Sailboat Networking

Question

Greetings and thank you for reading this.

My current project is stretching my boundaries a little further than I expected, so I am hoping other minds can help bridge the gaps in my knowledge.

The sailboat has an on-board network for various devices, displays, sensors, etc, as well as a fairly standard wifi router. The skipper bought an Ubiquity Networks Bullet M2 outdoor wifi device that is capable of large distance connections on 802.11b/g. The intent is for this to act as a Router for the whole network to access the Internet when Land-based wifi is in range (in dock), but not rely on it for the rest of the on-board networking as it is a bit power hungry and not needed offshore.

My problem is that it seems that all the setup expects the Wired end to be the Internet-facing side, and the Wireless to be the Client-facing side. I don't know if that is a failure by me of choosing the wrong mode. I gave it a static LAN IP, set it for Station mode connected to a wireless network, and Network mode of Router. However, wired clients still can't route through it. Wireless clients just connect to the main wifi router that it connected to (partly because it isn't connected to its antenna on-board, testing setup at home, but it gets full bars when I put it next to the wifi router). Also, the end result expectation is for it NOT to serve Clients on the boat, that is for another device that will route through it when it is connected.

"Diagram":

ClientDevice->(boat)WiFiRouter--wire>>Bullet--wireless>>(Land)WiFiRouter-->>Internet

I expect that once I can get the Bullet to route FROM Lan TO Wlan, I can almost simply connect it to the WAN port of the wifi router to complete the setup, but I have this sticking point.

It is an odd corner of wifi and routing, thank you for looking.

Answer 1

Assuming I understand correctly (in which case the comments miss the point, although they are technically correct), you need to set the device up as an "external wifi adapter" (according to http://extendwifirange.net/ubiquiti-bullet-m2-titanium/using-the-ubiquiti-bullet-m2/ ), connected to the WAN port of your boat WIFI router.

Answer 2

Totally agree with this. You also sometimes find the device you're referring to sold as a "media extender." I agree, it's a pretty rare use case.

Do not provide the credentials or "Forget" them on the client devices to the dry-land router.

The client devices should not even be aware that the connection is bridged--only the shipboard router needs to know that its "WAN" interface is connected to the Bullet M2. The Bullet should connect successfully and hand over an IP to the WAN interface.