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Typically when you search about distributing wifi with >1 AP there is a talk of WDS, however, WDS suffers 2 problems - speed (if I remember correctly maximum is "g" speed) and limit on distance between any 2 APs.
Is there a guide (preferably specific to DD-WRT) on how to setup maximum speed Wifi (e.g. I have 2 450Mbps APs), either by using physical cables between APs or some other trick?
Alex
Posted 2012-06-12T03:42:57.197
Reputation: 973
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DD-WRT is very flexible so there are several ways of doing this. Since you want the maximum Wifi speed, you'll need to use physical CAT5 cables to "daisy chain" your routers:
Steps:
Do a hard reset on the second router.
If you want to connect two routers with an ethernet cable, so that all devices connected to either of them can communicate with each other, plug an ethernet cable into the LAN (Not WAN) port of each router, set the IP to the second router to the same LAN IP address as the first router PLUS ONE (eg. 192.168.1.2), disable dhcp on the second router, and set it to a different channel as the first.
If you want to connect two routers with an ethernet cable so that the clients on one router are isolated from those on the other you need to use IP table rules to do this fully. However, you can do rudimentary isolation by plugging the ethernet cable from the first router's LAN port to the second router's WAN port, set the IP of the second router to a DIFFERENT Subnet, (eg 192.168.2.1 - Plus one to third octet if using 255.255.255.0 as subnet mask) and leave dhcp enabled on the second router.
superuser
Posted 2012-06-12T03:42:57.197
Reputation: 3 297
Thank you, the instructions seem to be quite generic - do I need a special mode on the first or second routers if I want users to transparently move from one AP to the other (same SSID, etc) ? – Alex – 2012-06-14T02:06:03.713
In order to be transparent, you need to have the same SSID, your wireless security mode and broadcasting mode (B,G,N, etc) needs to be the same or your device won't jump from one access point to another without you having to manually reconnect it. – superuser – 2012-06-14T02:10:03.360
Great! :) One last clarification, so I do not need some kind of "Bridge" or "Router" mode set in DD-WRT on one or both AP for this to work? – Alex – 2012-06-14T02:19:12.433
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Yes, for both of the APs, you will need to set them to "Repeater Bridge" mode. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ud-Hq3kgvk4 This is very good reference video. That's was how I learned to set that up a few years ago and hopefully will help you too.
– superuser – 2012-06-14T02:30:43.960
What kind of hardware are involved for the 2 Wifi AP? A model number would be helpful for providing you with the exact solution. – superuser – 2012-06-12T03:54:08.323
@David, we have several models available for choosing, one is Buffalo N450 Giga with gigabit ports and DD-WRT firmware. – Alex – 2012-06-12T04:08:37.633