Is this possible

[orion7144]

I am needing to add multiple ports to a different location in my house that is not even remotely possible (without tearing out walls) to run a cable. I have seen several different models of wireless routers that can act as an AP. Can you use the DHCP function in these at the same time to add ports? Maybe configure the AP with a different subnet?

Thanks

 

[jvnk]

Originally posted by: orion7144
I am needing to add multiple ports to a different location in my house that is not even remotely possible (without tearing out walls) to run a cable. I have seen several different models of wireless routers that can act as an AP. Can you use the DHCP function in these at the same time to add ports? Maybe configure the AP with a different subnet?

Thanks

I'm not really understanding what you're trying to do - are you just trying to expand your home network availability to include parts of your house that you can't reach with wires? If so, setting up a wireless AP with a WiFi-ready router is quite simple and just the solution. DHCP still works over WiFi as well.

 

[orion7144]

That is basically it. I have a spare Airlink 101 AR690W that I can use. I was just looking for some clarification. Here is a general diagram of my network. The Airlink that is in use in this diagram is upstairs and connects to a switch that has a long cable run on the outside of my house. The room that has the powerline adapter that connects to the 5 port switch is the room I need better coverage. With my laptop in that room I can connect to either wireless (dlink or Airlink) at 270mbs so that is why I was thinking instead of using the powerline crap I could just use another wireless N router/AP. I was not sure if the ports on it would work as a switch.

So I guess in a short and sweet way is to say I want to connect to one of my wireless networks with something that will give me more ports.

 

[JackMDS]

Using a Wireless Router as a switch with an Access Point - http://www.ezlan.net/router_AP.html

 

[orion7144]

Unfortunately I can not do this as I stated I can not run a cable. I am looking into media bridges (I need the throughput) but unfortunately they are pricey.

Originally posted by: JackMDS
Using a Wireless Router as a switch with an Access Point - http://www.ezlan.net/router_AP.html

 

[VirtualLarry]

Do what I did. I bought two Netgear WNR834B v2, flashed to DD-WRT mini, enabled WDS on both, and viola. I can connect my two halves of my wired network together over Wireless-N. I can also connect to the wireless-N with my laptop.

 

[rakstr]

While WDS will work, you need to realize you can impact your throughput as both links use the same airspace to transmit and retransmit.

I noticed you're only using 4 ports in the attic switch. I did a similar thing to get my garage covered. I use an Airlink 680 in multiple places like this. Basically it becomes a dumb switch with wireless access. Hopefully the behavior of the 690 is close enough to the 680. I've done this with other hardware as well so I'm pretty sure you'll be OK.

Allow your D-Link 4500 to be the only DHCP server in the network. Replace the GigE switch in your attic (AGIGA5SW-B) with the 690 using ONLY the LAN ports. Disable DHCP on the 690 and give the unit a base address (Router IP) something like 192.168.15.2. Go to your main router and either begin your IP Pool at >= 192.168.15.3 OR go into the Static DHCP settings and assign 192.168.15.2 to the MAC of the access point (I use the static IP method to remind me of the IP I give each router). Even though it will never ask for an IP, this will reserve it so you get no conflicts. For Wireless, I give the the attic AP the same SSID and WPA2-PSK as the "home" unit allowing my laptops to lock on the best signal. I also give it a different channel number (remember only channels 1,6,11 should be used). For the 690 WAN port, set it to use DHCP to get an address and uncheck "always renew" to prevent the attic AP from trying to route unknown addresses to the WAN. The only downside I've found is that you can't set NTP as it wants to send a packet to the WAN. I check the "set from your Computer's clock" and everytime I log in to the router it gets updated. If you have a power fail, the logs will have bad dates until you log in. Small price to pay IMHO to eliminate the problems WDS can cause.

I have a third router set the same way at the other end of the house. Each router is set to a different channel (1, 6, and 11), and all DHCP requests get forwarded up to the main router as expected. I've now got a single network for wired and wireless throughout the house and the yard! Unless you needed the separate network on the 192.168.15.X side, you could merge it in the same way.

A minor point.... I stay away from the 192.168.X.X pools as too many devices seem to play in that space. I use the 10.X.X.X space. It's a VERY minor point. I spent many hours one day quite some time back trouble shooting only to find out my DSL modem had grabbed an address in the same range as my network on the LAN side

Hope this helps.

 

[Madwand1]

Originally posted by: orion7144
The room that has the powerline adapter that connects to the 5 port switch is the room I need better coverage. With my laptop in that room I can connect to either wireless (dlink or Airlink) at 270mbs so that is why I was thinking instead of using the powerline crap I could just use another wireless N router/AP. I was not sure if the ports on it would work as a switch.

Have you measured the actual throughput over wireless and compared it to the powerline? "270 Mb/s" wireless is very misleading as that's the connection speed and the actual throughput will be much lower.

E.g. using iperf version 1.7:

server: iperf -s
client: iperf -c server -l 64k -t 15 -i 3 -r

If you find that wireless is giving much better performance, then look into wireless bridges, not access points. Some access points do have bridging capability, but it's the bridging functionality you need, not the access point functionality, which any wireless router can also do.

E.g. a D-Link DAP-1522. E.g. a compatible Linksys running DD-WRT in client bridge mode. The WRT610N is a work in progress and not currently supported by DD-WRT, but the older WRT600N is available as clearance/refurb, and might do the job -- you have to check model and revision carefully for compatibility with DD-WRT. The selection gets broader and cheaper with single-band devices, and these might get you better performance over distance and obstructions. DD-WRT would give you a lot of flexibility at the cost of setup complexity.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: rakstr
While WDS will work, you need to realize you can impact your throughput as both links use the same airspace to transmit and retransmit.
(...)
Small price to pay IMHO to eliminate the problems WDS can cause.

Other than the slight bandwidth penalty, what other problems does WDS have? It forms what appears to the user as a seamless network, between wireless and wired devices. I dunno, it works just fine for me.

Also, it's not clear from your example how the "remote" routers connect to the "main" router, are they wired or do they connect wirelessly? If wirelessly, then how do you configure that, if they are on seperate wireless channels. That doesn't seem possible to me. WDS is a lot easier to configure than your example, and doesn't waste as much wireless airspace. (Useful, when there are neighboring wireless networks.)

 

[Madwand1]

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry
Other than the slight bandwidth penalty, what other problems does WDS have? It forms what appears to the user as a seamless network, between wireless and wired devices. I dunno, it works just fine for me.

Anything which does wireless repeating, such as WDS, potentially consumes a lot of bandwidth. Simple client mode wireless bridging doesn't do repeating, so if that's all you need, it would be the faster solution. It also has simpler hardware requirements on the router end (anything will work as the client mode bridge connects as a client), and doesn't suffer from some vendor-specific WDS limitations (e.g. some vendors only support WEP for WDS).

If you do need repeating, and get a WDS implementation which supports decent security (WPA2), then WDS is just fine.