Apple's new Time Capsule is a disappointment. So far. Mine was on the porch yesterday when Kelly got home and awaiting my arrival from work. Excitedly I tore into the package and admired the white case with the gleaming silver Apple logo on the top. After plugging the unit in all I got was grief.
What I want to do is take the Time Capsule and place it on my LAN via one of the three Ethernet LAN ports. I don't need to know or care what IP address is assigned to the unit as the services are advertised to my Macs via Bonjour (and if I wanted I could assign an IP address via DHCP by mapping the MAC address but I really don't care about that). Apple doesn't seem to want you to be able to set up your Time Capsule in this way, or, at the very least, they will fight you tooth and nail to make you set it up another way.
Apple seems to want the Time Capsule to act as an Internet router thus displacing whatever device you have currently doing that job. This just isn't acceptable. I have been using M0n0wall on a Soekris board for years and I'm not changing now. End of story. The Time Capsule freaks out if you do not have an address assigned for the WAN port and there seems to be no way to turn off the LAN port DHCP server. Pathetic!
Tonight I'm going back into battle. I'm going to tell the Time Capsule to create a new wireless network with the hopes that doing so will shut down the WAN port (as logic would somewhat dictate that creating a new wireless network means I'll be placing the unit on an existing LAN). If that doesn't work I'll try "replace existing wireless device" and see how that goes. But there is a problem with both of these options: I don't want to use the 802.11n interface built into the Time Capsule! With any luck I can get the unit set up on the LAN and then turn off the wireless interface via the "Advanced" commands.
Oh, and about the "advanced commands"? They are anything but. Yes, I can selected from a *PREDETERMINED* set of DHCP ranges but I can't turn the DHCP sever off? Why? And why can't I disable the WAN interface and tell the three port LAN switch to broadcast for a DHCP address? Why? WHY? WHY? WHY?
Apple, I'll withhold final judgment as I have not fully exhausted every single possible option to set this thing up in a most logical manner. But, I have to tell you, you didn't just swing and miss here, Apple. You went three up, three down with this offering. But there's still hope, it's not game over, at least not get.
If I end up having to use the Time Capsule as The World's Most Expensive Internet Router at the beach condo because I can't get the device to do what I need I'll be kind of pissed. I'm not replacing my home firewall. No (how will I do site-to-site VPNs?). This device was purchased to be an Ethernet connected backup server. It appears you will allow to same device to be a 802.11 connected backup server. Why can't I do the same with Ethernet? Who wants to have a device as a wireless backup server when you have access to Gig-E?
Why would a $500.00 Time Capsule be less configurable than a $99 Airport Express? I'm really confused here, Apple.
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