Linksys experts...a bridging question concerning AP's

General Questions
#1

I’m hoping someone on this board knows a bit about Linksys AP products, specifically their Wireless-G Broadband Router product. The question is…can you have AP talk to each other (i.e. can they act as a bridge) by themselves wirelessly, or do you need to buy an actual wireless bridge product to tie them together? One of my customers insists you CAN do this, but I’ve looked over the unit and done a bit of research and I don’t think it will work this way. However, I thought I’d check here as sometimes 'dopers know some surprising things. I don’t want to use a third party firmware upload (I found one guy who says you can make the unit do what I’m trying if you upload an unauthorized firmware patch).

So…AP to AP via wireless. Can you do it with this equipment?

-XT

#2

I do not think you can do this wirelessly easily, but I think it can be done–i.e. have the second wireless AP connected wirelessly to the first and acting as a second AP.
http://forum.osnn.net/printthread.php?t=56951 , e.g.

I personally use the Linksys WRE54G Range Expander to increase the range of my Linksys AP. Works fine.

I am not an expert and just fumble along, so take it for what it’s worth…

#3

The folks on the board found on this site:

Can almost certainly answer your question. It is 100% dedicated to linksys products, and there are a few linksys employees that contribute. You may well need to figure out WHICH version of the 54g router you have before the question can be answered. There are FAQs and tutorials there that explain this.

#4

You want to buy two Linksys wireless access points, and use them as a bridge, so they’re like a long piece of magical transparent cable, and other wireless devices aren’t parties to their private bridge conversation? Yes, you can do this, at least with (IIRC) their WAP11, which I used 2 of a couple years ago to do exactly this. You put them into wireless bridge mode through their setup pages. Though, there is something slightly funny about it. I remember looking at a network storage device that warned that due to some problem they were working on, you couldn’t talk to the device if you tried to do it through a wireless bridge.

There was a software bug years ago that caused people’s emails to be randomly deleted if the second letter in their username was “k”. I bet that’s involved here, somewhere, too.

#5

I don’t think you can do it without a different firmware. (Or a more expensive unit.) I used DD-WRT to wirelessly bridge my two Linksys WRT54G routers at home and it totally works. Like a charm. The DD-WRT interface and abilities are way better than the original. It has bridging, free SpeedBoosting, non-US channels, telnet, blinkenlight control, signal scanning, and more.

You didn’t say why you don’t want to use 3rd party firmware, but it’s free, easy, and better, so I recommend reconsidering, if possible.

#6

Some Linksys devices have bridge mode and client bridge mode, but I have a feeling you need to match them with another identical Linksys device at the other end.

As J Cubed says though - dd-wrt can do it very easily (and it’s better than the standard firmware in so many other ways too) - I just installed a second hand WRT54G on which I installed dd-wrt and I’m using it as a bridge to a totally different router - I’m doing it this way because I can’t seem to get any wireless networking to function in Linux, so my machine needs a wired ethernet connection, which the bridge provides.

#7

I am using a couple of Linksys Access points (standard firmware) as a bridge to get wireless to my TV (XBox360 and Showcentre 1000) - works a charm.

What distro are you using - my Kubuntu laptop install is streets ahead of Vista on similar hardware in terms of wireless connectivity. My wife gets fed up with Vista not connecting, while I am almost always connected from laptop wakeup. YMMV.

Si

#8

I’m using Ubuntu 7.04 - I know wireless support is improving, but it still seems pretty much pot luck. I don’t want to use ndiswrapper and although there is a list of fully-supported devices, it’s almost impossible to buy a wireless adaptor by chipset - because manufacturers change chipsets without altering their model numbers - and also because a lot of the supported devices are supported because they’ve been out there for a while (and aren’t available in that form at the stores anymore).

The bridge is a better solution anyway, I think, as there are a bunch of other reasons why I want wired ethernet at my desk - especially when I’m tinkering with old machines, or other people’s hardware.