Wired bridge mode

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SandmanCL
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Joined: 06 Oct 2009
Posts: 8

PostPosted: Tue Oct 06, 2009 20:45    Post subject: Wired bridge mode Reply with quote
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EDIT: I did a hard reset again and followed the tutorial linked to from my 2nd post and this time everything seems to work fine. So somehow I messed up the first time around and this whole thread was a waste of everyone's time. Sorry about that !
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I've been hearing about dd-wrt for a while now and finally decided it was time to start playing with it.

I have two Netgear WNR834Bv2 routers. One of them has been successfully flashed with dd-wrt.v24-12424_NEWD_mini_wnr834bv2.chk

I'd like to get dd-wrt on both of them, and my intended use is to connect the two routers via a long cat5e cable between the two ends of our apartment. I keep finding information about wireless repeaters and wireless bridges, but what about my *wired* wireless setup ?

Here's what I was hoping would work:

1) router A connected to the cable modem, IP x.x.x.1
2) router B connecter to router A, IP x.x.x.2
3) identical wireless settings (ssid, channel, security) on both routers
4) as I move my laptop around the house, it connects to whichever router provides the strongest signal

Is this possible ? Or is the only bridging I can do with WPS ?


Last edited by SandmanCL on Thu Oct 08, 2009 8:20; edited 1 time in total
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SandmanCL
DD-WRT Novice


Joined: 06 Oct 2009
Posts: 8

PostPosted: Wed Oct 07, 2009 1:45    Post subject: Reply with quote
I tried following this tutorial

http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Wireless_Access_Point

... but when I move my laptop into the realm of the other access point I lose wireless signal. When I turn off wireless and turn it back on, I have a very strong signal (which means I assume I'm associated with the secondary router running dd-wrt) but I get no IP address. I turned off dhcp on router #2 so the connectivity between the two routers doesn't seem to work properly.

Summary of my setup:

- router #1 running stock firmware, ip 192.168.73.1
- router #2 running dd-wrt, ip 192.168.73.2
- cat5e connected from lan port on router #1 to disabled wan port on router #2
- two devices connected wired to router #2 (these do work like before and get IP from router #1)

Any ideas or pointers ?
I've tried playing with bridged / unbridged modes on the dd-wrt router and also turning on and off the wireless repeater mode on router #1 but nothing helps.

I am new to this, and fiddling around is fun. I *love* the newfound power of being able to tweak everything Smile I'll post my solution if I find one.
DoesItMatter
DD-WRT Guru


Joined: 10 May 2008
Posts: 1380
Location: Pacific North West, USA

PostPosted: Wed Oct 07, 2009 11:18    Post subject: Reply with quote
SandmanCL wrote:
I tried following this tutorial

http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Wireless_Access_Point

Summary of my setup:

- router #1 running stock firmware, ip 192.168.73.1
- router #2 running dd-wrt, ip 192.168.73.2
- cat5e connected from lan port on router #1 to disabled wan port on router #2
- two devices connected wired to router #2 (these do work like before and get IP from router #1)

Any ideas or pointers ?

I am new to this, and fiddling around is fun. I *love* the newfound power of being able to tweak everything Smile I'll post my solution if I find one.


-------------

Part of the problem - the cat5e connected to the DISABLED WAN port - have you set the WAN port to be part of the switch?

Also note in that guide - the WAN port does NOT always work correctly in switch mode.

Try connecting that CAT-5E cable directly to one of the LAN ports, not the WAN port.

What you're actually doing is making the router a switch with Wireless access.

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SandmanCL
DD-WRT Novice


Joined: 06 Oct 2009
Posts: 8

PostPosted: Wed Oct 07, 2009 16:46    Post subject: Reply with quote
Thanks for the reply. I did make the wan port a part of the switch Smile As mentioned, I do have two wired devices (an xbox and an xbox 360) connected to router #2 and they both work.

Noting that changing the uplink / wan port to a lan port might not also work I have also tried plugging the wired link into one of the other ports, but it didn't help.
DoesItMatter
DD-WRT Guru


Joined: 10 May 2008
Posts: 1380
Location: Pacific North West, USA

PostPosted: Wed Oct 07, 2009 17:45    Post subject: Reply with quote
If the 2 devices work wired, then its just troubleshooting the wireless portion.

What you should do is change it to a different channel than the main AP.

I.E. if main is using channel 1, use channel 2 on the wireless-AP.

Do not use any security at the start, you just want to test to see if you can connect.

If you can connect, try WEP 128bit or WPA2-AES.

TKIP has reported issues with some configs.

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Evil or Very Mad Soylent Green Is People ! Evil or Very Mad
Twisted Evil =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Twisted Evil
Netgear Nighthawk R7000 - DD-WRT Build R46220
Linksys EA8500 - OpenWRT IPQ806x Trunk R16375 5.4 Kernel

TP-Link Archer C7 V3 - OpenWRT Build R16290 5.4 Kernel
Linksys E3000 - FreshTomato Build MIPSR2 2021.2
SandmanCL
DD-WRT Novice


Joined: 06 Oct 2009
Posts: 8

PostPosted: Thu Oct 08, 2009 5:50    Post subject: Reply with quote
>What you should do is change it to a different channel than the main AP.
Main was @ channel 3, secondary @ channel 11
I have also tried a few other channels

> Do not use any security at the start, you just want to test to see if you can connect.

Ok, tried disabling security (and also mac filtering) altogether. Still no IP when associating with the secondary router.

I have also tried giving the router a unique ssid but still the same problem: I can associate with the new wlan but get no IP.

Is there something else that needs to be transmitted between router #1 and #2 on order for clients associated with #2 can talk to the dhcp server on #1 ? Thinking that "multicast forwarding" might be related I tried enabling that to no avail. EDIT: I also found the option to make the #2 a forwarding dhcp server, adding the IP of #1 as the main dhcp server, but this didn't work either.
ibanez
DD-WRT Novice


Joined: 12 Feb 2009
Posts: 22

PostPosted: Thu Oct 08, 2009 6:19    Post subject: Reply with quote
I assume he's looking for something like that:
http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Autoap
SandmanCL
DD-WRT Novice


Joined: 06 Oct 2009
Posts: 8

PostPosted: Thu Oct 08, 2009 6:25    Post subject: Reply with quote
Autoap is something you'd run on your router in situations where there are multiple potential other routers to bridge with nearby (or so I thought ?). My two routers are actually *wired* together and there's no problem with the wired connectivity between the two.
ibanez
DD-WRT Novice


Joined: 12 Feb 2009
Posts: 22

PostPosted: Thu Oct 08, 2009 6:49    Post subject: Reply with quote
If I understood this feature correctly than it's 'typically' used in bridged environments.

If I were you I would give it a try.
SandmanCL
DD-WRT Novice


Joined: 06 Oct 2009
Posts: 8

PostPosted: Thu Oct 08, 2009 8:21    Post subject: Reply with quote
It's with sort of a bitter sweet joy that I can report that after following the tutorial one more time step-by-step, it is now working like I wanted Smile
DoesItMatter
DD-WRT Guru


Joined: 10 May 2008
Posts: 1380
Location: Pacific North West, USA

PostPosted: Thu Oct 08, 2009 11:43    Post subject: Reply with quote
Nice!

Now - did you see anything that you did differently from before?

Or did you just completely reset to defaults and try again?

Part of the journey, besides getting there, is knowing how you got there!

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Evil or Very Mad Soylent Green Is People ! Evil or Very Mad
Twisted Evil =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Twisted Evil
Netgear Nighthawk R7000 - DD-WRT Build R46220
Linksys EA8500 - OpenWRT IPQ806x Trunk R16375 5.4 Kernel

TP-Link Archer C7 V3 - OpenWRT Build R16290 5.4 Kernel
Linksys E3000 - FreshTomato Build MIPSR2 2021.2
SandmanCL
DD-WRT Novice


Joined: 06 Oct 2009
Posts: 8

PostPosted: Thu Oct 08, 2009 15:42    Post subject: Reply with quote
I'm still trying to compare mental notes between how it was and how it is now. The thing that made me decided to start "from scratch" was that I found one ethernet port configured to be "unbridged" while the others were "default". And while trying to change some of these I got to a stage where wireless was actually working on router #2 but the wired devices did *not*.
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