"Client bridge" router

[RandomCharacter]

I am not much of a technical writer, so this will be more of a narrative description of a networking technique I found and implemented. It was all motivated by two things: 1) My N wireless networking on Debian and other distros could not be convinced to connect at N speed. I have posted about this, before. 2) I am not a handyman, and I do not like drilling holes in ceilings, floors, and walls to run ethernet cables. My modem and main router are downstairs, while my PC is upstairs. Up until now, my workaround has been the use of "powerline" ethernet adapters. The disadvantages of these are that they are slow and they burn out frequently, and are expensive to replace. I have had eight of them, and six are burned out. When one more failed, I would be out of business, again.

So, I had a pretty good AC router (Netgear AC1450) and I figured that if I had another AC router, I could establish a fast AC to AC wireless connection from downstairs to upstairs. I bought an Apple Airport Extreme last weekend. Then, I quickly discovered that things weren't going to be as easy as I thought. I.e., there are no real standards for connecting various brands of routers to each other. The Apple could be connected wirelessly to another Apple router, but not to any other (at least with their control software). I gave up and decided to return the Apple for a refund.

But overnight, the idea struck me that if the Apple was made the main router, maybe I could configure the Netgear to connect to it. The docs seemed to indicate that I could, with a facility called WDS (Wireless Distribution System). I started working of setting that up, until I realized that WPA2 security had to be turned off on both routers. Not being willing to do that, I gave up on my project, again. Another problem was that a MAC address for the client router would have to be set in the Apple base router, and again, I don't think the Apple control software gives me that ability.

Then, someone on dslreports.com pointed out to me that, if I were to flash the Netgear to dd-wrt firmware, I would have more control over what I could do with it. Also, it seems that my AC1450 is hardware identical to the more expensive and featureful R6300v2, and dd-wrt firmware would actually give it more features than the standard AC1450.

I was kicking around all this on irc and Rust Collector came up with an article in the dd-wrt wiki to create a "client bridge". What this is is to make one router a simple wireless client to another router with no configuration changes at all to the parent router. Then, the PC's on the remote router are connected to it by ethernet. This solved all my problems. I now have an 877 mbps AC to AC connection between the two routers, then a 1000 mbps ethernet connection from the bridge router to my PC. Multiple PC's and other devices could be connected into this ethernet connection, if necessary. My bridge router has multiple ports and a switch could also be added.

There were fits and starts along the way. Every time I set the client bridge router to the subnet of the main router, I lost access to its admin address and had to reconfigure my PC's ethernet connection. I had to do this several times as I was learning to get the client bridge configuration just right. But the end result is excellent, and I am seeing much faster network access by my main (Linux) PC.

All of the technical info on setting up a client bridge is in the following two articles. The first one has the current instructions, while the second one is outdated but contains a lot more conceptual info.

http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Client_Bridged
http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Wireless_Bridge

Tim

[machinebacon]

Thank you very much for this verbose and helpful post!

[pidsley]

Thanks for posting this Tim. Very interesting. Do you have any idea why the powerline adapters are so fragile?

[rust collector]

That is a good question, we have used a set of them for a couple years now, and they have never missed a bit

[wuxmedia]

Cool write up, so it's kind of a wireless repeater?
That might be handy one day, if I have a flashable router...

[RandomCharacter]

Thanks for posting this Tim. Very interesting. Do you have any idea why the powerline adapters are so fragile?

My only guess is that they tell you to plug them directly into wall outlets, not into surge protectors. Combined with the fact that I live in a frequent heavy lightning area, they probably get knocked out by lightning.

Tim

[RandomCharacter]

Wux, no, it's not a wireless repeater. There is some similarity, but I think all wireless clients still connect via the base router. This is a simpler configuration, where the "end result" goes to the ethernet LAN ports of the client bridge router. At least, that is my best understanding. I have asked about this in the dd-wrt forums, but have received exactly zero responses.

Tim

[rust collector]

I think it would be best to compare this with the powerline adapters, just using wireless, not the power lines. Just a way to extend a cable without pulling a cable.??

[wuxmedia]

Wux, no, it's not a wireless repeater. There is some similarity, but I think all wireless clients still connect via the base router. This is a simpler configuration, where the "end result" goes to the ethernet LAN ports of the client bridge router. At least, that is my best understanding. I have asked about this in the dd-wrt forums, but have received exactly zero responses.

Tim

Right, thanks for getting back, Okay lets say a wireless thru-port..?
Actually that's what a bridge is really, so I should have guessed.