I am attempting to set up a wireless bridge so that my network looks like the following. Based on my semi-familiarity with wireless networking, I think I should be able to do this, right? (I can do this diagram in Visio or something if it is hard to understand)

Here's what I'm trying to do:

Network segment 1:
[cable modem] --> [router] --> [switch] --> [wireless router A]

Network segment 2:
[wireless router B] --> [desktop PC]

I would like wireless router A to talk (wirelessly) to wireless router B, which is plugged (wired) into my desktop PC and a couple other things. This should be possible, right? If so, can someone try walking me through this? It's not working, and I'm not sure whether or not it's the equipment or my inexperience. Thanks in advance...

Just to clarify, router "A" has a function in the UI to enable "wireless bridge" mode, where I provide a MAC address of access points that I want to bridge with. I believe this is required in order to get A --> B communication working.

Two questions:

• Why not just put a wireless adapter in the desktop instead of hooking up a router and be done with it?
• What are the makes/models of your two routers?

1> I may end up doing that, however the reason I wanted it set up this way is that I have a networkable printer sitting next to the desktop that I'd also like available on the network to print if someone's upstairs (our other network printer is 2 floors down). Thus, I figured having a router there would allow me to hook up both the network printer and the desktop.
2> Router "A" is a Belkin F5D7230-4, and router B is a Belkin F6D3230-4. I have tried setting the channels and WPA keys to the same values, as suggested by the documentation, but I can't get router B to "see" router A - although I admit I'm not really clear how I would verify connectivity.

Belkin F5D7230-4: Wireless Bridge Addendum

Yeah, I saw that, but I was hoping it would work anyway

Just to answer my original question, though, notwithstanding that except from the manual, this setup should theoretically work, correct?

No. The 2nd router isn't configured to create an "upstream" wireless connection.

Another solution:

Network segment 1:
[cable modem] --> [wireless router] --> [switch]

Network segment 2:
[Old Linux PC w. wifi adapter] --> [desktop PC]
--------------- -------- ---- \----> [printer]

Configure the "Old Linux PC w. wifi adapter" to be a router. Any old PC will work here. Even a 386 should have enough horsepower. You can either plug some PCI network adapters into it, or connect a switch to it.

I suggest buying an old laptop off ebay with a broken screen and dead battery for cheap. They make great routers, and have low power consumption compared to a desktop.

I've done what you wanted to do w/ a pair of wrt54g running dd-wrt. It worked fine, but eventually switched to wired for file transfer speed.

If I configured the 2nd router as an access point?

Good to know. Unfortunately wired isn't really a feasible option in this case... I don't really care about the transfer speed, since this is just there for internet access and, as mentioned, printing for one area of the house.

Won't matter. Basically, it needs to be able to act as a client (adapter).

Nice technical tutorial on 802.11: link

Thanks for the help, garsh and dboy. I have a few ideas now, and basically will see what I can do with spending the absolute least possible

I'm willing to bet the reason you're having issues is because you're using WPA encryption. That level of encrytion is not supported in BRIDGE MODE on many devices. For the time being, you should disable encryption altogether just to get your wireless bridging working. Then, once you've gotten it working w/o encryption, see how strong you can go. Try WEP first (WEP 128 should be OK). If that works, then try various WPA modes.

If you switch to DD-WRT compatible routers, then you can setup WPA (even WPA2) encryption w/ bridging.

Oops, actually that was a typo - I am using WEP 128-bit. (Sorry!). I will give it a shot without encryption and see what happens. Hackable routers are an intriguing possibility anyway...

If you go with the wireless card, you can always hook the printer up to the PC and share it that way.

seems like I had to get it working w/ no encryption and then enable wep on both (this was a long time ago, several versions of ddwrt I'm sure, so wpa wasn't an option for briding yet)

that's funny. when i setup bridges before, it only asked for the SSID, encryption type, and password. but then again, i was using a dd-wrt enabled router.



wireless router A really needs to be a wireless AP. most wireless routers support that mode, since a typical wireless router is just AP + switch + router.

wireless router B really needs to be a wireless bridge. this is a feature not too common in many wireless routers. dd-wrt routers are bridge capable, as well as most print servers. you'll have to research on the routers that support this.

Krunk, thanks for the help, but now I'm confused - my understanding was that router "A" (the one that is connected to the wired Ethernet) is the one that should be set up as a bridge.

Both routers have the capability to function as AP's, and the router currently labeled "A" in the above diagram also has the ability to function as a wireless bridge (with the caveat garsh mentioned as stated in the manual, which says that it will only work with a particular model Belkin AP (which happens to be ~$75!).


That's true, although I really don't want to have the PC running all the time just to act as a print server if I can avoid it.

runs and checks something...

Aha, I don't know why I had it in my head that DD-WRT could only be used on the infinitely hackable Linksys routers. In fact, the router I have labeled as "Router A" (Belkin F5D7230-4) is on the DD-WRT compatibility list. Now I need to rummage around and see if I can find another DD-WRT compatible router - unfortunately "Router B" is not on the list

Let's clear up some confusion for you:

The "bridge" mode of the Belkin F5D7230-4 requires both routers to support and be configured in "bridge" mode. It just so happens that the Belkin F5D7230-4 "bridge" mode is compatible w/ DD-WRT's "Wirless Distribution System" (a.k.a. WDS) mode. At least that's true for very old versions of the Belkin F5D7230-4 (i.e. versions of that router which are DD-WRT compatible). Thus, Belkin's "bridge" mode is probably "WDS" mode. In a WDS, every router acts as both a Wireless Access Point as well as an Ethernet to Wireless Bridge. The WDS "primary" router gets its internet connection from the broadband modem while WDS "child" routers get their internet connections wirelessly (typically from the "primary" router). They can actually get it from the "primary" router or from another "child" router which is already wifi internet connected; however, each nested "child" level cuts the wifi bandwidth in half (for connections active on the particular nested "child" router). For example, in a THREE ROUTER SETUP connected as: ROUTER A (primary) --> ROUTER B (child) --> ROUTER C (nested child), devices wirelessly connected to ROUTER C will receive 1/2 of the effective "internet" throughput of connections to router B, and 1/4 of the effective throughput of connections to router A. That's because wifi connections to ROUTER C first do a wifi transmission from the wifi device to ROUTER C, then another wifi transmission from ROUTER C to ROUTER B and a final wifi transmission from ROUTER B to ROUTER A. Translation: Don't nest WDS routers unless you have a specific reason to do so. In reality, the speed of wifi is still significantly faster than broadband internet speeds, so even nested WDS child routers still receive plenty of internet bandwidth (although not necessarily the maximum amount of bandwidth your broadband modem may supply).

If your Belkin router supports "CLIENT MODE" (another option available from DD-WRT), the "CLIENT MODE" router can connect wirelessly to a "primary" router, where the "CLIENT MODE" router only functions as an Ethernet to Wireless Bridge (i.e. it no longer functions as a wireless access point). A "CLIENT MODE" router is designed to connect to a wifi signal as if it were a PC w/ Wifi Card connecting to a Wifi Signal. You configure the SSID, ENCRYPTION KEYS, etc. in the "CLIENT MODE" router, and when a wifi connection is established, the presence of that connection shows up in the "CLIENT MODE" router's web interface. The "primary" router need not support bridging of any sort.

It may be the case that only OLD VERSIONS of the F5D7230-4 are DD-WRT compatible; however, if yours is in fact compatible, then your solution is very simple:

Set the Belkin F6D3230-4 as ROUTER A (i.e. the one connected to the broadband modem). Set the Belkin F5D7230-4 w/ DD-WRT as ROUTER B, where ROUTER B gets configured in CLIENT MODE to wirelessly connect to ROUTER A. Only ETHERNET DEVICES plugged into ROUTER B will be able to use ROUTER B. Wireless connections will only be available on ROUTER A, but WIRED CONNECTIONS will also be available on ROUTER A (provided that router has ethernet ports).

Diggler

Thanks for the detailed explanation, Diggler. In fact, I do have a DD-WRT compatible version of the F5D7230-4 (v1444). I don't care about Router B (w/DD-WRT in client mode) acting as a wireless AP, so that solutions sounds perfect. Give me a day or two to try it and I will report back!

diggler, when you say BRIDGE, do you mean CLIENT BRIDGE?

DD-WRT has 4 wireless modes:
AP
Client
Client Bridge
Ad-Hoc

In the setup described in the OP, I've always set the child router to be Client Bridge, given it a SSID, encryption method, encryption key, and that has always worked. Are you saying the correct thing to do is set it to Client instead of Client Bridge?

What is the difference in this case, and why would Client Bridge also work?

According to DD-WRT, Client Bridge looks like the correct thing to do instead of Client:
http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Wireless_Bridge

Wireless Bridging is used to connect two LAN segments via a wireless link. The two segments will be in the same subnet and look like two Ethernet switches connected by a cable to all computers on the subnet. Since the computers are on the same subnet, broadcasts will reach all machines, allowing DHCP clients in one segment to get their addresses from a DHCP server in a different segment. You could use a Wireless Bridge to transparently connect computer(s) in one room to computer(s) in a different room when you could not, or did not want to run an Ethernet cable between the rooms. Contrast this with Client Mode Wireless, where the local wireless device running DD-WRT connects to the remote router as a client, creating two separate subnets. Since the computers within the different subnets cannot see each other directly, this requires the enabling of NAT between the wireless and the wired ports, and setting up port forwarding for the computers behind the local wireless device. Segments connected via Client Mode Wireless cannot share a DHCP server.

It depends on what your needs are.

You posted a more detailed answer above, but in a nutshell, in "Client [only]" mode, the LAN PORTS of ROUTER B are behind their own NAT'd firewall. ROUTER B, therefor, still gets to function as a router. (The WAN port of ROUTER B may be on the same network as ROUTER A though). The advantage of this is security (for the devices connected to ROUTER B). Those devices won't be accessible from ROUTER A (unless you open up ports on ROUTER B).

In "Client Bridge" mode, all LAN PORTS of ROUTER B are on the same LAN network of ROUTER A.

Diggler

Agreed, and in BlueTDimly's case, I think what he wants is where they're part of the same network/subnet so they can share files/internet. And in that case, Client Bridge would be the correct approach imo.

Well, not to dig up a really old thread, but I *finally* got around to installing DD-WRT (Micro) on the F5D7230-4 router and configured it as a "Client Bridge" and it seems to work exactly as I wanted it to. Thanks again everyone! I haven't yet tried setting up printer sharing - but I assume that will work - we'll see.