Networking/Wireless Internet Gurus

[StevieP]

Going to try to keep this simple;

AOL Broadband is wired via the phoneline into a Speedtouch 585 v6 Wireless Modem/Router as usual. Everything works fine wireless wise...

Trying to get the access shared a few floors down where I work...

I have two Buffalo Wireless access points flashed with dd-wrt software (fairly recent revisions afaik)..

SSID's, channels etc are all set to the same, as is the security (although that has been disabled for now)

The only way I can get everything to work is if I wire one of the AP's into the router, then use that AP to chat to the other AP via WDS, but that means that I can't get full access all over the building, I need the wireless router to send the signal down a floor to the 1st AP, then down another floor (via WDS or however) to the 2nd AP. Its a bit pointless having a wireless router/modem if I'm not going to use the wireless capability of it.

But I cannot get the modem to detect any WDS activity from the AP's, its being such a pain in the ass. I've tried the AP's in AP mode, Client mode and Client Bridge mode. Nothing works consistently. The dd-wrt forums aren't very helpful, and the dd-wrt wiki is starting to baffle me. There must be a simple answer to this? (Without having to buy another AP!)

I hope most of that made sense.

Steve.

 

[calvin21]

Is your router WDS compatible? have you allowed the access point mac addresses? which access points are you using? are they the whr-hp-g54 or the whr-g54s? have you set them up in 125 speed or standard g?

 

[StevieP]

Router is WDS compatible, but on the page where it would display the networks it shows nothing. Just;

Accessible Access Points;
WDS SSID BSSID Channel Noise

'There are no networks detected.'

I've set up the MAC addresses on the AP's but the modem has 3 options for WDS; auto join, register, or off. I've set it to automatically allow new stations but it won't even detect any.

The buffalo are quite old, AirStations WLA G54. Speeds set to B&G (Mixed) I think. I shall try them in standard g mode.

 

[calvin21]

First of all i'd try just using 1 atm just to see if it works. check that they're using the same channel and check that frame-bursting is off. Enter the mac address of the ap into the router. Save that then enter the mac address of the router into the ap.

 

[StevieP]

There is nowhere within the router itself to actually manually enter the mac address of the AP. With wds set to auto-register mode it should automatically register new stations. On register mode it scans for any active WDS connections and should list them before you allow it to connect with that WDS connection. But it just comes up blank. I'm tempted to flash the router but that may of course invalidate the warranty and if anything goes wrong with it AOL won't be too happy.

I'm just toying with one Airstation at the moment, but to no joy. The last plan if all else fails is to buy a cheap something like a belkin wireless extender/access point and wire that directly into the modem/router, turn off the wireless on the modem/router itself and just use the AP's to share the internet connection.

 

[calvin21]

have you tried switching the router to anything other than auto-register i.e register? does that give you an option to enter the mac addresses? if not i'd probably suggest to do what u've suggested or try using powerline to go from the router to the second ap. thats what i use in my girlfriends house (its an old and big house)

 

[Pettsi]

Our routers are all hooked up to the network with power over ethernet. So all wireless devices connect to the closes one...

 

[StevieP]

Is there another way of connecting access points to modem/routers other than via cabling or WDS? WDS halves the throughput or something doesn't it because it has to re-transmit the data?

 

[Pettsi]

Will be more reliable if you run a CAT5 cable from the modem to the routers if you want to go down that route..

 

[Pettsi]

Configure the IP address of the secondary router to be in the same subnet as the primary router, but out of the range of the DHCP server in the primary router. For instance DHCP server addresses 192.168.0.2 through 192.168.0.100, I'd assign the secondary router 192.168.0.254 as it's IP address.


Disable the DHCP server in the secondary router.

Setup the wireless section just the way you would if it was the primary router, channels, encryption, etc.

Connect from the primary router's LAN port to one of the LAN ports on the secondary router. If there is no uplink port and neither of the routers have auto-sensing ports, use a cross-over cable. Leave the WAN port unconnected!

 

[StevieP]

I'm going to add a Netgear WG602 from home tomorrow morning when I have another bash at it.

I think its the NAT, DHCP stuff thats making it go haywire. They don't make this easy. The modem/router has a fixed ip of 192.168.1.254. If I wire that modem directly into one of the AP's, assign that a fixed ip of 192.168.1.1, do I need DHCP enabled or disabled? Getting WDS to work between the two wireless access points is fairly simple, it seems getting the modem/router to talk to either one of the AP's is the tricky bit.

 

[KDF]

Here goes...

Our routers are all hooked up to the network with power over ethernet. So all wireless devices connect to the closes one...

That's great. Your point ? how does that help etc ?

Is there another way of connecting access points to modem/routers other than via cabling or WDS? WDS halves the throughput or something doesn't it because it has to re-transmit the data?

Yes, one of your options has already been mentioned. See below.

try using powerline to go from the router to the second ap. thats what i use in my girlfriends house (its an old and big house)

Will be more reliable if you run a CAT5 cable from the modem to the routers if you want to go down that route..

Of course it would, but that would defeat the purpose now wouldn't it.

Configure the IP address of the secondary router to be in the same subnet as the primary router, but out of the range of the DHCP server in the primary router. For instance DHCP server addresses 192.168.0.2 through 192.168.0.100, I'd assign the secondary router 192.168.0.254 as it's IP address.

Disable the DHCP server in the secondary router.

Setup the wireless section just the way you would if it was the primary router, channels, encryption, etc.

Connect from the primary router's LAN port to one of the LAN ports on the secondary router. If there is no uplink port and neither of the routers have auto-sensing ports, use a cross-over cable. Leave the WAN port unconnected!

What secondary router are you referring to ? and even if there was a secondary router you would try to put it in the same subnet ? you do know what the point of a router is right ?

If you're referring to the two access points then they are layer two devices, possibly with some layer 3 capabilities but certainly no routing.

I'm going to add a Netgear WG602 from home tomorrow morning when I have another bash at it.

I think its the NAT, DHCP stuff thats making it go haywire. They don't make this easy. The modem/router has a fixed ip of 192.168.1.254. If I wire that modem directly into one of the AP's, assign that a fixed ip of 192.168.1.1, do I need DHCP enabled or disabled? Getting WDS to work between the two wireless access points is fairly simple, it seems getting the modem/router to talk to either one of the AP's is the tricky bit.

NAT won't have anything to do with it as all the NAT is done on the router, after that its just layer 2 switching. DHCP should not cause any issues unless your access points are layer 3 addressable and you have a conflict. To ensure this doesn't happen set your router's DHCP address pool to be something like 192.168.1.1-200 (although having that many address's in a home network is overkill) and use static address's for the router and access points with the router having the highest usable address in that subnet (just good practice). Assuming you are not using VLSM and are using classfull subnetting that would be 192.168.1.254 and your access points to .253 and .252 for consistency (again as long as there is no conflict it doesn't really matter what you address the access points as they work at layer 2.

To answer your question about DHCP. All your DHCP needs should be handled by the router and only the router. If you have any type of DHCP services on your access points just disable them.

My guess as to your problem is your router is having issues with WDS. Check for firmware upgrades and check google for WDS issues.