Airport express and Airport utility

airportNetwork

I moved and had to change my network.

After juggling for reconfiguring my airport express station, I found out it was impossible to connect to them, even after a factory reset : they just would NOT appear in the Airport Utility 6.2 program that is meant to manage those things.

However, I could see all of them appear in the bonjour browser, so there is no network issues.

Faced with that issue, I saw some other people could not either use their Airport Express anymore. I am now using the old utility as they are, which necessitates a hack, but works perfectly.

However, I still don't understand if there are anything we are doing wrong.

That seems wrong that Apple gave no way to use its product.
Has anyone be able to manage its airport express with standard Apple program ?
I dont understand the rationale of what happens and must be missing some information..

Best Answer

Download the Lion version 5.6 of Airport Utility , which actually works with setting up / reconfiguring an Airport Express.

Both versions (ML comes with 6.x) can be used on Mountain Lion. Keep both around, for now.

Though once setup, my AE responds well to AU 6.x.

I don't know why .. but then, ours is not to reason why, is it.

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MacOS – How to view logs in Airport Utility v6, or install 5.6 in Mountain Lion

If you do not want (or can't) get the app out of a backup you can extract it from the installer.

Download the Airport Utility 5.6 for Lion and move the file AirPortUtility56.pkg contained within the dmg to your ~/Downloads folder. Then in a Terminal window do :

$ cd ~/Downloads
$ pkgutil --expand ./AirPortUtility56.pkg ~/Downloads/AirPortUtility56
$ gunzip -c < ./AirPortUtility56/AirPortUtility56Lion.pkg/Payload | sudo tar -C / -xvf - "./Applications/Utilities/AirPort Utility 5.6.app"

The app works without issue on Mountain Lion in my limited testing so far.

If you wanted to mod the package to skip the check, if you want to easily install the package on multiple macs for instance, here's what you need :

A tool called "Flat Package Editor" to modify the file called Distribution in AirPortUtility56.pkg. To get that tool download the "Auxiliary tools for Xcode" from the Apple Dev site. It's hidden in PackageMaker.app/Contents/resources/Flat Package Editor.app. With it you can open the pkg directly :

pkgeditor

Just drag out the Distribution file and remove these lines :

// Less than 10.8
if(-1 != system.compareVersions(my.target.systemVersion.ProductVersion, '10.8')) {
  my.result.type = 'Fatal';
  my.result.message = system.localizedString('ERR_OSHIGH');
  return (false);
}

Drag the new version back in, delete the old Distribution and save.

AirPort Base-station Visibility

Someone can downvote, edit or comment if I'm wrong on this, but I don't believe this is possible.

Normally, you can only see the AirPort from inside the private network, and by default it doesn't advertise or allow configuration on the outside interface (i.e. the internet). Because you're using bridge mode, though, there's no distinction between the networks. To prevent it from advertising its existence, you'd have to disable Bonjour entirely on it. The utility doesn't have an option for this, as far as I can see.

Best Answer

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AirPort Base-station Visibility

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