Linksys Bridging Guide

Hi,

I want to bridge 2 Linksys WRT54G's. I have literally searched high and low over the internet for a guide on how to do this. Lots of people have done it so it can't be that hard.

Can someone point me in the right direction?

Ash

An easier way to start may be to describe what you want to achieve.
Not everybody uses the same terminology.

Are these stock linksys or have you installed the Sveasoft firmware updates?

What I want to acheive is to literally bridge two lans together. That of me at my house and that of a friend about 700m away. I have the sveasoft firmware which I will install if necessary.

I've heard bridging them is better than setting one as AP and one as client.

A solution (not the only 1) but works for me.

Set the units to WDS mode (I use Sveasoft)
Wired clients then can access between each other.
Using WDS and wireless clients reduces the max bandwidth by about 1/2.
If you use wired clients at each end there is almost no bandwidth reduction.

So does that mean if I have both units set to WDS mode and both units just hooked up to my LAN (no other wireless clients). It will function as if it were a cable? - and seeing as there are no other clients I wouldn't lose too much bandwidth?

hi,

if you go client and AP you lose no bandwidth... if you go WDS you will lose some bandwidth due to the double transmittinbg of the data.

To set up client and AP is fairly straight forward... so i wont expain..

for WDS... using sveasoft firmware

Set both Ap's to the same channel,

In wireless->WDS set it to LAN and enter the wireless mac adress of the other AP (this can be found on the status-> wireless page - of the other AP!!!)

Make sure both AP's have each others MAC adress on the wireless side and both set to LAN.

you can either have the aps on the saem subnet as your lan but a different ip address or have them on a seperate subnet.. i use them on the same subnet with no worries.

thats all there is to it.


cheers


wookie

So does that mean if I have both units set to WDS mode and both units just hooked up to my LAN (no other wireless clients). It will function as if it were a cable? - and seeing as there are no other clients I wouldn't lose too much bandwidth?


The WDS function acts as the cable between the APs.
A downside is that it is an open connection so you do need some form of protection on the network.
Using this mode you can have mulitple units connected as if they were on a Hub.

If wireless clients connect you will loose some bandwidth.
The bandwidth lose will only be a problem if you use it for hard out gaming or video streaming.
Even in multiple hop WDS bandwidth is above that of most internet connections.

I use this mode with my publicly accessable node and users report good download speeds.[/i][/quote]

So would it be possible to restrict access to just the mac address of the other AP? That way no-one else could connect?

If you use the client mode of the sveasoft firmware, it make the router route between the radio and the wired gear connected to it. This is because the radio can only associate one mac address at a time.

WDS is the way to go really, but with that there is both routed and bridged, and I havent looked into it in great detail since I only have one WRT54GS here at the moment

The way i would restrict access would be to either do a client and AP mode or WDS but plug the LAn cable into the internet port of the AP and then set up a policy rule in the tab after "gaming etc", cant think of its name.

There you can set up which mac address has access to the internet port.

There is probably another way round it without plugging into the inet port but i dont have it in front of me to look.


wookie

hi there just run cat5 the ap, client mode with mac filter sounds good
or you could just play around with them and learn what all the setting do. I have had some late nights getting things to work like this one but thats all part of it have fun