Apple Offers AirPort 3.1.1 Updater
The updater is currently only available from the Software Update system preference, but should be added as a download from their Web site soon. The release notes don't explain anything about this specific update, but it includes firmware release 5.1.1 for the AirPort Extreme Base Station.
Comments
I updated my Mac through the Software Update tool. The update went ok, but when I went to update the Airport extreme base station firmware, the update process continually fails. For some reason, the AirPort Admin Utility core dumps. Now I am unable to connect my laptop to the base station. I am not sure if the problem is in the base station or the update of the Airport card in the laptop.
brezbl.
Posted by: brezbl | August 7, 2003 05:11 PM
I have updated two base stations successfully. They are configured in WDS mode.
However, I noticed a strange behavior. Unfortunately, I cannot reproduce it now, so take it with a grain of salt.
I am using Smokeping to monitor the delay and packet loss in my wireless network, and I noticed that after updating and rebooting both AEBSs, they did no longer answer the ping requests. However, they worked; the client computers associated correctly, and all of them were reachable. The problem did *only* affect base stations.
So I did one "vudu macumba" operation: I cleared the ARP cache at the Smokeping machine, and, voila! It worked. Unfortunately, I cannot check if the MAC address changed, or there is a strange software glitch in the base stations, which, otherwise, were working perfectly.
I had to clear the ARP entries for both in the Mac, also, because I could not reach them with the Airport config program.
I repeat: take this with a grain of salt. I cannot investigate further, but perhaps it could give you an idea. What I can say is that clearing the ARP cache is the only operation I did.
Posted by: Borja Marcos | August 8, 2003 03:13 AM
This minor update specifically fixes something they screwed up with the 3.1 update....
The 3.1 update made the Airport Extreme incompatible with some unix machines running hostap (FreeBSD, OpenBSD).
This new update fixes that.
Posted by: James Nedila | August 10, 2003 04:19 PM
Trouble with firmware 5.1 and 5.1.1 (5.0.4 ok)
Can talk to a Linksys WET11 (802.11b) or a roamabout
(orinoco) card (802.11b) on orinoco software.
(on a Mac 5300 portable).
But if one puts the same roamabout card in an
iMac, all is fine, so it looks like a firmware issue
of not talking to non-apple 802.11b units.
No such problems on firmware 5.0.4
Posted by: andy | August 18, 2003 07:27 AM
That should have been 'cannot talk to...'
Posted by: andy | August 18, 2003 07:28 AM
Upon further investigation, I find that the
firmware 5.1 and 5.1.1 has only broken
WEP with non-apple units, so one can
upgrade so long as WEP is not needed.
Posted by: andy | August 27, 2003 06:35 PM