Help needed (and correct my terminology) - using old DSL model as wireless 'bridge' to LAN

Forums › LAN (ethernet/Wifi/routers/Bluetooth) › Help needed (and correct my terminology) - using old DSL model as wireless 'bridge' to LAN

timbosan

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#196699 9-Jun-2016 18:49

Hey all,

I am after some help with 2 things:

1. The correct terms
2. How to do it

What I want to do is use a spare DSL modem (I have a couple to choose from) to connect to my existing LAN (Unifi based) and use the LAN ports on the modem to connect devices that live in the garage, without having to run LAN cables out there.

I cannot remember the correct terminology, is this a wireless bridge? I am not looking at a extender and I have tried Powerline devices without too much luck (I even wrote a paper on doing that for one of my post-grad courses if anyone is interested).

So can I do what I want? This what I want to do ( ~~~ is the wireless signal):

LAN -> Unifi ~~~~~~ (spare modem) -> lab servers connected via Ethernet

I have a Thomson TG858 and a Technicolor TG589v2, as well as a Huawei HG630b.

Jase2985

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#1568887 9-Jun-2016 19:10

i dont think your spare modem will be able to do this, its quiet a specialised thing

timbosan

1731 posts

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#1568897 9-Jun-2016 19:20

Jase2985:

i dont think your spare modem will be able to do this, its quiet a specialised thing

Back in the day (5+ years ago) I have a device that did exactly this, but it was a single Ethernet post and only 802.11b. Do you think I can bridge the modem to achieve this?

Jase2985

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#1568899 9-Jun-2016 19:22

given most recent modems dont have an option to join a wireless network i doubt it

Jase2985

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#1568902 9-Jun-2016 19:24

and especially if its ISP supplied i highly doubt any ISP's offered one that does this

richms

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#1568905 9-Jun-2016 19:34

WDS is what you need. But I dont think you will have much luck on an ISP supplied modem, more so on a generic one like a TP link, or tenda or other chinese brand that doesnt stray too far from the reference firmware, or something you can flash openwrt onto.

Alternativly just buy a wifi extender that has an ethernet port, they will usually do some mac address translation where they fudge with arp frames and other things to make the whole lot of connected stuff appear as a single mac address to the rest of the lan. This breaks many things like dlna and similar.

Richard rich.ms

timbosan

1731 posts

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#1568922 9-Jun-2016 19:42

richms:

WDS is what you need. But I dont think you will have much luck on an ISP supplied modem, more so on a generic one like a TP link, or tenda or other chinese brand that doesnt stray too far from the reference firmware, or something you can flash openwrt onto.

Alternativly just buy a wifi extender that has an ethernet port, they will usually do some mac address translation where they fudge with arp frames and other things to make the whole lot of connected stuff appear as a single mac address to the rest of the lan. This breaks many things like dlna and similar.

You mean something like this?

http://www.trademe.co.nz/computers/networking-modems/wireless-networking/routers/auction-1102215213.htm

richms

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#1568926 9-Jun-2016 19:49

Possibly, if you want to be sure of compatibility get 2 the same, one for each end of the bridge. There are some tales of people doing WDS to other things ok on the unifi forums that you could have a read. Its not something that you can do in the gui.

Richard rich.ms

Jase2985

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#1568929 9-Jun-2016 19:56

could you not get a second unifyi device and run a wireless mesh network?

timbosan

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#1568932 9-Jun-2016 20:02

Jase2985:

could you not get a second unifyi device and run a wireless mesh network?

I do have a second Unifi (primary is UAP-PRO, my 'spare' is a UAP). How would I go about setting that up?

Jase2985

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#1568935 9-Jun-2016 20:06

read the literature?

i dont have unifi so cant help there

timbosan

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#1568979 9-Jun-2016 20:52

Jase2985:

read the literature?

i dont have unifi so cant help there

No worries! And a quick google turns up this:

https://help.ubnt.com/hc/en-us/articles/205146000-UniFi-Set-up-UAPs-in-wireless-uplink-topology

Looks quite easy, less than 10 minutes to have everything working! Now to try it....

richms

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#1569028 9-Jun-2016 22:04

When I last did it, was as easy as factory reset and configure it to your controller, then move it, and power it on and after a while it will show as something else in the list of APs. I recall I had to press something to find it once, but most of the time it has just appeared as something else in the list of APs and have just had to click on it and then choose to wireless uplink it to whatever one I needed. It messes around a bit provisioning things many many times and then its online. Took a while so just let it do its thing with the AP it is uplinking to.

There was talk that using the ethernet port on them to go out to other devices was not supported and they turned that off at some software revision, but I believe it is turned back on again.

Richard rich.ms