[TriLUG] WRT54GL wireless bridge

William Sutton william at trilug.org
Fri Oct 6 22:40:41 EDT 2006


It's not publicised anywhere that I could find when I bought them.  I took 
a chance and it worked.  Apparently it's really not uncommon...just not 
documented :)

It does kind of stink that it only has one cat-5 port, but I've got one 
linked to my router (which has ports) and the other to an 8-port GigE 
switch, so....it's not like they are all that essential to me.

I say go for what works for you.

-- 
William Sutton


On Fri, 6 Oct 2006, Owen Berry wrote:

> Thanks for mentioning that - I didn't realize the WAP's could act as
> clients as well. I might actually go with that option as I wouldn't have
> to add figuring out openwrt to all the things I'm learning with this
> project. The downside is that it looks to be slightly more expensive,
> and you only end up with 1 ethernet connection (although that's all I
> need right now).
> 
> Owen
> 
> On Fri, 2006-10-06 at 18:16 -0400, William Sutton wrote:
> > and just FWIW....
> > 
> > I have a pair of WAP54G's (nothing special like your WRT54G) that handle 
> > bridging to each other fine, so I can't imagine that the default Linksys 
> > firmware wouldn't handle it in case you want to go the simple route.
> > 
> > -- 
> > William Sutton
> > 
> > 
> > On Fri, 6 Oct 2006, Owen Berry wrote:
> > 
> > > Great! And thanks for all the info!
> > > 
> > > Owen
> > > 
> > > On Fri, Oct 06, 2006 at 01:58:53PM -0400, Greg Brown wrote:
> > > > Yes this is possible and I have done the same in a number of ways using
> > > > OpenWRT.
> > > > 
> > > > 1st and easiest way - bridge:
> > > > 
> > > > AP #1 - primary AP, configured SSID and let's say WEP (depending on what
> > > > version of WhiteRussian you install WPA may or may not work in bridge mode.
> > > > I have had luck with Version5 of WhiteRussian and am using that version to
> > > > power all APs I use at the beach).
> > > > 
> > > > Anyway on the second AP once you get OpenWRT installed:
> > > > 
> > > > set wl0_ssid= to the same ssid that you have on your primary AP
> > > > set wl0_key1= to the same wep key you use on your primary AP
> > > > set wl0_wep=enabled
> > > > set wl0_mode=wet (wet for bridge, sta for routing, I use wet - it is easier)
> > > > set lan_ipaddr= to a unique ip address on your LAN
> > > > set lan_gateway= to your gateway address
> > > > set lan_dns to your DNS address
> > > > 
> > > > After all that, run 'nvram commit' to reload everything and reboot
> > > > 
> > > > Success will be a ping that returns from OpenWRT unit while it is not
> > > > plugged into anything else.
> > > > 
> > > > If you have Macs this is a point-and-shoot affiar with Airport access points
> > > > but you'll end up with less ports and you'll spend quite a bit more money.
> > > > 
> > > > You can also use WDS mode for your openwrt box.  Using WDS you'll end up
> > > > with a repeater that you can attach to just like your primary AP (you'll
> > > > also eat up more bandwidth this way, but who cares about that?) :)
> > > 
> 
> 



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