Creating a Wireless Bridge

Ever have an internet connection in one room and a bunch of non-wireless devices in the other?   I have to thank my good friend Jamil F. for putting me onto this solution.   Here is an affordable and fun way to solve that problem.  First you need two Linksys WRT54G routers.  You then have to flash the devices firmware following the instrucitons given in this tutorial:

Once that is setup, follow these instructions to setup your wireless bridge:

To enable wireless bridging between two WRT54Gs, one WRT54G has to be in AP-Mode (Wireless > Basic Settings). The following assumes it has the default IP address 192.168.1.1. Let’s call this WRT54G the primary. The other WRT54G is connecting to the primary in “Client-Bridged” mode. Let’s call that WRT54G the secondary.

Instructions update for V24: DHCP does not work between the DHCP server in the primary and the DHCP clients in computers connected to the secondary in this configuration with V24. You will have to assign static IP addresses like 192.168.1.10x to the computers connected to the secondary, a different one for each computer of course. Then it works fine. Annoying! — This doesn’t seem to be a problem with the currently recommended V24 SVN builds as of 2/22/09.

1. Give your PC the possibility of having a static address. In Windows, open Network connections, select your LAN card, change settings, Internet Protocol (TCP/IP), properties, on the General tab choose obtain an IP address automatically, then on the Alternate Configuration tab click user configured and enter 192.168.1.100 or something similar, default gateway to 192.168.1.1 and the DNS server IP addresses of your ISP. If you don’t know those, any DNS server IP addresses will work. e.g. 204.101.251.1 and 205.151.222.251. Click OK and close. Now your PC will try to run the DHCP client, but if it fails (as it will with V24 in the following scenario), it will use the Alternate Configuration, static address 192.168.1.100 instead.
2. If you are using MAC filtering, add the WLAN MAC-Address of the secondary WRT54G to the permitted list on the primary.
3. Connect a PC to LAN port 1 (not the WAN port) on your secondary with a LAN cable and enter 192.168.1.1 in a browser.
4. Administration > Factory Defaults: Restore factory defaults yes. Username=root, password=admin when asked. Click apply settings. Listen to soothing music while the secondary resets and reboots.
5. Setup > Basic Setup: Local IP address 192.168.1.2, subnet mask 255.255.255.0, gateway 192.168.1.1, local DNS 192.168.1.1, assign WAN port to switch checked. Click save then apply. After a minute, change the address in your browser to 192.168.1.2 and enter.
6. Wireless > Wireless Security: Enable Wireless Security and configure it as used in your local network. Click save then apply.
7. Wireless > Basic Settings: choose “Client-Bridged” as Wireless Mode and set SSID, Wireless channel and Network Mode to same values as your primary. (Note: it is better to use network mode G-only on both primary and secondary, otherwise everything slows down to B if there is even one B device anywhere.). Click save then apply.
8. Status > wireless: scroll down and click site survey, then click join the desired network, then continue, then save, then apply.
9. Unplug the power from the secondary for 10 seconds then plug it back in.
10. Go to an Internet URL in your browser, e.g. google.com
11. Be patient. It takes a while to connect everything, maybe 30 – 45 seconds. Click reload on the browswer if it says page not found too soon. Wait at least two minutes before thinking it ain’t working.

That’s all.

Welcome To TheNullPointer

Welcome to TheNullPointer.  This is my first blog and I will try to keep it full of interesting articles that are both useful and though provoking.   Stay tuned for the awesomeness.