Airport Setup

Question

Hi
I have recently acquired a PowerMac G4 Quicksilver which has dual gigabit ethernet ports.
It is, as most will probably know from the old (802.11b) generation of airport. I have an existing wireless network which broadcasts an ADSL internet connection. The router provides DHCP and NAT as well as a firewall (Netgear DG834G). I don't want to buy an airport (old) card for the powermac because it would be hopelessly slow.
I had the idea to use an airport express as a bridge, but discovered that this requires WDS and will not work with my netgear router and so I planned to get an airport extreme (old or new) off ebay to plug into my router and then broadcast WDS to the express which would be plugged into the powermac. I think this is possible, and it should be, but I'm confused as to which mode to put the extreme (plugged into router) in, remote or relay, and the express I presume should be configured as a relay.
I do NOT want my extreme to provide any services that my router is already because that would obviously create complications. I also want to keep my router broadcasting the internet as opposed to the extreme.
Is this setup possible?

Answer 1

Hello Easkay. Welcome to the Apple Discussions!
Instead of WDS, another option would be to acquire the newer 802.11n AirPort Express Base Station (AXn) and reconfigure it as a ProxySTA. In this configuration, the AXn would join the Netgear's wireless network as a wireless client, but unlike the earlier model it can then share its Ethernet port for Internet access to your Quicksilver.
To activate ProxySTA, you must set up the Express to join a wireless network and then enable the Allow Ethernet Clients setting; both settings are located in the Wireless tab of AirPort Utility. The feature should work with any wireless network: a, b, g, or n; and 5GHz or 2.4GHz. (Note that the Express, which ships with firmware 7.3, must also be updated to firmware 7.3.1+ for this feature to appear.)