HOWTO: Use Linksys WRT54G as a wireless ethernet bridge

[The Goon]

User1234, thanks again for your prompt reply . I still can't get it to find the xbox in KAI. It tells me the network is reachable but it not detecting the xbox at all. This what i've done, put my main pc on a static ip address, port forwarded the ports for KAI to the pc in virtual servers and application gateways in the belkin. I've been to the KAI forums and they say it can be done as the xbox only need to speak to the pc not the internet, but thats all they will say. I saw this in the forum from one of the develepers of the program

"One thing you need to keep in mind is MAC address cloning - Kai will ignore any device that doesn't start with a certain MAC address, so the bridge is going to need to clone the XBox's MAC"

If you want to look at the program its here www.teamxlink.co.uk

Thanks again, please be patient with me, i'm a middle aged bloke with teenage kids and trying to learn all this new fan dangled stuff lol

 

[WolverineGator]

I'm currently using OpenWRT, but I now want to try Alchemy. Just as I powered up the router I used tftp to upload the OpenWRT firmware while boot_wait=on, but Alchemy is too big to flash this way. How can I change firmware? I tried flashing to Satori since it is less than 3MB, but I get "can't downgrade to this old firmware version." Am I stuck?

Update1: I flashed to ewrt since it was less than 3MB and then using the web interface I flashed to Alchemy. Anyone who has a dead/bricked router can follow the above directions to revive it.

Update2: Got it to work in client mode just following OP's directions and I'm using version 3 of this router. Thanks!

 

[jeremycobert]

does anyone know if i could setup a cron job to run the proxy command echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf/eth1/proxy_arp on the client ?

i need to figure a way out to keep the subnets working together. unless i could setup a routing table in the gateway router. im not quite sure how to do that.

 

[pat68]

Hi user1234.

I still had the 10-20ms ping times issue between WRT54G client and WAG54G v2. Also I had this timings with WiFi client PCs directly connected to the WAG54G v2.
I figured out, that this was definitly a firmware issue. Originally the WAG54G was equipped with 1.00.19. I switched to 1.00.47 (beta version form Linksys) and now I have ping times around 2ms! Hope there will be a final version of the firmware soon.

Bye
pat

 

[thebestbutter]

Alright guys, I got my router today from Amazon.com. I set up the router, connected all cables, reset it just in case, and uploaded this firmware which IS compatible with the new version 3 models of the WRT54G: http://wrt54g.thermoman.de/FreemanBasic_V1.0.4_wrt54g.zip
It is a modified version of the Sveasoft Talisman firmware, which works on v3 routers, and it is absolutely free (compared to the $20 you have to pay to get basically the exact same thing from Sveasoft). I uploaded it, and part of the way through, a error message popped up say that the upload had failed. I thought I had a $60 brick on my hands, but I was determined to make it work again, as I had read it was possible to recover from a failed upgrade. I downloaded the original Linksys firmware, used TFTP to upload it to my router, and lo and behold, it worked! I was able to go to the regular Linksys web-based configuration, and I tried uploading the Freeman firmware again. This time, it worked like a charm. I set everything up according to your guide in the first post, and now I've got my WRT54G running as a wireless bridge for my Windows PC, my Linux box, and my Playstation 2. Thank you user1234, you have changed my life!

 

[mikelish]

how do I do port forwarding for bitorrent using this setup? i have a dlink router connected to my linksys wrt54g

 

[fdrgnmx]

Hello user1234,

Your tutorial is great, I got the setup working on two WRT54G routers with Alchemy firmware.

But I have a question.. I want to setup a sightly more complex configuration, something like this:

Main router IP: 10.0.0.1
Mask: 255.255.255.0

Router1 IP: 10.0.1.1
Mask: 255.255.255.0
Clients attached: 10.0.1.10-250

Router2 IP: 10.0.2.1
Mask: 255.255.255.0
Clients attached: 10.0.2.10-250

And so on... How I can get this setup working?

Also, I want that clients on Router2 can see clients on Router1 and the Main router in two ways.. that is difficult to implement?

Thank you very much in advance for any help.

P.S. Sorry for my bad english.

 

[WolverineGator]

Originally posted by: ddmcdoodle
Alright guys, I got my router today from Amazon.com. I set up the router, connected all cables, reset it just in case, and uploaded this firmware which IS compatible with the new version 3 models of the WRT54G: http://wrt54g.thermoman.de/FreemanBasic_V1.0.4_wrt54g.zip
It is a modified version of the Sveasoft Talisman firmware, which works on v3 routers, and it is absolutely free (compared to the $20 you have to pay to get basically the exact same thing from Sveasoft). [snip] I set everything up according to your guide in the first post, and now I've got my WRT54G running as a wireless bridge for my Windows PC, my Linux box, and my Playstation 2. Thank you user1234, you have changed my life!

There is no option for Gateway operating mode and there are 2 client modes so I couldn't complete steps 5 and 6:

5. In "Setup::Advanced Routing" screen, make sure operating mode is "Gateway".

6. In "Wireless::Basic Settings" screen, set Wireless mode to "Client".....

How did you get FreemanBasic_V1.0.4_wrt54g.zip to work?

 

[skyking]

Originally posted by: fdrgnmx
Hello user1234,

Your tutorial is great, I got the setup working on two WRT54G routers with Alchemy firmware.

But I have a question.. I want to setup a sightly more complex configuration, something like this:

Main router IP: 10.0.0.1
Mask: 255.255.255.0

Router1 IP: 10.0.1.1
Mask: 255.255.255.0
Clients attached: 10.0.1.10-250

Router2 IP: 10.0.2.1
Mask: 255.255.255.0
Clients attached: 10.0.2.10-250

And so on... How I can get this setup working?

Also, I want that clients on Router2 can see clients on Router1 and the Main router in two ways.. that is difficult to implement?

Thank you very much in advance for any help.

P.S. Sorry for my bad english.

If you are talking atout (3) WRT54G's then WDS does this for you, all on the same subnet.

 

[fdrgnmx]

Yes, I know. The problem is, with WDS I can only connect 10 WRT54G, but I need to connect more than 10 of them

 

[skyking]

WooHoo!
sounds like fun

 

[thebestbutter]

Originally posted by: WolverineGator

Originally posted by: ddmcdoodle
Alright guys, I got my router today from Amazon.com. I set up the router, connected all cables, reset it just in case, and uploaded this firmware which IS compatible with the new version 3 models of the WRT54G: http://wrt54g.thermoman.de/FreemanBasic_V1.0.4_wrt54g.zip
It is a modified version of the Sveasoft Talisman firmware, which works on v3 routers, and it is absolutely free (compared to the $20 you have to pay to get basically the exact same thing from Sveasoft). [snip] I set everything up according to your guide in the first post, and now I've got my WRT54G running as a wireless bridge for my Windows PC, my Linux box, and my Playstation 2. Thank you user1234, you have changed my life!

There is no option for Gateway operating mode and there are 2 client modes so I couldn't complete steps 5 and 6:

5. In "Setup::Advanced Routing" screen, make sure operating mode is "Gateway".

6. In "Wireless::Basic Settings" screen, set Wireless mode to "Client".....

How did you get FreemanBasic_V1.0.4_wrt54g.zip to work?

Set the mode to client-routed in the wireless settings page. That is the only thing I did differently, but it works fine.

 

[imported_cram]

Originally posted by: ddmcdoodle
Set the mode to client-routed in the wireless settings page. That is the only thing I did differently, but it works fine.

I've also done all you suggested (set wireless mode to client-routed and all the steps that i could from the first post) but it still wont work. The main router assigns me an IP address but I can't ping it or access the internet. Is there something I need to do the main router to get the client to talk to it?? I'm running Free-Man 1.04 on a wrt54g v3....

Also, my laptop connects fine to the main router...i'm very confused.

Thanks in advance for the help.

 

[xtc1]

Here`s my problem
I need to do this: LAN-WRT 54g (AP)- WRT 54g (client)- Video recording device . (Unimo 204)
Tricky part is how to make recording device accessible in lan? I need that device will be visiable in LAN and that decive could see LAN too.
Would enyone to be so kind to explain me how to do it? I hope that explanation will be very simple to understand. (Step by step) Starting with LAN router IP(192.168.1.1) and will finish to the device IP

 

[candlebox1369]

i read this entire forum and tried so many time to get this darn bridge to work.

I have a belkin pre-n router and was trying to bridge wrt54gs v2 with talisman 1.0.4
Could not get it working until a few posts back when ddmcdoodle posts:

"Set the mode to client-routed in the wireless settings page. That is the only thing I did differently, but it works fine."

....i had the darn thing on client-bridge...

I reset both and put in all the settings with that minor diference and it works!
this howto kicks ass...thanks everyone

Questions
1) I have a WDS at a different location (two linksys routers). Does anyone know if I can add a bridge to main router and have my WDS at the same time or can I only choose one or the other?
2) For a router that acts as a bridge, mac address must be entered in main router if filters are enabled. But for WDS, I have it working with MAC filters enabled but without each router's MAC in the other router. Is this because it just repeats the signal?

I can post detail steps of how i set up WDS if anybody wants to know...it's just a little late and i go to work soon...

 

[candlebox1369]

to cram,

when i had the router on client-bridge, it would not get an ip from the main router. when i set it to client-route, it got an ip but i still could not go online. i then reset both and did it over again but right this time and it worked. maybe you can try it again?

 

[truk]

I followed this "howto" exactly and was 100% sucessful in using my WTR54g v3 x router as a network bridge. The only problem is having to reenter the routing command into my WTR54g after a power loss or glitch. Since it was linux I went ahead and tried Vi and found I could create a file called myroute.sh which lets me add the
echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf/`route | grep default | awk '{print $NF}'`/proxy_arp command without retyping it each time. I stored it in the /temp dir because it seemed a good place, but I am a linux newbie and am only just starting to laern about Vi and the file structure etc. Now all I have to do is type ./myroute.sh to add the command. My goal is to get this file to be automatically ran when the router is restatred. I am not sure how that is done yet and if someone would like to jump in that would be greatly appreciated.
For my home network I have 3 systems 2WXP and 1 Linux system downstairs using my main wireless router, an 811b Microsoft jobber, that was free after rebates. Upstairs is where my wife's computer , a W2K Pro box, lives along with a Dlink wired print print server that serves the whole house. Both my wife's PC and the print server are "wired" to the wrt54g which gets it's WAN connectivity from the MS router down stairs. Before having this set up I had the linksys router servicing my whole house from the upstairs and needless to say connectivity downstairs was weak with frequent outages. After finding this thread I dug my MS router out of the junk box and gave it a try with excellent results. Connectivity is strong upstairs and downstairs with my only problem being the routing info that lets my wife's downstairs laptop talk with her main PC and printer upstairs. This is bad because my wife is the toughest IT customer I have, and I work in the IT world, and if power glitches while I am away I inevtibly get the call asking why she can't reach her shares on her main PC upstairs. One last thing I had to do to get everything working was to add the hostnames for each computer to the lmhosts file on each system in order to map drives on other computers and so far everything works like a charm.

Thanks for the "how to"!!!!

 

[mikelish]

i am trying to get SMB (samba) networking to work for my xbox using Xbox Media Center. i had it working when my computer and xbox were both hooked up the wrt54g. now I put my computer on the dlink router. I can FTP into it but I can't get SMB to work anymore. maybe I didn't setup something correctly on my xbox.

 

[jamesmc]

Hi all,

I hope I?m not repeating anyone here, but couldn't find an answer for this particular case. I know a little bit about networking and IP addresses, but am definitely nowhere close to an expert. Hopefully whoever answers this will also help someone with this particular case as well. Thanks so much in advance!

Configuration:

1) Main Router Upstairs: WRT54GS: Statically 192.168.1.1/255.255.255.0 with Linksys Firmware and connected to a cable modem via the WAN port.
1b) This main router connects to a Windows XP computer upstairs called ?\\TYAN? given an IP Address via DHCP (I?d rather it not be static, but if it must be, then it must be) which is a File and Print server.

2) Secondary WRT54G Router Downstairs acting as a Wireless Bridge with Alchemy Firmware, configured step-by-step via user1234?s guide on Page 1 (ps: thanks user1234). This secondary router currently has the IP Address of 192.168.0.129/255.255.255.128. If this address needs to be changed, I am okay with this.
(I have also tried making this router 192.168.1.129/255.255.255.0, but the connected computers would not appear to connect to the Internet.) The secondary router?s DHCP server would give connected computers downstairs IP addresses above 192.168.1.140 per user1234?s directions.

The question is: I would like to give the secondary router?s connected computers access to simply type \\TYAN instead of typing whatever IP address that computer currently has, to access its shared files and printer.

Is this (hopefully) doable? If so, may I ask what steps are needed to do this? Thank you sooo much!!

[ps: ddmcdoodle- to answer your question, I was able to install this successfully on a v.3 router]

James

 

[kkennedy070790]

turn WRT54G into WET54G:
You need a firmware that has telnet ( I use DD-WRT ).

Starting w/factory defaults..
On the Basic setup page, disable STP
under Router IP, set the local ip to something not on your network (admin IP)
disable the DHCP server
click Wireless setup tab - basic settings
Wireless Mode: AP, Mixed, ssid does not matter (yet), set correct channel,ssid broadcast does not matter either..
click administration tab - Telnet enable
reboot the router..
set your ethernet card to static (temporarily) give it an ip address on the network of the admin IP (see above)
telnet to the admin IP
login as root (admin password)

~ # wl ap 0 (this puts the wireless card out of Access Point mode and into 'Ad-hoc')
~ # wl wet 1 (this puts the wireless card into bridging..)
~ # wl join netWork (join your network.. SSID goes here, if you are using WEP just do wl join by itself for options..)
~ # wl status
SSID: "netWork"
Mode: Managed RSSI: -37 dBm noise: -97 dBm Channel: 7
BSSID: 00:11:95:34:E8:8B Capability: ESS ShortPre ShortSlot
Supported Rates: [ 1(b) 2(b) 5.5(b) 6 9 11(b) 12 18 24 36 48 54 ]


~ #

thats it - now set your local network card back to dhcp, the main routers dhcp server will give you a new address.

I have no idea how to "save" this config, if the WRT54G is rebooted, you will need to telnet in again re-do the above commands...

Kenny

 

[Hav0k99]

hmmm I'l think about it.

 

[kkennedy070790]

HyperWRT 2.1b1 has a startup button on the administration page, if you put your commands in that window, it saves between reboots!

 

[DidlySquat]

Originally posted by: jamesmc
Hi all,

I hope I?m not repeating anyone here, but couldn't find an answer for this particular case. I know a little bit about networking and IP addresses, but am definitely nowhere close to an expert. Hopefully whoever answers this will also help someone with this particular case as well. Thanks so much in advance!

Configuration:

1) Main Router Upstairs: WRT54GS: Statically 192.168.1.1/255.255.255.0 with Linksys Firmware and connected to a cable modem via the WAN port.
1b) This main router connects to a Windows XP computer upstairs called ?\\TYAN? given an IP Address via DHCP (I?d rather it not be static, but if it must be, then it must be) which is a File and Print server.

2) Secondary WRT54G Router Downstairs acting as a Wireless Bridge with Alchemy Firmware, configured step-by-step via user1234?s guide on Page 1 (ps: thanks user1234). This secondary router currently has the IP Address of 192.168.0.129/255.255.255.128. If this address needs to be changed, I am okay with this.
(I have also tried making this router 192.168.1.129/255.255.255.0, but the connected computers would not appear to connect to the Internet.) The secondary router?s DHCP server would give connected computers downstairs IP addresses above 192.168.1.140 per user1234?s directions.

The question is: I would like to give the secondary router?s connected computers access to simply type \\TYAN instead of typing whatever IP address that computer currently has, to access its shared files and printer.

Is this (hopefully) doable? If so, may I ask what steps are needed to do this? Thank you sooo much!!

[ps: ddmcdoodle- to answer your question, I was able to install this successfully on a v.3 router]

James

sure, you can just add it to your hosts file (usually c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts) - add a line that looks like

TYAN 192.168.1.10

The resolver alsways looks at this file before querying the dns server when trying to resolve a domain name.

 

[DidlySquat]

Originally posted by: fdrgnmx
Hello user1234,

Your tutorial is great, I got the setup working on two WRT54G routers with Alchemy firmware.

But I have a question.. I want to setup a sightly more complex configuration, something like this:

Main router IP: 10.0.0.1
Mask: 255.255.255.0

Router1 IP: 10.0.1.1
Mask: 255.255.255.0
Clients attached: 10.0.1.10-250

Router2 IP: 10.0.2.1
Mask: 255.255.255.0
Clients attached: 10.0.2.10-250

And so on... How I can get this setup working?

Also, I want that clients on Router2 can see clients on Router1 and the Main router in two ways.. that is difficult to implement?

Thank you very much in advance for any help.

P.S. Sorry for my bad english.

Connecting multiple client routers should be possible. For you configuration to work all you need to do is set the subnet mask of the MAIN router to 255.255.240.0 so you can have up to 15 client routers with IPs 10.0.x.1 where x is between 1 and 15. Keep the subnet mask of the clients as 255.255.255.0 as you mentioned. If you want up to 255 clients you can set the subnet of the MAIN router to 255.255.0.0.

 

[ericzwiep]

great work user1234. it was hard to find instructions on how to set the wrt54g as a bridge like indeed the wet54g.
One thing remaining as question for me is, the wet54g allows you to choose from severall available networks, signal strength included. You do not need to know the settings op IP addresses mac etc from this particular available router as the wet54g shows you this already and adjusts to it. So no hassle and the wet54g does the connection trick for you.

Would this be possible for the wrt54g as well??

Would be great as I bought a wrt54g wanting to do the trick the much more expensive wet54g does!!

thanks,

eric!

NOTE:

I did manage to get connect to a belkin54g router..without knowing the IP or SSID.
could have been a lucky shot but still searching for none secured networks....