The AirPort controls seemed to say that either it would provide the only network or would join an existing wireless network, neither of which is what I want.
Do wireless networks use IP addresses? Can they be static or DHCP?
I have a router. It’s a Linksys BEFSX41 VPN firewall router. Its WAN port connects to the LAN port of the cable modem, and its LAN port connects to one of the switch ports. It does network address translation between my static IP network and the DHCP based port on the modem, on which DHCP can’t be turned off. The point was to allow using the older drives which need fixed IP (or else each one needs to be the DHCP host). I also use its hardware firewall. I think I can get rid of this router, which is trouble prone and often needs a hardware reset, if I use DHCP everywhere. But I worry about not having the hardware firewall. How safe is that?
Do most people just plug a switch or hub into their cable modem, and let everything use DHCP, with no hardware firewall?
Thanks!