This arrogance is really interesting reading back. Extender's issue is that it EXTENDS the wifi SSID and rebroadcasts it and does allow you to connect to the ports on it directly for a bridge; however, issues come up with the broadcasting of the SSID. Cannot find any way to tell this router to not broadcast the repeated base router's SSID, which is actually causing issues with machines and where some devices see each other on the network and others don't until you go back to near the base router and away from this bridge. I 100 percent saw from the first question what they were saying because it is an issue and the GL.iNet staff is not taking time to understand how normal people try to use this as the advertised wireless bridge. The definition that you all have for wireless bridge is not accurate for what people are looking up and is misleading becuase there isn't a true bridge mode. The modes are a WIFI REPEATER mode, which causes issues.
I don't really get what the issue is, tbh.
Extender will extend - so the SSID will be the same.
Repeater can repeat, but you can choose which SSID you like since it works in WISP mode.
So what exactly is the issue?
A router is a router, not some repeater as people might know from tp.link and Co.
I read the post again and I think I answered the exact questions and posted the exact solutions.
Then cgl has a more complicated setup and didn't resolve.
I replied to CyborgSocket's question about PoE and I am not sure what is the problem is there.
Extending wifi is a difficult process. There is no IEEE standard for this function. Regular wifi transmits with 3 MAC addresses, (sender-transmitter-receiver-), the 4th needed MAC address is missing: the (-destination). For regular wifi the receiver is also the destination.
Each vendor solves it it's own way. 4-address mode , AKA wifi-bridge mode, is a vendor dependent implementation.
The only common standard is WDS mode, but this WDS can give security-encryption-different settings between different vendors.
Extending wifi then uses quite some tricks to make it work. The receiver is a "pseudo bridge" (AKA 2.5 level bridge) with one MAC to multiple IP addresses. The pseudo bridge will redirect based on the IP address, to the correct local MAC, if and only if that device communicated first to populate that IP-to-MAC table.
DHCP , with it's 2 MAC addresses (receiver MAC in the header, destination MAC in the DHCP payload) creates confusions. It is the first protocol to suffer in a 3-MAC communication.
Workaround are 1: Use WDS, 2: Use a DHCP relay, 3 Use local DHCP with a shared subnet, 4: Create a layer 2 tunnel over that wifi link (L2TP, EoIP, MPLS/VPLS, PPTP, Zerotier, ...) 5: Use router mode with the needed NAT and forwarding.
Same problem here,
Router as AP with only one cable in LAN.
Vlan 30 configured in switch with cpu tagged and lan ports tagged
Wifi bridged with vlan on eth0.30
The device does not communicate with the uplink over cable to get the ip address.
Also double checked with another openwrt router with the same configuration, works perfectly.
I know this is months later, but I figured this issue out. I first plugged my laptop into the LAN port, then used the default "router mode" to acquire my main network wifi signal. The I went to the "wireless tab" and turned off the SSID broadcast networks. Then I switched modes to "Extender". I went to the web interface after the switch and verified that the broadcast SSID's remained off. They were. Did some testing.... I am now on the main network via LAN with an IP issued from my main router, and no conflicting SSID's broadcasting from the iNet router. This SHOULD be spelled out more clearly in the manual. I've been at it for HOURS. Hope this helps someone.
Came here to say that I have the same problem. @akshunj Your configuration did not work for me.
Searching for "WiFi to Ethernet bridge", i find two companies: BrosTrend and Vonets that have consumer options on Amazon for this. Apparently, the old LinkSys EA5400 can do a wireless bridge as well.
I might go with the EA5400 or keep looking.
Would have preferred to stick with GL.inet, but I will be returning it.
hi @alzhao , I just bought the SFT1200 and am running into similar problems as others on this thread. From a clean factory reset, on FW v4.3.25, I was able to set up Extender mode under Network, and my PC connected to the SFT1200 via LAN can reach the internet and reach my main router after disconnecting and reconnecting. However, the IP that my PC got is not on the main router's DHCP table, and my PC doesn't show up on the main router's client list. Same goes for a printer that is connected to the SFT1200 via ethernet. So it doesn't look like it's a transparent bridge, since the SFT1200 is assigning its own IP addresses and my main router can't see the devices under it.
Also, from the main router's network, I can't reach the SFT1200 admin page. The only way I seem to be able to do this is if I connect the PC via ethernet again AND set my PC's IP to the same subnet as the router had originally (192.168.8.x).
Can you please help?
Hello,
May I know if the SFT1200 in router mode, and if is the repeater connects to the primary WiFi without issue?
@bruce thanks for the response. The SFT1200 is in extender mode. It connects to the primary wifi without issue.
I did a bit more digging and it looks like in extender mode, it’s filtering out/hiding the client MAC addresses from the router upstream, so my main router isn’t able to see the devices connected through the SFT1200 distinctly. How do I make it pass the MAC addresses through like a true transparent bridge?
Hi,
Thank you for the more tests.
As you mentioned, the SFT1200's extender mode cannot be used as a transparent bridge. In fact, the extender works at layer three, and then shuts down the dhcp server itself, just forwarding data to the primary router.
The current firmware does not support transparent bridging of wireless extender. Only wired AP supported this.
Truly sorry.
@bruce it looks like @akshunj was able to figure it out. Could you please confirm?
I plan to buy two Flint 3 routers with one as main and the other as a Wifi Bridge. I'm hoping this functionality exists.
If routers both are the same model/Flint3, please try using WDS mode in sub one to connect to the main one.