Is there any disadvantage to "Wireless Router Mode" with the DHCP disabled vs "Access Point Mode"?

[glugglug]

The thread on the IGMP snooping setting being hidden in AP mode has me curious. There are a lot of other settings hidden when in AP mode instead of router mode.

Is there a downside of using router mode for an access point, with it connected through a LAN port and with the DHCP server disabled?

 

[ColinTaylor]

I think the main disadvantage is confusion for the average user. They'll see tabs like QoS, VPN, DNS filter, Traffic monitor, etc. and they won't be working. I'd speculate that WAN related services like wanduck and NTP will just keep failing and retrying because they're waiting for the WAN interface to come up and it never does (filling up syslog). In access point mode the WAN port becomes another LAN port.

In theory AP mode should be "cleaner" because it should turn off all the WAN related services whilst leaving the LAN based ones alone. In theory.

 

[glugglug]

If the stuff looking for the WAN port becomes a problem, you could always put an ethernet cable between the WAN port and a LAN port. But then you only have two ports to connect anything else to.

I actually did this with a FIOS Quantum Gateway used as a MoCA bridge. With the WAN port disabled it complains on every admin page about not having an internet connection, and doesn't forward WiFi traffic if you have WiFi enabled. Had to actually connect it to itself to make it happy when used as a bridge.