Changing Apple Airport IP Address Range For Brennan iPhone App

[RandyT]

Apple Airport IP Address Change

When setting up my Brennan B2, everything went as planned except setting up the iPhone application. This was not an issue with the phone.

It turned out that the Brennan iPhone app is looking for the IP address 192.168.x.x. My Apple Airport and possibly other Airport models, assign IP addresses like 10.0.x.x. So this needed to be changed to the 192.168.x.x format. It’s not exactly an intuitive process!

Before beginning, you will need the MAC address of your Brennan B2. I discovered that this is not visible with the Wifi dongle plugged in and operating. With the Wifi dongle out of the machine (okay if hardwired to the network, I think.), I’ve heard of 2 ways to find the MAC address. 

Press the INFO button on the remote twice and scroll up or down. I simply pressed the INFO button and the MAC address would scroll by, similar to the Brennan start up screen. Write down the MAC address. It will look like XX.XX.XX.XX.XX.XX, a string of numbers and letters. No idea if they’re case sensitive but mine are all capital letters.

The Macintosh computer operating system comes with software to control the Airport Wifi routers. There is a Windows version of this and can be downloaded free, from Apple’s website. Go to APPLE.COM and search for: Airport Utility.

On your Macintosh computer follow the path: Hard Drive > Utilities > Airport Utility. You’ll get something like the image below when launched. My Airport happens to be a Time Capsule and that means it has an internal hard drive for integrated back-ups.

One note here; Apple discontinued the Airport products in April of 2018 and will continue to support them thru April 2022. It’s only my opinion but I have 4 Airports and they all still function perfectly. Two of them I bought used for $3/each! From day one, you were able to form a ‘mesh’ network of multiple Airports. I understand why Apple discontinued them but they are extremely robust.

The images you will be seeing are for Airport Utility version 6.3.9. 

On to the setup! 

In the previous image there is nothing obvious to direct you. Simply click on the Airport image and you will get a pop-up information window with a small EDIT icon in the lower right. Click on the EDIT icon, yellow arrow. The red blocks are covering personal info in that pop-up window.

Clicking on EDIT brings up this screen:

Click on the NETWORK tab. 

From the top:

• Router Mode should be set to: DHCP and NAT.

• DHCP range will be set on the next step. You can see that mine has been changed to the 192.168.x.xxx range

• DHCP Reservations has has been set by clicking the plus (+) sign and filling in the blanks. EDIT will let you change that. We do that later.

• No need to mess with Port Settings for this.

Now click on the NETWORK OPTIONS bar at the bottom for the next image.

From the top down:

• DHCP Lease: Default is 1, leave this setting where it is.

• IPv4 DHCP Range: You get 3 choices when clicking on the small up/down arrows. Choose 192.168. Default range is 2 thru 200

• I’m not sure about the rest of the check boxes, I didn’t touch anything there.

• Click on SAVE and you’re almost finished.

Now we’re back to the previous screen where we can set a static IP ‘Reservation’ for the Brennan. 

Go back and click on the plus (+) icon:

You get this pop-up (this should be unpopulated for you unless you've entered info here previously). Note that you can Add(+), Delete(-), or EDIT reservations here.

From the top:

• Description is free form. This is where I typed Brennan B2. Type whatever name you want.

• Make sure RESERVE ADDRESS BY says : MAC Address.

• MAC Address is where you type in the MAC address of your B2 that you wrote down previously.

• IPv4 Address: You should only change the last number! In this case it’s a 2. You can assign anything from a 2 > 200. (Remember from Network Options above?)

• Click on SAVE and you’re off to the races.

I think you’ll need to power down your Airport and power it back up to make the Static IP Address permanent. In all honesty, I haven’t done this for my Airport yet. I do know that the Static IP has not “stuck” yet on my system and I’m thinking the power down cycle will set that in place. 

In the example above, if all things are working correctly, you would be able to Bookmark 192.168.1.2 as the Bookmark for your Brennan Web Interface.

[Mark Fishman]

A MAC {Media Access Control] address is unique for each network adapter, the first three fields identifying the manufacturer and the last three identifying the specific interface from that manufacturer.

The wired interface and the wireless dongle are two separate and unique pieces of hardware. They have different MAC addresses. If you have reserved an IP address for the MAC address of the wired interface, then you have NOT reserved one for the wireless dongle.

Good luck -- m.

[RandyT]

Thanks Mark, There's much I still do not know. Come to think of it, I was never able to access my MAC address via the WIRED connection. Just the opposite of what I stated above. I had to unplug the ethernet cable and plug the Wifi dongle back in to get the MAC address to show on my B2. I'm glad you spoke up here. I hope anyone reading this gets down this far in the messages. 

Apparently what I've done is save the MAC address for the wireless dongle. Any idea how I find the MAC address for the wired interface? I was told to press INFO on the remote and then the up arrow twice.... no MAC address there. 

That's giving me: NAS Off DLNA Off Spotify Off  .  Nothing else. 

Do any of these need to be turned ON to find that MAC address?

Thank for reading thru all that and finding my error. I wonder if I can go back and edit that posting?

Randy

[Mark Fishman]

I can't tell you about an Apple Airport, but most routers will show you the MAC address of a connected device, somwhere in it's web pages. My Arris router for example does so at "LAN Setup --> Client List --> Attached Client List". So if you connect the B2 to your home LAN the router itself should tell you what the B2's MAC address is, for the interface you've connected.

Some routers, like the ones Verizon uses, let you convert an assigned IP address to a reserved assignment once the connection exists, which avoids the typing and possibility of mistakes.

[fred.w....@gmail.com]

Can I suggest that to get the MAC addresses of the WiFi Dongle and the Ethernet port

You SSH into the Brennan's Pi, log in ID = root, PW = brennan and run the command

"ip link show"        (without the ")

Which should show you the MAC address

Do this twice, first without the WiFi Dongle inserted and then with it inserted and this will confirm which is the WiFi dongles MAC address.

Fred

[RandyT]

Thanks for the info Fred. It turns out that working with code on Pi is not my forte either. This B2 is the first time I've come close to touching a R. Pi I may go down that road however! 

I have spent a significant amount of today learning how to do a simple IPCONFIG in the Mac OS Terminal. This should easily yield MAC addresses for whatever is on the local network. I've done that on my PC at work numerous times. But....

It's not complicated at all with one exception. My computer is using the BASH default shell (whatever that is!) and should be using the ZSH shell. I've found where to make the changes and now I'm making sure it's not going to screw anything else up, before I go down that road. I'm pretty sure it only effects 'command line' stuff but unsure so far. Bottom line... the IPCONFIG command throws an error when entered and directs me to an Apple Support website that does everything but explain what I actually need to do. 

It's amazing how the simplest things can take you down paths you really didn't want to travel. 

I certainly appreciate everyone's input!!

Randy

[Mark Fishman]

Which shell you use should not matter. ipconfig is a Windows command.

On Unix (which is what is running on your Mac) and Linux (which is running the RPi) the command is ifconfig.

[RandyT]

Thanks Mark! That seemed to be the solution to finding that MAC address. I'll either blame my error on typing iPconfig into PCs for so long that it was a reflexive move, or blame it on my bifocal eyes. Those Fs and Ps look a lot alike. Either way, I've got that MAC address with the ifconfig command. 

Thank goodness for forums in general where people like me can get help working thru issues like this. Hopefully we saved someone else some time and energy! I can't thank you all enough for the help.

Randy