Posted: Sat Mar 18, 2017 2:43 Post subject: At wit's end regarding repeater bridge
I am trying to configure my Buffalo WZR-HP-AG300H to bridge wireless-to-wireless, extending the coverage in my house. Bridging to the wired ports is not important to me. First I will tell you my background, my environment, and then what I have tried.
Background: I know IP networking deeply. I have been head of network research at a laboratory with a huge network of ethernet, token ring, FDDI, and wireless. (Now, of course, the token rings and FDDI are gone. Everything is ethernet of one sort or another.) I am the author of a number of RFCs. So feel free to speak tech to me. I'm not an expert on Linux. (I know BSD well.) I'm still feeling pretty new at DD-WRT.
Home environment: There's 2.4 GHz B/G/N access point, Arris brand, provided with U-Verse service. It has 20MHz channel width and automatic channel selection. WPA-2 PSK. The encryption type is not stated, but seems to be AES. This box does NAT and issues DHCP addresses .64 thru .253 in a /24. The AP/Router itself is .254.
I have followed the instructions in the Repeater_Bridge wiki page carefully, under the Qualcomm Atheros section, setting the ath0.1 SSID to be the same as ath0's, and ath1 disabled. I tried DD-WRT versions r31571 and r28493.
To be clear, ath0 is set for Client Bridge (Routed) mode with Network configuration Bridged, and ath0.1 is in AP mode, Network configuration Bridged. Bridge group br0 shows that it contains interfaces eth0, eth1, ath0.1. It does not contain ath0 and I think it should. I can't "ADD" ath0 to the bridge group through the web or the brctl program in the CLI.
The Buffalo will ROUTE just fine! I can tell it's routing and not bridging because my host's ARP table shows the Buffalo's MAC address for everything on the other side of the so-called bridge. That's not how it should be.
Also, multicast packets do not go through the Buffalo. This means that Apple Rendezvous services do not work. I capture packets with tcpdump on a host and I see that no multicasts are crossing the Buffalo.
I have tried with IGMP snooping on and with it off. (IGMP snooping is tricky to do right, and I don't have a high volume of multicast on the network, so I'm inclined to leave it off. But I gave it a serious try.)
I also tried making the SSID of ath0.1 different from ath0. That did not help anything.
Unicast communication within the house and to the internet works fine. The Buffalo is routing like a champ. But it is not bridging to ath0. (In my day, the word "repeater" meant something else than what DD-WRT uses the word for, but the Buffalo is not doing that either.)
Can anyone see what magic words I am missing from my configuration?
Many users have problems with the wiki for the client bridge routed because wrong. In the video the ddwrt version is too old. Note the difference: client bridge in the old version and client bridge routed in the new betas. To work in client bridge mode the ip of the client router with ddwrt must be in another subnet. Please correct the wiki.
Thanks, but that video pertains to a different configuration than what I want. It is for providing wired connections form the second unit.
I didn't check the video...but for Atheros devices, you have to set up the unit as a Client Bridge...then add a Virtual connection as an AP. This AP is your Repeater Bridge through the Client Bridge.
redhawk _________________ The only stupid question....is the unasked one.
