WiFi in, ethernet out?

Question

I have a small network of devices connected to a router, some through Ethernet, some through WiFi. I would like to provide internet access to this network via a nearby campus wide private WiFi 802.1X network (but I don't want to connect each of my devices to the campus wide network), how could this be done?

Answer 1

There's two basic ways to accomplish that.

Option 1: NATTED; I believe this is what you want.

• Purchase a second wifi router/bridge that supports WPA2 dot1x (may be pricey).
• Connect router 2 to the campus wifi and bridge that traffic over to your Existing router on the WAN port.

On the primary router, it should pick up an IP from the campus WLAN and NAT your clients out behind it so that from a campus perspective, they only see one user (your primary router).

Option 2: Bridged; Start by converting your existing wifi router into a bridge to simply connect clients to your LAN and not serving internet. This is generally accomplished by disabling DHCP on the router and making sure nothing is plugged into the WAN/Internet port.

Purchase a second wifi router or wireless bridge. This device will connect to the campus network, and hardwire into your network. If it is bridging your network with the campus network, each device on your network, weather wired or wireless will pull an IP address from the campus (assuming that they allow multiple IPs per user) and the campus router will be the default gateway for your LAN.