Repeater with DD-WRT for Wi-Fi between buildings?

[jtherkel]

This weekend, I'll spend some time at a vacation house with no Internet. My relatives who own the house (Family House) received permission from a friendly neighbor (Neighbor House) to piggyback on their open Wi-Fi signal. They're out in the country.

I would like to increase the strength of the Family House signal and add password protection inside that location. (I don't want to extend the range of the open signal from Neighbor House any further.)

I read the LifeHacker article below on installing DD-WRT in an old router to turn it into a repeater. I understand that a repeater automatically cuts throughput in half. I'm walking into a situation where I control none of the variables.

Is it possible to add password protection to the "repeated" Wi-Fi signal while leaving the open Wi-Fi signal alone?

Turn Your Old Router into a Range-Boosting Wi-Fi Repeater
http://lifehacker.com/5563196/turn-your-old-router-into-a-range-boosting-wi-fi-repeater

TIA,
John

 

[azazel1024]

Setup a wireless bridge to connect to the open wifi network and then connect the wireless bridge to a wireless router in your vacation home through the router's WAN port. Then you'll have a seperate password protected WLAN and LAN within your vacation home and won't be re-broadcasting the open network. Just set your network to a different channel from the open network/bridge.

 

[im_electronic]

^^

This will get you the maximum speed.

But yes, DD-WRT can use their wifi as a WAN, and create a WLAN with your own security all in one box. You loose half the wireless speed. If this is still faster than the internet speed, then you're all set.

 

[stevech]

Inter-building is normally done with a bridge-pair.

 

[jtherkel]

I happen to have two old Cisco/Linksys consumer routers available, so I think I can follow the advice of azazel1024.

1) Linksys E2000 with DD-WRT Installed
I think I set this to Client Bridge mode, as described on this page?
http://www.flashrouters.com/blog/20...ent-bridge-wireless-repeater-modes-in-dd-wrt/

2) Cisco EA4500 with Factory Firmware
Use this router's WAN port to connect to the router running DD-WRT. Set up password protected WLAN and LAN as desired. (I'm running the local Cisco firmware, not the Cisco connect B.S.)

My remaining question is: What IP addresses should I set on my two consumer routers? Let's assume that the Neighbor House gateway is configured to 192.168.1.1.

I know my DD-WRT bridge will have to be on the same network. Does placing it in Client Bridge mode automatically tell it to pick up an IP via DHCP?

I think I should place my router on another subnet, maybe with a gateway of 192.168.2.1. The fact that I'm connecting the bridge to the router via the WAN port should allow that to happen, correct?

Thanks,
John

 

[rugo32]

Hopefully there is more of a blueprint than a LH vid

jtherkel, I certainly hope that you have ALOT more details than your OP, and do way more reseach than those watching those goofs at LH and know a lil' something about DD-WRT FW..because it's great, but not at all user friendly...but hey, if you know what you are dealing with and have the green light to tap into the Neighbor's interior router..(and it better be a beefy one) otherwise I would simply invest in a POE switch and some good CAT6 cable, you would have a chance. Don't mean to discourage you..just some friendly advice, good luck.

 

[jtherkel]

I followed the advice of azazel1024 and achieved a max speed of 1.5 Mbps. It was enough that people could browse on their tablets and send the occasional email from anywhere in the house.

This resource was the most helpful.

DD-WRT wiki mainpage / Linking Routers / Client Bridged
http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Client_Bridged

At first, I followed an older set of instructions that had some steps in a different order. I did not achieve a connection to the neighbor's router until I performed a hard 30/30/30 reset and quickly got to Step 7.

Go FIRST to wireless, wireless security and enter the security type and key that matches your primary router.

It seems like DD-WRT will not allow the router to act as a client unless you hit that step early in the process.

For my next cabin visit in one month, I want to connect an external antenna so I don't have to sit the routers out on a screen porch, where they're somewhat susceptible to weather. I'll create a separate post with questions about that.

Thanks,
John

 

[Alex Atkin UK]

Personally I am using two TP-Link TL-WDR3600 running OpenWRT to create a WiFi bridge across the road.

One on my LAN set to Access Point (WDS) with a Yagi and Panel antenna outside for optimum signal strength and to allow a 2x2 stream link. Then another across the road using the stock antennas to receive the signal and also broadcasting on 5Ghz. For the few 2.4Ghz only devices I use across there I have a cheap 802.11n 2.4Ghz dongle plugged in as well broadcasting on a different channel to avoid reducing throughput on the link.

When connected over 5Ghz to the repeater side I have seen speeds up to 50Mbit under this configuration with the average being 30Mbit. This is with the link passing through trees and thick walls. If I had outdoor antenna at both sides of the link I'm sure I could have a fairly stable 60Mbit.

 

[azazel1024]

Personally I am using two TP-Link TL-WDR3600 running OpenWRT to create a WiFi bridge across the road.

One on my LAN set to Access Point (WDS) with a Yagi and Panel antenna outside for optimum signal strength and to allow a 2x2 stream link. Then another across the road using the stock antennas to receive the signal and also broadcasting on 5Ghz. For the few 2.4Ghz only devices I use across there I have a cheap 802.11n 2.4Ghz dongle plugged in as well broadcasting on a different channel to avoid reducing throughput on the link.

When connected over 5Ghz to the repeater side I have seen speeds up to 50Mbit under this configuration with the average being 30Mbit. This is with the link passing through trees and thick walls. If I had outdoor antenna at both sides of the link I'm sure I could have a fairly stable 60Mbit.

2.4GHz dongle plugged in? To the WDR3600? And it works too? I am guessing OpenWRT is adding support for the add on? If so that is awesome and maybe I need to look in to it. I don't really have a use case right now, but if you can use USB wifi dongles to add radios to an existing router that way, I can think of some ways where I could possibly use that flexibility in the future (pretty much exactly the way you are doing it).

 

[Alex Atkin UK]

That's why I switched from DD-WRT to OpenWRT, as long as you have enough storage left on the flash memory you can install any open source WiFi driver provided by that kernel version. There is a long list of additional software/kernel modules you can install on OpenWRT. This also means if the internal WiFi is not ideal, you can also use a USB adapter for the client connection.

My first attempt at this bridge configuration was actually done via two Buffalo WZR-HP-G300NH, a Signal-King USB WiFi adapter (for making the link from the repeater to my home LAN) and a WDN3200 (for broadcasting a 5Ghz AP), before buying two WDR3600 to benefit from the newer WiFi chipset, dual-stream link, antenna sockets (important for the LAN side although my Buffalo was modded with antenna sockets) and built-in 5Ghz for the repeater. I couldn't get stable 5Ghz WiFi though and dual-stream USB cards seemed pricey, so I switched to the WDR3600 for neatness and to improve throughput. I then switched the other side of the link too so the WiFi chipset features would match and the minimise WiFi signal leakage in the house as the Buffalo had a third internal antenna I didn't want broadcasting.

It also opens up the option for if you have an old router with a PCIe/PCI socketed WiFi, card you can swap it for a newer card. The only "catch" is if that newer card needs more CPU power to reach its peak speed.

I have also considered stripping the PCIe card out of my Archer C7 to use in my Atom router that also runs OpenWRT. Its so much more powerful than the ARM/MIPS routers that it seems to more consistently maintain peak WiFi speeds on 802.11n, and buying the Atheros mini PCIe card on its own costs as much as the Archer C7 anyway. Then I can also still use the C7 for 2.4Ghz as OpenWRT won't care if the PCIe card is missing.

Another interesting thing I discovered on the WDR3600 was how on OpenWRT (although its probably possible in DD-WRT too) I was able to configure the switch to use all 5 ports for LAN WITHOUT bridging the WAN port in the OS. It seems in this router the WAN port is just a normal switch port with VLAN rules applied, rather than its own ethernet adapter like in every router I have had in the past. Remove those rules and it becomes a standard switch port without the CPU overhead you normally get when bridging a WAN port to the LAN.