Repeater Bridge

A wireless bridge connects two LAN segments with a wireless link. The two segments are in the
same subnet & look like two ethernet switches connected by a cable to all computers on the
subnet. Since the computers are on the same subnet, broadcasts reach all machines. DHCP
clients in one segment can get their addresses from a DHCP server in the other segment.

Use a wireless bridge to transparently connect computers in one room to computers in a different
room when you cannot—or don't want to—run an ethernet cable between the two rooms.

A standard wireless bridge (client bridge) connects wired clients to a secondary router as if they
were connected to your main router with a cable. Secondary clients share the bandwidth of a
wireless connection back to your main router. Of course, you can still connect clients to your
main router using either a cable connection or a wireless connection.

The limitation with standard bridging is that it only allows wired clients to connect to your
secondary router. Wireless clients cannot connect to your secondary router configured as a
standard bridge. Repeater bridge allows wireless & wired clients to connect to a the repeater
bridge router, & through that device wirelessly to a primary router.

In the case in which we are interested, a secondary router running DD-WRT v24 is configured as
a Repeater Bridge between a Primary wireless router (of any make/brand/FW) allowing the
above configuration.

Assumptions:

Primary router is configured in a 192.168.1.X subnet & leases DHCP address in the same pool.
Secondary router is running DD-WRT v24

No security setup will be covered in this Wiki. It will be up to the user to setup security between
the Primary & Secondary routers

Note: If you are unsure of what you are doing, is advisable to practice by setting up the router
first in client bridge mode & get it working correctly. Client bridge mode is simpler but most of
the settings are the same. Once you understand how to set up a client bridge & have it working,
then proceed to setting up repeater bridge

[edit] D-Link DIR-615 D4

The forums are full of people having issues with getting this to work on the DIR-615 HW rev:
D4. I was able to get this working very easily using the latest brainslayer firmware (v24-sp2).
Less steps are needed for it also.

1. Restore Factory Defaults on Secondary (DD-WRT) Router

2. Do a proper HARD 30-30-30 Reset on the router.
3. Go to 192.168.1.1 & log in.
4. Go to the wireless tab.
o Choose Repeater Bridge under wireless mode.
o Match your SSID & channel settings exactly to the main router you will be
connecting to.
 o Make sure bridged is selected.
o Click Save.
5. Go to the Wireless Security tab.
o Match these settings to your main router exactly.
o Click Save.
6. Go to setup>basic setup.
o Choose a local IP in the same subnet that is not being used as your main router. If
your main router is 192.168.1.1 then as long as it is not in use 192.168.1.2 will
work. Assuming your ip is in this range the subnet will be 255.255.255.0 & the
gateway & local dns will be 192.168.1.1.
o Click Save
7. Click Apply

The router should immediately connect & both extend the wireless range but also the LAN ports
work & Internet should work

See also: http://www.dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=153372

[edit] Notes
[edit] SSIDs

Under "Wireless -> Basic Settings", you must use only the primary router's SSID for the physical
interface to connect wireless clients & create a new SSID for the virtual interface. You will be
able to tell which you are connected to as the two ssids MUST be different. (The only way to
have one seamless network with the same ssid is to use WDS which almost always requires
routers to support WDS & have at least the same chipsets)

[edit] The "half bandwidth" misunderstanding

Too many people make a big deal out of the half bandwidth oversimplification of the repeater
bridge setup. It's not that big of a deal, & not that complicated. A router can only talk to one
device at a time. So if the router is set up as a repeater bridge & it has active clients, the repeater
bridge router must talk to two devices- the client computer & then to the primary router. This
will effectively half the bandwidth available to the client computer, but it is no different than
having two computers on a single primary router. The router can only talk to one at a time, so if
both are active, it will only be able to talk to one at a time, effectively cutting the available
bandwidth in half. So it really is no big deal. I see people all the time who are concerned about
the "half bandwidth" issue, but are not at all concerned when there are two devices on their
network. It's the same thing. & only matters at all when the device is active (transferring data to
or from the wan).

[edit] Security

Dd-wrt will often not work unless BOTH the primary router & the secondary router use wpa2-
aes security ONLY. Wep will also often work, but it is not secure.

Keep in mind any security settings will need to be configured including MAC filtering in order
for the Secondary Router to connect to the Primary Router & also for clients connecting to the
Secondary Router to gain full access to the connectivity of the Primary Router. There are some
factors to consider when setting up Security for Client Bridge mode that may or may not be
factors when setting up Repeater Bridge mode. I simply have not experimented with this.
[NOTE {Montrealmike}]Also when your adding WEP,WPA,WPA2 etc... between the AP & the
repeater bridge you have to start with the AP first; then the repeater bridge.When you enable
security on the repeater click save not apply, then click on the administration tab scroll down to
the bottom & click apply settings. You will then have to power cycle the repeater twice ( unplug
& plug back in twice ) in order for the repeater bridge & AP to synchronize. This has worked for
four repeater bridges for me.

Edit - pmiller - I can also confirm the power cycling to sync the repeater to the AP. You can
confirm that the repeater has syncronized with the AP by going to the Status>Wireless tab on the
AP & viewing the MAC address of the repeater with some % signal quality value. Before doing
2 power cycles on the repeater, the MAC address would display on the AP's Status>Wireless tab,
but with 0% signal quality. After the power cycles the % quality displayed around 30%. I played
around with other security settings later on the AP & found the 2 power cycles to be unnecessary
after the 2 had originally sync'ed- no idea why this would work, but it did. I had some difficulty
at first because I had security enabled on the AP as WPA2-Personal Mixed, which is basically
WPA2-AES or WPA-TKIP simultaneously. The repeater is unable to connect with the AP in this
mixed mode; rather you must choose between WPA2-AES or WPA-TKIP . I have now switched
both my wireless security settings to WPA-TKIP (physical & virtual) just for simplicity, though
in theory the virtual need not match the physical. Your security is as good as the weakest link.
For those having trouble, I would turn off all security & turn on SSID broadcast first, then once
you get a good sync turn on security on the AP first, then

Edit - crandler - WPA2 personal mixed with Linksys WAG160N as DSL uplink with original
firmware & WRT160N with dd-wrt v24 std in repeater bridge mode does not function. Had do
switch both devices to WPA2 personal.

Edit - ytal - Using encryption for the bridged connection only works if I either use the same
encryption data (incl. ESSID) on the other (virtual) interface or do not use any encryption on the
virtual interface at all. If set differently, the wireless link to the base station fails. Base station is
a Speedport W500V / Targa WR 500 VoIP (http://forum.openwrt.org/viewtopic.php?id=5774)
with the original Telekom firmware.

Edit - RamonBuckland - I found that setting the security to off worked first. But WPA2 Personal
did not. I then lowered the key refresh to 15 seconds (same Wireless Security settings tab) on
both routers & applied. They then found each other. One would figure if I were patient enough
(to wait 3600 seconds, 1 hour) then it would have worked. So .. I think the key renewal is what
throws them. I have it now working WPA2 Personal (AES) with a key renewal of 15 seconds.
Perhaps upping it now to an hour & walking away (from the house) they will work :-) logically.
Good work peoples.

Edit - MikeMaven - I'd just like to add my own confirmation. I was having problems with WPA2
at first. I think it was a result of the key refresh not occuring. I set it to 15 seconds, reconnected,
& everything seems to be working great! For the record, I'm connecting to a 2wire AP using
WPA2-Personal & the same key on both the physical & virtual interface.

[edit] Accessing Both Routers?

Since all routers are on the same subnet, you will be able to access both of the routers when
connected to either of them.

[edit] MAC Filtering

For those of you who have enabled MAC filtering on your Primary router, you need to add the
WLAN MAC address of your Secondary router to the permitted MAC filter list of the Primary
router. This is different than the MAC address printed on the bottom of the case, you can find it
by going to Status->Wireless & the top line will list the internal MAC address. Of course, you
will want to add the MAC filter list to the Secondary router. This should be setup prior
configuring your WPA, WPA2, etc. settings otherwise you will spend some time pondering why
the bridge isn't working.

[EDIT - Redhawk] - The wording here was a little confusing. Once I used the Wireless MAC
address then all worked correctly....the MAC filter address on the Primary router needs to be the
"Wireless MAC" address listed on the Router Status page & not the LAN MAC address . (Use
Router MAC +2) - Yes...I know it says WLAN but for an noob doing this procedure it could be
confused.

Special thanks to Griminal for providing a basic graphic which I modified for this Wiki Entry.

IF YOUR ROUTER WIRELESS KEEPS DISCONNECTING PLEASE CHOOSE

REPEATER & NOT REPEATER BRIDGE

[edit] Site Survey Adjustment

Site Survey does NOT create any connection. It only fills in the name of the primary router,
which you must save for site survey to have any use. You can fill in the primary SSID simply by
typing it in on the secondary router instead of using site survey to type it for you.