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Author Topic: Connecting two wireless networks together? Bridging? How?  (Read 27303 times)

tomb18

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Re: Connecting two wireless networks together? Bridging? How?
« Reply #15 on: January 23, 2010, 06:03:52 PM »

Thanks for the info.  However the solutions you mention all require a seperate device which will act as a bridge.  While this will work, I need to have a portable setup that is compact.  I suppose I could connect the bridge into the dir 655 at home, this would be a solution.

I just saw another product, the d-link dap-1360.  It seems that this device can act as a wireless n AP and bridge wirelessly to another wireless router at the same time.  My guess is that this device, since it acts as a bridge, will still allow the ad-hoc onnection I have to the other client on the same wireless network.  This is what I need, since I cannot afford any loss of throughput.

ASny comments on this device?

Thanks
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pender

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Re: Connecting two wireless networks together? Bridging? How?
« Reply #16 on: January 23, 2010, 06:31:54 PM »

The bridge will not intefere with the 655's operation or configuration but merely provide internet to the 655 clients; therefore any bridge will not interfere with the 655's ad hoc's clients.
Other store bought bridges are DAP 1522/WGA600N/WET610N.  DD-WRT is cheaper and more robust because it can also act as a repeater or gateway and likely has better throughput because most off-the-shelf bridges are hit or miss and throughput is generally lower because they are tweaked for better compatibility. You can also configure the DD-WRT to reconnect to the network when it loses connection - any anyone who has used a bridge appreciates this.  Do this in the Admin Tab -> Reconnect-> WDS/Connection Watchdog.

When you are on the road do you want internet too?  It is not very feasible to use a bridge on the road even if it were natively built-into the 655 especially with captive portal wireless networks like in coffee shops/hotels.  In that case you should just buy a secondary USB 802.11n wireless adapter for your laptop to get internet.  You can buy a cheap new one for $30 like a TP-Link or an older 802.11g off craigslist for cheaper.

If you don't need internet while on the road then just get a bridge and leave it on 24/7 and plug the 655 into it when you arrive at home.
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tomb18

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Re: Connecting two wireless networks together? Bridging? How?
« Reply #17 on: January 23, 2010, 06:54:52 PM »

However, the DAP-1522, requires wired clients, and does not  with wireless clients and bridging at the same time. Same thing with wga600n, and the other wet610n.  They all take wired devices .  Sure they weill work but they will all require another wireless router.

When I am on the road I do not need internet, just a wireless adhoc connection to the device plugged into the lan port of the wireless router.

Ok, even the link you showed about dd-wrt and the wireless bridging, shows "wired clients".  I do not wasnt this. I want one box, which will both act as a wireless access point AND a wireless bridge.  Cost is not an issue (compared to the telescope and CCD camera...even a laptop is cheap!)

Ok, assuming that dd-wrt software can do what I wand, can I use the DIR 655?  I'm willing to give this a shot  since I will most likely not use it anyways.
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tomb18

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Re: Connecting two wireless networks together? Bridging? How?
« Reply #18 on: January 23, 2010, 07:32:18 PM »

Hmmm, here's another stupid question...you mention getting  a second wireless adapter for access to the internet.  I didn't know that this is possible...You mean I can use my built in adapter to connect adhoc to my telescope and then use another adapter to connect to another wireless network that has internet???
Excvuse my ignorance...I'm a NOOB.
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lotacus

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Re: Connecting two wireless networks together? Bridging? How?
« Reply #19 on: January 23, 2010, 07:46:55 PM »

dd-wrt has a feature where it will act as a client and AP. No wires needed.

and to answer your other question, yes, you can have two wireless cards and connect to two different networks at the same time.

That's about as compact as your are going to get.
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tomb18

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Re: Connecting two wireless networks together? Bridging? How?
« Reply #20 on: January 23, 2010, 07:52:34 PM »

Well then, that settles it! A simple wireless n USB adapter for use at home, connected to my home ssid while the other is connected to my "mobile router"
Anything special that has to be done in WIndows 7?

Thanks everyone, for all the suggestions.  This is by far the simplest, smallest and cheapest!
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pender

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Re: Connecting two wireless networks together? Bridging? How?
« Reply #21 on: January 24, 2010, 12:45:12 AM »

As for acting like a client and access point at the same time, switch the DD-WRT to Repeater Bridge instead of just a Client Bridge and add a virtual SSID (Infrastructure or Ad-Hoc or both).
http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Repeater_Bridge
Again this applies to 802.11n networks as well.

As for Dual WLAN NICs in Windows 7, change the priority of NIC so that the adapter connected to the net is first otherwise Windows may not use the proper one when attempting to gain WAN access and give you an error.  These are Vista instructions but should be the same for W7
http://www.windowsreference.com/windows-vista/change-network-adapter-priority-in-vista/
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tomb18

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Re: Connecting two wireless networks together? Bridging? How?
« Reply #22 on: January 24, 2010, 11:32:02 PM »

Well I bought a dlink usb wireless n dual band adapter and I cannot get the two wireless networks working together. I can connect to both, but I am unable to access the internet or the devices on the other network.  Each adapter will access the internet or the devices as long as the other one is not connected.
I know that there must be somne fundamental problem with what I asm doing but I still do not have a solution.
Any ideas on getting to wireless networks to work simultaneously?

THANKS
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lizzi555

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Re: Connecting two wireless networks together? Bridging? How?
« Reply #23 on: January 25, 2010, 12:02:34 AM »

Quote from: tomb18
Well I bought a dlink usb wireless n dual band adapter and I cannot get the two wireless networks working together.......Any ideas on getting to wireless networks to work simultaneously?

You can only connect to one network at a time - not both frequencies simultaneously.
This is how this adapter (DWA-160) works.
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lotacus

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Re: Connecting two wireless networks together? Bridging? How?
« Reply #24 on: January 25, 2010, 09:52:40 AM »

I have a PFSense Firewall on a separate physical network, and then my regular network.

I have my old dir655 as an access point to the PFSense Firewall and my internal laptop card connected to that access point.

I have my dwa160 connected to the regular network.

I am able to access the PFSense network and the regular network. Check your ARP table. Use the command arp -a. You should have entries for both. Try pinging the gateway of both connections. Here's what your response should look like:

Interface: 192.168.1.244 --- 0xc
  Internet Address      Physical Address      Type
  192.168.1.1           02-bf-00-00-00-00     dynamic
  192.168.1.255         ff-ff-ff-ff-ff-ff     static
  224.0.0.22            01-00-5e-00-00-16     static
  224.0.0.251           01-00-5e-00-00-fb     static
  224.0.0.252           01-00-5e-00-00-fc     static
  239.255.0.1           01-00-5e-7f-00-01     static
  239.255.255.250       01-00-5e-7f-ff-fa     static
  255.255.255.255       ff-ff-ff-ff-ff-ff     static

Interface: 192.168.0.253 --- 0xe
  Internet Address      Physical Address      Type
  192.168.0.1           00-24-01-df-06-5b     dynamic
  192.168.0.255         ff-ff-ff-ff-ff-ff     static
  224.0.0.1             01-00-5e-00-00-01     static
  224.0.0.22            01-00-5e-00-00-16     static
  224.0.0.251           01-00-5e-00-00-fb     static
  224.0.0.252           01-00-5e-00-00-fc     static
  239.255.0.1           01-00-5e-7f-00-01     static
  239.255.255.250       01-00-5e-7f-ff-fa     static

C:\Users\Administrator>ping 192.168.1.1

Pinging 192.168.1.1 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64

Ping statistics for 192.168.1.1:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 0ms, Maximum = 1ms, Average = 0ms

C:\Users\Administrator>ping 192.168.0.1

Pinging 192.168.0.1 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time=3ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64

Ping statistics for 192.168.0.1:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 1ms, Maximum = 3ms, Average = 1ms
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tomb18

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Re: Connecting two wireless networks together? Bridging? How?
« Reply #25 on: January 25, 2010, 03:34:00 PM »

Hi Thanks for the info.
I now have it working.  My arp table is like yours.  The issue I had, was that both network adapters both had default gateways    and were on the same subnet.  I changed the network on the router connected to the telescope and set the dwa160 to use a static address and removed the default gateway.  It now works fine.
However, there is still an issue (there are always issues...).  The DWA160 has nowhere need the sensitivity of my laptop intel wireless -n (signal stregnth 12% on dwa and 55% on the intel at one location I use the computer). Thus thoughput is severly effected when using the dwa.  This would not be an issue for access to the internet, but since both adapters have different network settings (one using dhcp and the other static addresses, I cannot switch between them without reconfiguring the adapters each time I want to connect to another AP.
Why si this necessary?
Consider my home network is connected to the internet.  If I want to use the dwa to connect to it, I have to set it up to use dhcp.  I then can use the faster throughput laptop adapter to connect to the telescope.  However, if I want to use my laptop to connefft to my home computer using the built in adapter, I have to remove the static address, add the gateway and then connect.

Looks like I may still need to go the dd-wrt route for the simplest setup.  Does this firmware have higher throughput that the standard dlink software?
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tomb18

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Re: Connecting two wireless networks together? Bridging? How?
« Reply #26 on: January 25, 2010, 07:26:55 PM »

Issue is finally solved!

Windows 7 and vista allow an alternate tcpip configuration setting for each adapter in the system (adapter>properties>tcpip v4>alternet settings).
Now for each adapter, I set one as dhcp and the other with static addresses and no default gateway.  One the telescope server, I set the router up without dhcp.  Then whichever adapter connects to the telescope server (remember it has no internet), it will not find a dhcp server so it will use the static settings.  I can then use the other adapter to connecvt to the internet which has dhcp enablerd.

In summary, thanks to the many people here who helped, I have the issue solved.  I can now connect to two networks with two wireless adapters and have the internet and my telescope under control.

A special thanks to lotacus!!!
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davevt31

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Re: Connecting two wireless networks together? Bridging? How?
« Reply #27 on: January 25, 2010, 08:40:10 PM »

Good Deal.  If you see a giant Asteroid heading toward the planet give the forum users a heads up  ;D
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tomb18

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Re: Connecting two wireless networks together? Bridging? How?
« Reply #28 on: January 26, 2010, 03:16:20 PM »

Good Deal.  If you see a giant Asteroid heading toward the planet give the forum users a heads up  ;D

Well, if I could I would direct it straight at Microsoft head quarters!!!!

All is NOT well with my config.  There is a bug in the Windows 7 implementation of DHCP and the "Alternate COnfiguration" tab of the tcpip v4 settings.

This is the way it is supposed to work if you set DHCP on in the primary and set a static IP in the "Alternate configuration"

If you attempt to connect to a network and a DHCP server is present, an IP address is assigned as expected. If a DHCP server is not found, and you have a static address assigned, windows is supposed to use the startic address in the alternate configuration.  However, this doesn't always work.  Instead Windows uses the APIPA which is the automatic ip address assigment to a private IP range of 169......Thus is completely ignores the static settings and thus does not connect.  Attempting to set AutoConfigurationEnable in the registry to no, results in not getting a connection at all.

Thus windows 7 = stupid vista since this is also present in vista.

I am back to square one.  I need a router that will offer ap wireless and wireless bridge at the same time.

Locatus, can you recommend an excellent (in turms of signal strength and sensitivity and throughput) wireless-n router that can take dd-wrt?  Time to go that route!
Thanks
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lotacus

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Re: Connecting two wireless networks together? Bridging? How?
« Reply #29 on: January 26, 2010, 05:39:42 PM »

I just picked up a wrt160N for 40.00 (open box mind you) and the first thing I did was load DD-WRT on it. I haven't tested how stable it is with connections, but I have it configured so that it acts like a wireless card. So i can put a cat5 cable in the back of the router and have a connection. So really other than the size of it, it's no different than having a wireless usb stick. Essentially it's acting as a wireless bridge. It has the option to act as a AP and client-bridge as well so all you need is a power cord (and cat5 for initial config or if anything goes wrong), and away you go. So all you really have to do is leave it in one location as the router will be connected to an AP and at the same time, you will be able to connect to it.

So you will just need your laptops wireless card.

If you are going to shop around for dd-wrt compatible routers, it's best to go to the dd-wrt website: http://dd-wrt.com/site/support/router-database and look up a model you are interested in. It helps if your in the store and that store has internet access on their computer display models, that way you can just look it up while your there.

Most all linksys routers can be loaded with DD-WRT however, some linksys models have less memory than others, so it's difficult to tell what the feature set is for each version of dd-wrt. ie: micro, mini, standard, huge, nokaid etc.. However I do believe all types of bridging are supported in all builds of dd-wrt.
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