Wireless Bridging help

Post by **Foo** » Sun Jan 07, 2007 2:44 pm

I've set up my PC in a room where there was a telephone socket, with the intention of hooking my ADSL router up to the socket and wiring my main PC in directly.

Unfortunately, the socket had a dial tone last week and now it doesn't. So I've had to move the ADSL Router back to a room on the other side of my flat.

I can temporarily run ethernet across the flat, but it's no permanent solution. I'm hoping I can solve this with a wireless link across the flat. Since I don't have a wireless NIC for the PC, I was hoping it's possible using the ADSL Router's wireless, and a wireless access point I have lying around unused.

The problem is that the Router is 3com and the AP is DLink. I have no idea if this is possible with dispirate vendors, and my wireless skills are rubbish.

Anyone able to give me a conclusive 'yeah this will work if you do xyz' or 'no, you can't do that', so I don't spend hours messing to no avail, as I've done before with this kind of setup

Post by **ilumos** » Sun Jan 07, 2007 4:21 pm

Most access points wont be able to talk to eachother, unless they have a "bridge" or "repeater" mode, so depending on the model of your two APs this may or may not be possible.

So yeah, what's the model number for them both?

Post by **Foo** » Sun Jan 07, 2007 4:27 pm

D-Link Access Point DWL-900AP+ and 3Com Router "OfficeConnect ADSL 11g Firewall Router" (3CRWDR100A-72).

I do also have a DWL-810+ bridge which would be perfect for what I want to do, except it seems to have completely and utterly broken firmware. So broken that I can't actually re-flash the unit.

Post by **Foo** » Sun Jan 07, 2007 5:41 pm

Hmm. I might have the 810+ working again. Which if it is, that's good, cause the DLink AirPlus kit is supposed to work together well.

but my bridging knowledge is embarassingly poor. if I have 2 network segments and I'm going to bridge them wirelessly, do I need a DHCP on each segment, and does each segment take the same subnet? *eyes cross*

Post by **ilumos** » Sun Jan 07, 2007 8:22 pm

I'm no networking expert, but in my experience you can have 1 DHCP server, and run both network segments on the same subnet (and have all the hosts get assigned an IP), so your 810+ should be ideal for what you want to do.
Here's D-Link's support page to make life easier. I'll just see if your two APs can talk to eachother.

Post by **Foo** » Sun Jan 07, 2007 8:26 pm

Will probably have to invest in another AirPort bridge unit, the 810 has gone screwy again.

I have vague memories of a bad firmware flash years ago and it's been in the closet ever since. Plus dlinks support FTP is down, both the US and UK sites.

DLink is suck.

Post by **+JuggerNaut+** » Sun Jan 07, 2007 8:42 pm

yep, like ilumos said you can run them both on the same subnet if you have a dhcp server. and yeah, dlink is shit, although i use my old one for an access point upstairs. it unfortunately doesn't support bridging or acting as a repeater from what i could gather and dlink support is non-existent for anything that's over a year and a half old, so no help there. mine was unstable as fuck, but i was able to find some firmware i ftp'd from GERMANY that stated it being the next firmware upgrade. lo and behold it's been stable as an access point where as before, it would reboot on its own several times a day.

Post by **ilumos** » Sun Jan 07, 2007 8:46 pm

Your 900AP+ supports bridged mode, but your 3com does not, so if you set up your 3com as the main ADSL modem, and had the 900AP+ connected to your PC via ethernet crossover cable, you could connect wirelessly that way, should you wish. Unfortunatley not the other way round though.

Post by **ilumos** » Sun Jan 07, 2007 8:53 pm

Yeah, Dlink are pretty shit, all my experiences with their hardware have been bad, and all i've heard about them has been worse. Linksys and Netgear are better I belive.

Instead of buying another 810 (i think they're discontinued anyway) you could get a Linksys WET54G or just one of their many PCI wireless cards (scroll down a bit here)

Post by **Foo** » Sun Jan 07, 2007 8:56 pm

I'm able to do that if I can figure out the correct way to configure it for that scenario. The 900AP+ has the following modes:
"Access Point"
"Wireless Client"
"Wireless Bridge"
"Multi-Point Bridge"
"Repeater"

I'm guessing the way to go is "Wireless Client", but then there's no guidance on what I set the PCs IP address and the AP's LAN IP to.

Also thanks Jugg, I'll check .de

Post by **+JuggerNaut+** » Sun Jan 07, 2007 9:05 pm

np man, i'll check and see if i can't spot exactly where i got it from when i get home and see if i can find something for your model.

Post by **Foo** » Sun Jan 07, 2007 9:51 pm

Ahahaha what the fuck, I'm having the worst luck in the world on this thing.

The original problem with the 810+ was that the WLAN light was strobing. It would start very faint then strobe up until it was bright, then jump back to dim again (sawtooth wave pattern of brightness) in about a 5-second cycle. During this time, the web interface for the device would seesaw up and down and it looked like the device was just in a cycle of rebooting.

Through sheer luck, I figured out today that if I didn't plug the wire into the device, and left the machine plugged in for about 1 hour, then i could plug the cord in and run a firmware upgrade to recover the device.

OK, so, all happy and shit, the old fucked device works.

So I log into the 900AP+ and run through the wizard, set the device up to bridge to another device. Device restarts. Guess what?

Strobing saw-tooth brightness WLAN LED on the front of it. Only this time, not plugging in a wire doesn't stop it.

F. F. S not my day.

Post by **Foo** » Sun Jan 07, 2007 10:02 pm

Lol, rescued this one with some tFTP ninja type shit.

I'm never buying DLink products again, cause this is an utter joke. One wrong move on either device and it turns into a hockey puck.