[HH] Resend: DD-WRT 'Client Mode' 'Client Bridge' with Atheros chips

[Kurt Keville]

You have posed an excellent academic question which may best be inexpensively avoided as you have suggested in the dslreports thread. In similar scenarios I have seen engineers put together some "bank shot" solutions to bridge networks, like when they put a wireless backbone down the staircase at the Roosevelt Hotel at HOPE 5...   http://www.the-fifth-hope.org/5hwiki/WiFi . There are certainly (expensive) dual-radio combos that are of a sufficiently low enough frequency that the occasional brick wall should prove to be less of a problem either figuratively or literally. http://www.ubnt.com/ makes incredibly powerful radios... 900 Mhz at 1W can overcome some difficult masonry issues... are you using bridge-utils or is there a more recent package for wireless bridging?

"It shoots through schools" - Danny Vermin (in Johnny Dangerously)

On Aug 20, 2012, at 9:03 PM, Phil C. wrote:

> Kurt,
> 
> Thank you.  Apologies aren't necessary.  I'm grateful for any help.
> 
> Per the dslreports forum post,  the current thoughts are to maybe to try
> making a repeater instead, or get my friend to buy a set of  Ethernet over
> house wiring adapters.
> 
> Phil
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Kurt Keville [mailto:kkeville at MIT.EDU] 
> Sent: Monday, August 20, 2012 8:47 PM
> To: Phil C.
> Cc: hardwarehacking at blu.org
> Subject: Re: [HH] Resend: DD-WRT 'Client Mode' 'Client Bridge' with Atheros
> chips
> 
> I will ping some folks I know over at the OpenFenway project
> (http://www.openairboston.com/fenway). It seems to me they went through this
> exact problem once back in the day. Their distro (OpenWRT / Open-Mesh) has
> common roots with DD-WRT and the drivers for their usually Atheros chipsets
> was nominally madwifi or madwifi-ng if memory serves. Broadcom chipsets use
> a different driver (HostAP maybe?) so it wouldn't surprise me if their
> implementation of client mode differs. Apologies for the walk down memory
> lane... 
> 
> On Aug 20, 2012, at 5:38 PM, Phil C. wrote:
> 
>> I emailed this message before I confirmed my subscription to the 
>> hardware hacking mail list. So I'm sending it again. (Apologies if you 
>> get a
>> duplicate)
>> 
>> 
>> I posted these questions on the DD-WRT forum a week 4 days ago and no 
>> one can help, so I will ask here.
>> 
>> I was trying to make a low cost bridge that has external antennas to 
>> help my friend whose Trendnet 4 port media bridge is not receiving a 
>> wireless signal that well.
>> 
>> I picked up a Rosewill (Newegg) RNX-N300RT. The hardware is identical 
>> to the TP-Link TL-WR841N V?. It uses an atheros chip.
>> 
>> I flashed it with this firmware:
>>> ftp://dd-wrt.com/others/eko/BrainSlaye...P2/2012/
>> 
>> I followed the wiki Client Bridge instructions:
>>> www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Client_Bridged
>> 
>> to set up a bridge with my WRT-54GL as the primary router (running V24
> sp2).
>> 
>> I can get the N300 to maybe connect once after finishing the wiki 
>> instructions. After that, it does not work. I am seeing a lot of 
>> receive errors on the N300 status.
>> 
>> HOWEVER, >www.dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/viewtopic....9#702019
>> describes using "CLIENT MODE" for the TP-Link TL-WR841N V7 which is 
>> the brother unit of the Rosewill, but I'm not sure if the Rosewill 
>> RNX-N300RT hardware matches the TL-WR841N V7 or V8.
>> 
>>> www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Bridging
>> says that Client Bridging is better than Client Mode, BUT SAYS that 
>> Client Bridge DOES NOT WORK with Atheros chips.
>> 
>> So is this telling me why I can't get client bridging to work?
>> 
>> And client mode should work?
>> 
>> TO FURTHER muddy things, I read somewhere that if the host router is 
>> Broadcom based that it will not communicate well with an Atheros based 
>> client.
>> 
>> Can anyone shed some light on Client Bridging/Client Mode with Atheros 
>> wireless routers?
>> 
>> MORE DETAIL ON THIS ISSUE IS CONTAINED IN this DslReports post that I
>> started:
>> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r27438567-DD-WRT-Client-Mode-Client-Br
>> idge-w
>> ith-Atheros-chips~start=8#27443841
>> 
>> Thank you.
>> 
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> Hardwarehacking mailing list
>> Hardwarehacking at blu.org
>> http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/hardwarehacking
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Hardwarehacking mailing list
> Hardwarehacking at blu.org
> http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/hardwarehacking

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.blu.org/pipermail/hardwarehacking/attachments/20120821/c38d2c88/attachment.html>