Wireless Bridge?

[Matthais86]

'lo folks.

Moving into London into a seven room houseshare which has a wi-fi network provided by the Landlord. My main PC is a desktop and to date has connected directly to the router at the current address via ethernet cable (an old cable was running the length of the house as a legacy of time before wi-fi) and so it has no facility for attaching to a wireless network currently.

Personally, I've had iffy experiences with using USB wi-fi receivers in the past (my previous Desktop PC while at Uni) and also have my doubts about the effectiveness of adding in a wireless NIC. Additionally, I also have a Network Attached Storage (NAS) rig which I'd like to be able to stick on the network as well so it can be used for file sharing with my housemates - it doesn't have a wireless connection itself and I doubt I'll be able to get access to attach it directly to the router, so I need to be able to connect to the network wirelessly..

Therefore, what I believe I need is a wireless bridge - a device that can connect to the exisiting wireless network and then interface with my desktop and NAS by ethernet. Ideally this would have at least two Ethernet ports so that I can attach both my desktop PC & my NAS, but I believe that if I just connected a standard Ethernet hub/switch to the wireless bridge and then connected the devices to the hub/switch this would suffice (although having the whole thing in one box would obviously be a lot better).

So basically I have two questions:
a) Is what I've put above all technically correct or am I missing some hazards?
b) Anybody got any recommendations or links to suitable devices? I notice some wireless routers have bridge or relay modes, but my understanding is that they're designed to establish a new wireless network and are unablele to connect to the existing wireless network.

 

[DaveMcLain]

I'd say that just about any router with built in wifi would work for your application. Most will have a built in switch with four LAN ports that you can use to attach your wired devices. Then you'll also be able to use the wireless AP to allow access to the network for your wireless devices. Here on smallnetbuilder.com there is a writeup on how to take a router, disable the routing features, probably change it's IP address and then use it to do what you want to do. No need to spend a bunch of money.

Here's a link to that story:

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wire...onvert-a-wireless-router-into-an-access-point

 

[stevech]

receiving service via WiFi then servicing PCs connected by Wired Ethernet - does not use a consumer router. It needs a Wireless to Wired bridge. Lots of these on the market.

Few or no commonplace WiFi routers can do the bridge function. You can purchase a router such as Linksys WRT54GL that can be changed to run the "DD-WRT" firmware which can do bridging on that originally-router-only hardware.

Easiest to just get a good bridge. I use Buffalo's older 11g client bridge which has a built-in 4 port ethernet switch (but the switch can be external).

 

[DaveMcLain]

You're correct, I misread the post. I thought he had a wire coming in that he needed to break out to feed a couple of PC's and give wireless access too. You're right he'll need to add a wireless bridge.

 

[Mike_G_D]

I can vouch for the WRT54GL + DD-WRT firmware option for use as a client bridge that stevech mentioned. I have used that mode for quite some time now and it has performed flawlessly. Currently, I have it used only to bridge several Ethernet printers and MFD's hooked up to it for bridging to my wireless network. In the past, however, I have used it with PC's and it worked fine.

-Mike

 

[DaveMcLain]

DD-WRT also works well to make a client bridge using a Netgear WGR614 as long as you use either the V8 or L version. I have several of those running in various locations with excellent signal strength and reliability.