pantsfarm

What the hell, Linksys really dropped the ball on this one.

So apparently, in [tag]WRT45G[/tag] wireless routers, v5 (and maybe v6 ?), if you make the foolish mistake of upgrading to the latest version (1.01.0), and then try to connect a Macintosh using DHCP, you’re in trouble. That is, it won’t work. Network status on your apple will tell you that you’re connected to the router but not getting an IP address and thus not connected to anything useful. No amount of resetting your router, your modem, or your computer will fix anything.

You have basically two options at this point. Downgrade your firmware, or stop using DHCP.

Downgrading your Firmware

The first option, which is what I found most people did as a solution in assorted mac and linksys technical support discussion forums, is to downgrade the router’s firmware. Go find the old version, which is available from Linksys’s FTP server at ftp://ftp.linksys.com/pub/network/wrt54gv5_v6_fw_1.00.9_US_code.zip. I’ve also mirrored this file on my own hosting, here. Then, install this on your router and go back to the way things were before you upgraded your firmware (that is, when it still worked).

This came after a great many people in my same predicament called up their ISPs, Apple, and Linksys, all of whom were apparently no help. Luckily for me, I am clever and resourceful enough to have simply found all these other people’s woes and work from there.

Manual Configuration

Now, if you for whatever reason don’t want to do this, I have succeeded, at least for the time being, with an alternate approach. This is the approach of not using DHCP at all and instead using manual TCP/IP configuration. I took this approach because I wanted to give myself a static IP anyway, and so I figured it’d be worth a shot before downgrading the firmware on the router.

To do this, I went to “System Preferences” then to Network and then to my Airport configuration. I clicked on TCP/IP and got a screen that looked something like this:

Some things may be different, but you get the idea. After this, I changed it from DHCP to manual.

Now, put in an IP address of your choice in, probably 192.168.1.something. And then for the router, put in 192.168.1.1 (this is the default for a WRT45G, if you changed it at some point to something else, obviously you know enough about what you’re doing to put in the correct information here)

Ok, now here’s where things might get tricky, because I didn’t quite do these exact steps, but something pretty similar. Apply these settings, and open up a browser, and see if you can go to your router’s config page (probably 192.168.1.1). Once there, click status, and provided it’s connected correctly to your ISP, scroll down and get a look at the DNS servers. I had another Windows machine around which I used to look up the DNS stuff in the first place.

Write these down, and then go back to your airport settings. Put the DNS servers into the DNS servers field, with each one seperated by a line break.

Ok, so hit ‘Apply Now’, and now you should be able to do stuff relatively normally again. I hope this has been helpful. [tags]linksys, wireless, dhcp, mac, apple, support, firmware, macintosh[/tags]