[PLUG] Question on OpenWRT and wireless bridging
Russell Senior
russell at personaltelco.net
Sun Dec 1 14:31:39 UTC 2024
My flashbacks have eased off enough that I was able to read further
down your email. The behavior of "working until a reboot" implies the
possibility (likelihood?) that the flash is so full that there isn't
room to persist changes to the writable filesystem and your
configurations are just sitting in a tmpfs. If you can get an ssh
session on them, check "df -h".
My recommendation is to douse these things with some gasoline and
light them on fire, get something more modern with more flash and ram
that's supported. I saw an Archer c7 (dual-band 802.11ac, 16MB SPI-NOR
flash, 128MB ram) on ebay for less than $25.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/276759564551. A generation older, you can
find WDR3600's (dual-band 802.11n radios, 8MB SPI-NOR flash and 128MB
ram) for $15. Eldo has mentioned Extreme Networks WS-AP3825i devices
with PowerPC cpu, 801.11ac radio, 64MB (NAND, probably) flash, and
256MB ram, also ~$15.
I recycled all of my old 4MB devices, except one or two mint-in-box
WRT54G's, which are waiting for a museum. Stuff with only 32MB of ram
have become basically unusable anymore and I've been shedding them as
well.
--
Russell Senior
russell at personaltelco.net
On Sat, Nov 30, 2024 at 9:44 PM Ted Mittelstaedt <tedm at portlandia-it.com> wrote:
>
> Hi All,
>
>
>
> So I have a network that (among other things) has several devices on it that
> have ethernet only ports and are not conveniently located to be able to run
> cable to them.
>
>
>
> So for a number of years I have made do with so-called "wifi-to-ethernet"
> bridges using DD-WRT.
>
>
>
> DD-WRT had a nice "client bridge" selection in it's GUI that with one click
> would allow you to create a client bridge.
>
>
>
> Unfortunately, a few years ago Broadcom made some changes in their binary
> blob wifi drivers and it damaged the house of cards that client bridging was
> built on.
>
> (DD-WRT supports Broadcom devices you see, and these devices used to be far
> more common on the used market)
>
>
>
> The 10/28/2021 release of DD-WRT is the last reliable release that supports
> a client bridge on Broadcom gear. In recent years the client bridge
>
> Functionality has been completely eliminated in favor of "station bridge"
> from DD-WRT even on Broadcom gear.
>
>
>
> DD-WRTs "Station Bridge (routed)" configures the "relayd" daemon and it
> works well on devices such as
>
> The TP-Link TL-WR940ND v4/v5 and the Linksys WRT400N which OpenWRT USED to
> support but now turns up it's nose at. OpenWRT also
>
> Supports relayd. Unfortunately, "Station Bridge" is only reliable if you
> have ONE device behind the wifi AP while the old "client bridge"
>
> That was in the Broadcom driver allowed more devices. Fortunately, these
> older AP's are cheap enough to use 1 per device.
>
>
>
> Anyhoo, I came into position of 2 little Netgear WNR2000v5 wifi routers and
> decided it was time to see if I could duplicate this functionality on
>
> OpenWRT. (DD-WRT does not support these models, unfortunately)
>
>
>
> I loaded version 18 of OpenWRT onto these devices (there is a
> user-contributed build of OpenWRT for this model out there that thoughtfully
> includes the
>
> Relayd daemon) and dug up the instructions here to do this:
>
>
>
> <https://gist.github.com/AzimsTech/fee582c7c5a89e9295e78f4c8bbda824>
> OpenWrt Wireless Network Bridge (With IPv6 Support) . GitHub
>
>
> <https://wiki.terrabase.info/wiki/WRT_Router_Series_Wireless_Client_Bridge_M
> ode_with_OpenWRT> WRT Router Series Wireless Client Bridge Mode with OpenWRT
> - Wiki.TerraBase.info
>
>
> <https://www.nerd-quickies.net/2019/08/20/setup-lan-wlan-bridge-with-openwrt
> -luci/> Setup LAN/WLAN Bridge with OpenWrt (LuCI) (updated) - Nerd Quickies
>
>
>
> After sorting through the various misconceptions in these instructions I
> came up with these instructions - and they work - with one small problem:
>
>
>
> 1) Factory Reset router (either from command interface or from hidden reset
> button on bottom)
>
> 2) Make sure the 18. lede special build of OpenWRT is loaded on the router
>
> 3) Configure PC with 192.168.1.80 and secondary IP of 172.16.100.80
>
> 4) Login to router and set password (system, Administraton)
>
> 5) Network, Interfaces set Ethernet interface to 172.16.100.8. Clicking
> Apply, Unchecked never works here.
>
> 6) Once it takes, remove the secondary IP address
>
> 7) Put in Gateway and Custom DNS servers
>
> 8) Set Ignore DHCP for ethernet interface
>
> 9) Network Wireless, remove master interface
>
> 10) Wireless, Scan, Join Bit O Heaven network (set encryption to AES)
>
> 11) Status, make sure it's associated, Diagnostics Ping 75.75.75.75 make
> sure it responds
>
> 12) System Startup , relayd enabled
>
> 13) Network, Interfaces, Add Interface, name stabridge. Protocol Relay
> Bridge, Submit
>
> 14) In Relay Between Networks that appears, dropdown lan and wwan check
> both save and apply
>
> 15) Network Firewall, Zones Add, name bridgezone change Forward to Accept,
> in covered networks select Lan wwan, save & apply
>
> 16) Change static IP in PC back to DHCP and it should get an address, should
> work
>
>
>
> The small problem is that even after saving the configuration - once the
> router is rebooted - the client bridge does NOT work
>
> On restart. Relayd is running, the firewall and additional interface is
> there, everything seems to be in order - it simply does not
>
> Pass packets. I can telnet into the router and ping the Internet, it does
> re-associate with the wifi network.
>
>
>
> I can factory reset the router and rebuild the config again - and it works -
> passes packets and so on - until reboot.
>
>
>
> The DD-WRT routers configured as station bridges have no problems with
> saving their config and restarting station bridging.
>
>
>
> I am wondering if POSSIBLY the problem might be in some kind of startup
> ordering issue - that is, relayd has to be started after
>
> The AP has associated - or after the soft interfaces are created - or
> something.
>
>
>
> Of course, it would also be cool to build a newer OpenWRT for these devices
> - there ARE community built versions of OpenWRT 22
>
> For 4MB flash devices such as the Netgear WNR1000 and the WNR2000v3, - so it
> is possible to do it (if you delete the non-essential stuff) But,
>
> This is a basic networking function and I don't think the versions of things
> are too old.
>
>
>
> Anyone have any suggestions?
>
>
>
> Ted
>
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