Posted: Tue Jan 26, 2010 22:08 Post subject: AR670W Issues getting either WDS or Bridge-Repeater working
Okay so I am still stuck and need a bit of help.
I have 2 AR670W Routers that I am trying to link together and make both the LAN and WLAN work. The main router is in my basement hooked up to my cable modem and home server, the second router will be on the main floor hooked up to my HTPC and multiple wireless devices such as my Motorola android, wii, a couple of laptops, a netbook etc. The reason I want wireless on both routers is that in my bedroom I get the strongest signal from the router in the basement, but when in the living room coverage is not as good.
Still no go, so I decided that maybe it was my Wireless Card and updated the drivers and downloaded their WLAN survey tool. I was able to verify that each VAP that I setup has a new MAC address assigned. Example if the last 2 digits were 9a the next wireless network would be 9b, 9c, 9d, etc.
So now that I know that I am dealing with BSSID I went to the wiki and followed the following threads to get my VAP to work.
http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Multiple_WLANs
I did not want to separate my VAP from my main WLAN so I used 192.168.1.1 for the main AP1 192.168.1.2 for the VAP on AP1, 192.168.1.3 for the 2nd AP WDS1 and 192.168.1.4 for the 2nd VAP on WDS1.
On the router WDS1 I have set it up in both router and gateway mode which made no difference.
I have turned off the firewalls on both routers in hopes that it would work. I have also tried setting the mode of the router to N only to see if mixed mode would be the cause of my issue.
I have tried all of the following methods with 13069 and the newer 13525. Between each try I have done a 30-30-30-30 reset.
Any suggestions or ideas on what I can do to make this work?
Please let me know if I forgot to include any information. I do not have pics to include right now as I just did a reset in hopes of trying something different to make my setup work and have not had time to reset up things. Right now I am only working to be able to connect to my second SSID. Once I can get that working WDS will be a breeze to get working.
Last edited by mysticalman on Thu Jan 28, 2010 13:58; edited 1 time in total
Did you try WDS and AP mode on both router? It's very easy to get it working, just enable AP mode on both routers. Input Mac address from AP1 to AP2 and vice versa in the WDS tab.
Last edited by Borage on Wed Jan 27, 2010 2:27; edited 1 time in total
Posted: Fri Jan 29, 2010 17:46 Post subject: In the same boat, sort of
I'm sort of in the same boat. I have an AR670W, but I'm trying to get it to bridge with an AR430W, for the purpose of making an AP for my Xbox 360 to connect to. The AR430W has V24-SP1 on it, and the 670 is brand new, still on the factory firmware. I tried following the tutorials and posts I found on here for client bridging, but I just can't get it to work. I've heard that SP1 might be part of the problem, but I didn't want to go through upgrading before I tried out all the possibilities. (though that's mainly because I'm new to DD-WRT, and I've never flashed or upgraded it before. I got my 430W with DD-WRT already on it, and I'm not even sure which build or which procedure I would need to get it upgraded).
Anyway, I tried the client bridge procedures here, and whenever I do the site survey from the 430, it finds the SSID from the 670, and says it joined it successfully, but then it kicks me back to the wireless set up page, and apparently didn't stay connected. I've read that Atheros based routers don't handle bridging well, so I'm going to try setting up WDS, but I didn't know how well that would work, since I didn't realize that the 430 is Atheros, and the 670 is Ralink. I don't know if that'll be a factor, or if it just won't work for me. Like I said before, I'm new to all this, and would greatly appreciate any help that could be thrown my way.
So, to sum up, can an Atheros router and a Ralink router be setup to use either client-bridge or WDS? Is SP1 the issue, and if it is, which build should I upgrade the 430W to? And if these questions have been answered elsewhere already (I apologize if they have) is there a tutorial that I can follow anywhere?
As said on the main AR670W topic, these routers seem impossible to do dual ssid or 2 different radio channels. This is a big limitation if you need bridge or WDS mode working. We need just to confirm if it's a hardware limitation and at this time it means that this router can only do AP mode with DD-WRT!
As said on the main AR670W topic, these routers seem impossible to do dual ssid or 2 different radio channels. This is a big limitation if you need bridge or WDS mode working. We need just to confirm if it's a hardware limitation and at this time it means that this router can only do AP mode with DD-WRT!
Repeater bridge mode has worked fine for me since 13069.
As said on the main AR670W topic, these routers seem impossible to do dual ssid or 2 different radio channels. This is a big limitation if you need bridge or WDS mode working. We need just to confirm if it's a hardware limitation and at this time it means that this router can only do AP mode with DD-WRT!
Repeater bridge mode has worked fine for me since 13069.
Could you give more details about your settings. How can you join the main AP SSID while the site survey fonction does not work!
Could you give more details about your settings. How can you join the main AP SSID while the site survey fonction does not work!
I don't seem to need to "join" from the site survey. As long as I get everything set right, then it just bridges. I set wireless mode to "Repeater Bridge", Wireless Network Mode to "Mixed", (matching my AP). I make sure that the SSID does not have extra spaces at the end on both the AP and bridge. I use channel 7 with a width of 20 Mhz. SSID broadcast is enabled, network config is bridged. The virtual interface uses the same SSID, is not in isolation mode and is bridged.
For security I use WPA2 personal mixed with TKIP+AES on the router and WPA2 personal with WKIP+AES on the bridge. You should try with no encryption first.
The channel does not disappear when things are linked up. I observed that it does with a broadcom based router, so this is a firmware issue as someone pointed out. But it does not stop my repeater bridge from working.
As said on the main AR670W topic, these routers seem impossible to do dual ssid or 2 different radio channels. This is a big limitation if you need bridge or WDS mode working.
I'm not sure what you mean with limitations. I use one radio channel in my WDS setup. I also use one SSID, but different IDs on each router. WDS APs know each other by MAC address and could care less what their SSID is set to. On the other hand, wireless clients associate by SSID. Technically, each AP in a WDS network is part of the same Extended Service Set (ESS) and should therefore have the same SSID.
By assigning different SSIDs to your WDS APs, you will first have the advantage of being able to see each one, even if you are using Windows built in "Zero Config" utility, which does not show multiple APs with the same SSID. You will also be able to easily force your client to connect to the closest AP without having to remember its MAC address.
To get back to your issue, I don't know why you have such problems with WDS. People tend to complicate everything when it's soo simple to setup WDS.
1. Set each router in AP mode (same channel).
2. Make sure that you can associate to both APs with your client computer.
3. Input Mac address from AP1 to AP2 and vice versa in the WDS tab.
The way he makes things sound is that some of the AR670W routers will work without a hitch, and other's for some reason will not.
I think I am in the "will not" category and will have to wait for a future release to get things working.
Well since I am very impatient I guess I am off to look for a couple of refurbished Broadcom supported routers which will make what I am trying to do a 2 minute process. I have had this same setup with 2 Linksys wrt54gl routers without a hitch.
As said on the main AR670W topic, these routers seem impossible to do dual ssid or 2 different radio channels. This is a big limitation if you need bridge or WDS mode working.
I'm not sure what you mean with limitations. I use one radio channel in my WDS setup. I also use one SSID, but different IDs on each router. WDS APs know each other by MAC address and could care less what their SSID is set to. On the other hand, wireless clients associate by SSID. Technically, each AP in a WDS network is part of the same Extended Service Set (ESS) and should therefore have the same SSID.
By assigning different SSIDs to your WDS APs, you will first have the advantage of being able to see each one, even if you are using Windows built in "Zero Config" utility, which does not show multiple APs with the same SSID. You will also be able to easily force your client to connect to the closest AP without having to remember its MAC address.
To get back to your issue, I don't know why you have such problems with WDS. People tend to complicate everything when it's soo simple to setup WDS.
1. Set each router in AP mode (same channel).
2. Make sure that you can associate to both APs with your client computer.
3. Input Mac address from AP1 to AP2 and vice versa in the WDS tab.
Done!
Exactly the same setting does not work for me. I see the connection established but ethernet bridge to wireless does not work, I cannot even ping the other router from the first one using Ethernet.
I am in the same boat than those having problems with this router when tring to use something else than Ap mode.
Just one thing to try to find a possible common issue..What hardware revision of this router do you have? In my case it`s rev 2.1
Last edited by djassa1 on Wed Feb 03, 2010 14:00; edited 1 time in total
As said, WDS is not a solution because you loose wireless AP function on both routers. It's like you dedicate the 2 WDS routers for ethernet bridge only and no wireless client can connect after that!
As said, WDS is not a solution because you loose wireless AP function on both routers. It's like you dedicate the 2 WDS routers for ethernet bridge only and no wireless client can connect after that!
WHAT??
WDS does give you an AP on each router setup with WDS:
Wireless clients CAN connect to the CLOSEST of these APs that are part of the same WDS.
Main difference between WDS and client-bridge is simply that WDS would maintain and use the actual MACs of the devices connected to it, where client-bridge would send the AP's MAC address for each device connected to it.
Of course, in client-bridge, you can not connect wireless clients, but in WDS mode, the device is actually in AP mode and simply uses the MAC address of the other(s) APs in the WDS setup to communicate with each other and pass control messages for when wireless clients move from one AP to another, etc.
