[Discuss] OpenWTR Problem

[kentborg at borg.org (Kent Borg)]

I bought myself a Gl inet travel router box, not for travel, but as an 
OpenWRT box to use as a network extender. I've done this multiple times 
before, including with OpenWRT, and it works. But not this time.

What is "this":

- I have a wifi box that is working.

- For the new box I plug nothing into the WAN jack.

- I connect from a LAN jack on the new box to a LAN jack on my old wifi box.

- Turn off dnsmasq so this box doesn't do DHCP nor DNS.

- Set the SSID on this new box the same as the current box.

- Turn off all the firewall stuff I can find on the new box. (There is a 
lot of stuff in this new box, I think I am being tripped up by something 
"clever" in there.)

This set up works for three different handy Android devices. They can 
connect to either wifi box and roam to the other.


But this does *not* work for my Debian notebook:

- If I try to connect to the new box the wifi part seems to connect, but 
it looks like it never gets a DHCP answer.

- If I connect to the old box and then roam to the second I will get 
dumped and the wifi menu show it is searching for a hotspot.

- If I give the new box a distinct SSID it does the same; my notebook 
can't get an address on the new SSID (but my various android devices all 
can get an address and work).


Suggestions?


Thanks,

-kb


P.S This new box has features for extending wifi networks, but they seem 
to do it by doing wifi to wifi, adding more traffic to the band. I want 
to use ethernet to connect the new box upstream, not wifi. Always gotta 
be different?