WDS & Client Bridge Repeater w/wrt54gl

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BillP
Posts: 1
Joined: Sat Nov 07, 2009 4:47 pm

WDS & Client Bridge Repeater w/wrt54gl

Post by BillP »

I have a pair of wrt54gl's I'm trying to set up as Gateway/Bridge+Repeater pair.

Any recommendations on most reliable way to do this?

If I set up the primary wrt54gl as a gateway and set up the second unit as a bridge using Client Bridge mode (without the repeater), all goes well.

If I activate the repeater in bridge mode, or try to link the units using WDS, I run into trouble. I lose my connection to the wireless signal after a few minutes.

Note that I'm just setting this up as a test, so the units are about 25 feet from each other and both use the same channel. Mistake?

Love Gargoyle. Am looking to install it on about 20 wrt54gl's that I'm running in a school, and just want to understand best way to expand wireless coverage if needed.

Thanks.

Bill

Eric
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Posts: 1443
Joined: Sat Jun 14, 2008 1:14 pm

Re: WDS & Client Bridge Repeater w/wrt54gl

Post by Eric »

You're right -- this is a serious problem. It seems both repeater mode (though not bridge mode) and AP+Client is broken on Broadcom hardware.

I've spent some time today looking at this. This is an definitely an OpenWrt issue -- this configuration worked in 7.09, but it looks like it's broken in all 8.09 versions (e.g. anything even remotely recent). I will try to figure out what's going on, but wireless issues are always a nightmare to fix. This is currently one of my top priorities, if not my single top priority, since I'd really like to get things working properly on all supported devices.

grogi
Posts: 11
Joined: Wed Apr 07, 2010 12:32 am

Re: WDS & Client Bridge Repeater w/wrt54gl

Post by grogi »

Eric - what is the status of that issue?

Did you manage to have it fixed?

Eric
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Joined: Sat Jun 14, 2008 1:14 pm

Re: WDS & Client Bridge Repeater w/wrt54gl

Post by Eric »

Unfortunately, no. I've tried quite a bit to find a fix that generally works, but eventually gave up. The switch to a newer broadcom driver in 8.09 generally screwed everything up (since these configurations worked under 7.09). The eventual solution may be to wait for the open-source b43 driver to become fully stable (it's being tested in Backfire, but I'm not convinced it's ready for prime time), and use that instead of the proprietary crap we're currently stuck with.

Anything that requires both an ap and client section like these two configurations require seems to be broken for broadcom devices (but work fine for atheros devices).

AP by itself, client by itself, and wireless bridge mode still work ok, it's just these multiple AP+client configurations (wds, ap+client, repeater) that cause problems on broadcom hardware.

grogi
Posts: 11
Joined: Wed Apr 07, 2010 12:32 am

Re: WDS & Client Bridge Repeater w/wrt54gl

Post by grogi »

Eric - I just don't want to push too much...

I was just wondering, if following acrobatic solution could work...
1. Getting the wl and nas (4.80.53) packages from 7.09 Kamikaze release
2. Compiling the kmod_wlcompat module for the old wl.o driver with the most recent kernel.

Theoretically it should allow to enable the Apsta, WDS etc modes, while rendering the newest hardware unusable. Another build target should solve that issue...

And the new driver does screw not only the Apsta/wds modes - virtual SSID don't work on corerev<7 anymore. Command 'wlc msssid 1' fails... :|

Eric
Site Admin
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Joined: Sat Jun 14, 2008 1:14 pm

Re: WDS & Client Bridge Repeater w/wrt54gl

Post by Eric »

It's possible something like that might be able to work, but I'm really not sure. It would be a huge headache and require a lot of trial-and-error debugging.

At the very least, I'm not going to worry about it until I'm finished moving Gargoyle to Backfire.

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