M300 Bridging Help

jd1 · 2016-03-04T05:52:57.000Z

I’m trying to get a new M300 router configured to act as a repeater/bridge to a main network. Ideally I would like to bridge the WAN, LAN, and 2 WIFI connections together all onto the same network subnet. The main network address range is 192.168.55.xxx. What I want to do is to get the WAN & LAN ports bridged together onto that network address space, and to be also bridged to the main router over WIFI in repeater mode. The main router will act as a DHCP server on that address range. It would also be nice to have a connection directly to the router on the M300 WIFI radio also so that it would act as a range extender. Originally I configured the router WIFI and had it working as a stand alone router, but when I went into the “Advanced settings >>” bridging area and started to bridge the networks all together something went wrong and I lost all comms to the router and had to reflash the firmware. Obviously I did something wrong. Has anyone done anything like this before and be willing to share some tips?

Thanks,

JD

rangerz · 2016-03-04T10:56:51.000Z

Very simple answer is relayd.

Routers with a single radio don;t seem to like to do what you want.

Start here, but there are a number of articles to read: Routed Client with relayd (Pseudobridge) [Old OpenWrt Wiki]

Different chip sets support different capabilities, and I do not know what this supports, but for my RT5350 this was the route.

Or you can install a USB radio and simplify things.

alzhao · 2016-03-04T11:44:26.000Z

@JD, by mentioning “2 radio” do you mean you connected a second radio (wireless card) to the router?

I think the settings are simple, don’t need relayd.

But don’t do this in Luci, it may have a lot of wrong settings.

Just modify your /etc/config/network

config interface ‘lan’
option ifname ‘eth0.1 eth0.2’ #bridge eth0.2, which is the WAN
option proto ‘static’ #you can just set to DHCP if you don’t need this IP to be static
option ipaddr ‘192.168.55.10’

Now disable DHCP in /etc/config/dhcp

config dhcp ‘lan’
option ignore ‘1’ #add this line

Then restart your network or reboot.

frietpan · 2016-03-05T15:59:59.000Z

Do you want to relay on the same Channel or on a different Channel?

If you use different channels that may be an issue if you have just 1 radio. Not sure if the SoC in the M300 has more capabillities ?

The thing is this: the radio can only be tuned into 1 channel at the same time. If you keep everything at the same channel then it should work.

jd1 · 2016-03-09T00:56:40.000Z

I’ve done some more reading on this and what I want to do would be called “Bridged Client” mode. A good diagram of this is on the OpenWRT website @: Bridged Client [Old OpenWrt Wiki]

The problem is that the MT300 is Etheros based and not Broadcom, so that particular configuration won’t work. There is however another page that discusses the Atheros bridging method: Atheros and MAC80211 WDS to implement a wireless network bridge (wireless repeater) [Old OpenWrt Wiki]

It appears that the MT300 is supporting this bridging method as I got it to work for a little bit, but the WIFI and LAN ports were not bridging properly. I could connect to another router as a slave to a wifi network and have the MT300 still broadcasting it’s own network that I could connect to. I would like to say that it is brilliant being able to connect and bridge to another network while hosting another WIFI network. I think the Atheros has 2 network stacks that can be used to broadcast/connect to 2 separate networks using the same radio. That is what I was meaning by having 2 WIFI connections, even though there is only one radio in the MT300. Look at it as having a regular WIFI network and then another “guest” network that is separated out. I love that feature of the MT300, very nice.

One of the little problems that I have is to figure out how to do the command line editing of the “<span style=“color: #222222; font-family: source_sans_proregular, ‘Helvetica Neue’, Arial, Helvetica, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; background-color: #f9f9f9;”>modify your /etc/config/network”</span> part of the router. I’m not quite that level of Linux yet. I’ll try to get the time to figure it out soon as it looks like I’ll need to be able to do that. If there was a way to modify & copy those files easily from the router maintenance web page it would be much easier for novices such as myself. Even better would be to have graphics & links to the OpenWRT site that tells the different modes/examples and then just copies the appropriate “recipe” files.

Another good article I was reading was on the “Client Mode Wireless” methods of bridging @Client Mode Wireless [Old OpenWrt Wiki]

It is being a fairly steep learning curve on the MT300 router, but so far I’m pretty impressed and happy with it’s capabilities as a great little multifunction router. Thanks for the help and making a great router.

rangerz · 2016-03-09T03:00:05.000Z

In windows there is a utility called WinSCP which is like a file manager GUI with a built in text editor. Much easier than VI. Not sure what is in Linux distro. Try SCP.

Be careful with (atheros)WDS. It works with the same hardware\chipset on both sides. It works with some other chipsets, but not all. You need to check what is in your other router. There have been some other recent posts on this in the OpenWrt forum (last few weeks). Search the forum for WDS and you will find a few on the first page, but this is probably what you want. OpenWrt Forum Archive

More info here. Scroll right to the bottom to the Wireless Configurations
trac.gateworks.com/wiki/OpenWrt/wireless

alzhao · 2016-03-09T09:53:42.000Z

MT300N is not Atheros, it is MTK. But I expect the driver is similar so it works with WDS.

We are modifying the UI to support WDS (Bridged client)

rangerz · 2016-03-09T11:40:03.000Z

My mistake, thinking about my ar-150

jd1 · 2016-05-14T05:56:43.000Z

Hello Again,

I now am the proud owner of a matching pair of MT300N routers. What I’m trying to do is to get the LAN ports on the two routers bridged and connect two hardwired ethernet devices together with wireless bridge. It would be PC Computer ->|LAN port -MT300- WiFi repeater|<–>|Wifi Access Point - MT300- LAN port| <- Multifunction Printer.

I have the one router set up as a normal access point and then connected the second to the first as a wireless repeater. I then connected the PC to one LAN and the Multifunction Printer to the LAN of the second MT300. When I connect to the wireless of the WIFI repeater I can see and ping the PC, and when I connect to the Access point I can ping and see the Printer, but the printer on the on LAN can not see the PC on the other LAN port.

Is this a firewall issue or ??

Thanks for the help!

rangerz · 2016-05-14T22:46:57.000Z

I think you need to look at these wiki pages

https://wiki.openwrt.org/doc/howto/clientmode#bridgedclientmodeissues

https://wiki.openwrt.org/doc/recipes/relayclient

I think that WDS would be the direction if supported by the hardware, as you have 2 identical devices.