Read Me First

Welcome to Take Control of Your 802.11n AirPort Network, version 1.6, published in September 2009 by TidBITS Publishing Inc. This book was written by Glenn Fleishman and edited by Tonya Engst.

This book helps you install and get the most out of your network using Apple's AirPort and Time Capsule gear with the 802.11n Wi-Fi networking standard in Leopard and Snow Leopard.

Copyright © 2008, 2009, Glenn Fleishman. All rights reserved.

If you have the PDF version of this title, please note that if you want to share it with a friend, we ask that you do so as you would a physical book: "lend" it for a quick look, but ask your friend to buy a new copy to read it more carefully or to keep it for reference. You can click here to give your friend a discount coupon. Discounted classroom and Mac user group copies are also available.

P1.1. Updates

We may offer free minor updates to this book. To read any available new information, click the Check for Updates link on the cover, or click here. On the resulting Web page, you can also sign up to be notified of major updates via email. If you own only the print version of the book or have some other version where the Check for Updates link doesn't work, contact us at tc-comments@tidbits.com to obtain the PDF.

P1.2. Who Needs This Book

If you're setting up, extending, or retooling a Wi-Fi network with one or more 802.11n base stations from Apple—including the AirPort Extreme, AirPort Express, or Time Capsule—with either Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, 10.6 Snow Leopard, or Windows XP or Vista, this book will help you get the fastest network with the least equipment and fewest roadblocks.

P1.3. What's New in Version 1.6

Most changes in this version are for Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard:

• The Network system preference pane looks slightly different in Snow Leopard.

• The AirPort status menu on the menu bar in Snow Leopard has some new features; see Learn from the AirPort Menu (p. 121).

Nearly everything else about using AirPort in Leopard and Snow Leopard is identical.

---

Note:

Printing only the important changed pages from 1.5: Print these pages: 1–6, 34, 38, 46–48, 89–91, 101, 111–123, 170, 178-182, 193–195, 204–206, 219, 249–250, and 259–260.

---

P1.4. What's New in Version 1.5

Here's a summary of the most important changes between 1.0 and 1.5:

• Added coverage of the March 2009 models of the AirPort Extreme Base Station and Time Capsule. To learn more about the new base station models, consult AirPort Base Station Models (p. 32).

• Extend a Network via Wi-Fi (p. 71) is reworked for enhanced clarity and to explain how the Wireless Distribution System (WDS) differs in 802.11n base stations from previous generations of gear.

• A new section, Light Reading (p. 18), decodes what the light on your base station is trying to tell you.

• The section about setting a base station's spectrum is now called Determine the Band, Channel, and Location (p. 76), and it has been revised: advanced background information was expanded and moved to the new Appendix D: Channels Explained (p. 254).

P1.5. Earlier Editions

This book is based largely on two previous books: Take Control of Your AirPort Network (2005) and Take Control of Your 802.11n AirPort Extreme Network (2007). The former book covered 802.11g AirPort networking; the latter, the newer 802.11n networks. Both books focused on using Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger. This new book covers much of the same material, but in slightly to extremely different ways.

Apple thoroughly revised the new AirPort Utility base station configuration program between the release of the second version of the AirPort Extreme Base Station with Draft N (August 2007) and the release of Time Capsule (February 2008). These changes meant reworking much of the earlier part of the book explaining how to use the Assist Me mode in AirPort Utility; in the process, I split my advice into scenarios that cover the different kinds of networks you might be building or updating. This should make basic configuration easier, as well as help you easily find help if you return to the book to configure or add base stations in the future, or to set up multiple networks in different places.

I've also overhauled the manuscript to focus on Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard (and in version 1.6 I added 10.6 Snow Leopard details) along with network troubleshooting help. I've also updated the text for all the latest models of 802.11n base stations, including the simultaneous dual-band models that appeared in 2009. Further, I've added more information about IPv6, the next-generation Internet numbering standard, which is starting to have practical applications, and which can be used quite easily with all of Apple's current Wi-Fi gear, and Mac OS X since version 10.3 Panther.

P1.6. Basics

In reading this book, you may get stuck if you don't know certain basic facts about Mac OS X or if you don't understand Take Control syntax for things like working with menus or finding items in the Finder. Please note the following:

• Path syntax: I occasionally use a path to show the location of a file or folder in your file system. For example, AirPort Utility gets installed into the Utility folder, which is in the Applications folder. The path to AirPort Utility is /Applications/Utilities/AirPort Utility.

• Menus: When I describe choosing a command from a menu in the menu bar, I use an abbreviated description. For example, the abbreviated description for the menu command that creates a new folder in the Mac OS X Finder is "File > New Folder."

• Finding preference panes: I sometimes refer to Mac OS X preferences, such as those in the Network preference pane. To reach a preference pane, open System Preferences by clicking its icon in the Dock or by choosing > System Preferences. Then, to open a preference pane, click its icon or choose it from the View menu. For example, to see "the Network preference pane," launch System Preferences and then click the Network icon or choose View > Network. To find the AirPort view in the Network preference pane, you would use the same steps and then click the AirPort item in the adapter list at the left of the Network preference pane.

• Configuring a base station: Throughout the book, I refer to using a program called AirPort Utility to configure a base station. To configure a base station in almost all cases, you launch or switch to AirPort Utility, select the base station in a left-hand list, and then choose Base Station > Manual Setup (Command-L) to proceed. You can alternately click the Manual Setup button in the lower-left corner of the setup screen after selecting the base station.

• AirPort menu: The AirPort menu is a status menu near the right side of the system menu bar on a Macintosh. If yours isn't showing, you can turn it on via a checkbox in the Network system preference pane. To learn more about the icons that may mark the top of this menu, see AirPort Iconography (p. 17).

• Know your AirPort model: AirPort models change capabilities more often than they change names. You can use AirPort Utility to figure out which model you have, and AirPort Base Station Models (p. 32) will help you identify your model and its features. When I refer to "802.11n base stations from 2007 or later," I mean those models released in 2007 or later, all of which include 802.11n networking. If you purchased an AirPort Express in 2007, but its model year is 2004, it doesn't count as being "from 2007 or later."