G+_Rud Dog Posted May 30, 2016 Share Posted May 30, 2016 If you can offer and help please let me know. Been researching and trying to piece together the workings of a wireless bridge in Linux environment. The hardware only has one hardwired Ethernet port and one wireless Ethernet port. Hereafter to be referred to as the bridge. On the bridge hardwired Ethernet port we will place or plug-in a laptop. On the wireless side of the bridge we will connect to the Asus router located on the LAN side of the network which is acting as the DHCP server. Clarifying the connection between bridge and router is a wireless connection. The bridge should allow traffic from the Laptop side and pass it to ASUS router side allowing them to acquire the DHCP server information needed for the laptop side devices. Both sides of the bridge should be operating using IP address from the 192.168.1.0/24 range. There is a steep learning cure as the configuration files are rather new to me. They are; network, wireless and firewall configuration files. This is a test so don't want to use the auto features supplied in some Linux builds. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Eddie Foy Posted May 30, 2016 Share Posted May 30, 2016 example at the bottom http://tinyurl.com/czmquzh Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Branden Snyder Posted May 30, 2016 Share Posted May 30, 2016 If you provide the linux base your using (ie. Debian, Fedora\RH, SUSE) I can provide examples of the config files for the client laptop. My suggestion is to verify minimal connectivity first: 1. Connect the bridge to the wireless LAN, and the laptop to the bridge 2. Set a static IP on the far laptop 3. Test by pinging the router/DHCP server IP address. If you get a good response then try DHCP This will verify communications across the bridge before introducing the complexities of DHCP. Let me know if I can help further! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_John Sullivan Posted May 30, 2016 Share Posted May 30, 2016 You didn't mention what hardware you are using for the bridge .. are you building it yourself? If so, why? You can use any old router that you might have laying around (like a Linksys WRT54G). Just install DD-WRT firmware to it and set it to Bridge mode. Turn off DHCP and NAT in the bridge, and set your laptop to use the IP of the ASUS router as Default Gateway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Rud Dog Posted May 30, 2016 Author Share Posted May 30, 2016 I am asking some pretty basic questions here so bare with me. One confusing item of interest. If you look at the Bridge portion of my drawing by what means are the wireless and wired connections obtaining their IP addresses? If they are static assuming 192.168.1.3 wired and 192.168.1.4 for wireless, would be acceptable? Does the bridge act as a straight wire connection between the wired and wireless connections? If so is the DHCP clients traffic passed through the bridge in both directions to ask for and obtain the addresses for the wired side of the bridge? Thank you for your patience. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Rud Dog Posted May 30, 2016 Author Share Posted May 30, 2016 Eddie Foy Ran the excellent commands at the link you provided and not one returned an error. Alas could not get the laptop to see the LAN:( Here is a copy of the brctl show cmd. ``` bridge name bridge id STP enabled interfaces br-lan 8000.40a36bc119f3 no eth0 wlan0 ``` Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_John Sullivan Posted May 30, 2016 Share Posted May 30, 2016 All devices get their IP addresses from the DHCP server, unless you set the device to a static IP address, in which case that device use the static IP address rather than ask the DHCP server for one.. And yes, the bridge acts as if it was a straight wire connection. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Rud Dog Posted May 30, 2016 Author Share Posted May 30, 2016 Branden Snyder The best I could find was it is running the 15.05 Chaos Calmer OpenWRT release. PS none of what I read on their website made any sense to me partly due to my lack of knowledge in this area and partly due to the multiple hardware devices this can apply to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Wayne Wheatley Posted June 1, 2016 Share Posted June 1, 2016 Do you have a crossover Ethernet cable between the laptop and the bridge? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Branden Snyder Posted June 1, 2016 Share Posted June 1, 2016 Normally, I would recommend the simplest bridge configuration, aka "media converter" from 802.11 to ethernet. In this way, the bridge device does NOT get an IP address (easier and simpler), but also no visibility or access from the network that it's bridging. In your case, this is not feasible because you have no other hardware ports to configure the device. A serial port would fix this, does your bridge have one?? :) In your case, I recommend a slightly more complex bridging method. The details and examples are for a slightly older version but should still apply to Chaos Calmer. https://wiki.openwrt.org/doc/recipes/bridgedclient NOTE: make sure you have a broadcom wireless chipset. If you don't, this will NOT work and I'll give you a different method Essentially: A.) Let the bridge device become a fully-functional client on the wifi network. It will have an IP address on your home network192.168.1.0/24 (can be DHCP or static) and you will have access to it over ssh or web interface. B.) Pass ALL traffic between the ethernet port and the wifi radio. Including broadcast messages, which is a key difference between "bridged" and "relayd" or "routed" configurations Let me know if I can help further! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Rud Dog Posted June 1, 2016 Author Share Posted June 1, 2016 Here is the ifconfig -a which is supposed to work but doesn't. /# ifconfig -a br-lan Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 40:A3:6B:C1:19:F3 inet addr:192.168.3.1 Bcast:192.168.3.255 Mask:255.255.255.0 inet6 addr: fe80::42a3:6bff:fec1:19f3/64 Scope:Link UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:228 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:56 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 RX bytes:37383 (36.5 KiB) TX bytes:13583 (13.2 KiB) eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 40:A3:6B:C1:19:F3 UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:457 errors:0 dropped:11 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:61 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 RX bytes:110620 (108.0 KiB) TX bytes:13733 (13.4 KiB) Interrupt:4 lo Link encap:Local Loopback inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0 inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:65536 Metric:1 RX packets:16 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:16 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 RX bytes:1621 (1.5 KiB) TX bytes:1621 (1.5 KiB) wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 40:A3:6B:C1:19:F4 inet addr:192.168.1.111 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0 inet6 addr: fe80::42a3:6bff:fec1:19f4/64 Scope:Link UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:115 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:92 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 RX bytes:36439 (35.5 KiB) TX bytes:16852 (16.4 KiB) wlan0-1 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 42:A3:6B:C1:19:F4 inet addr:192.168.3.1 Bcast:192.168.3.255 Mask:255.255.255.0 inet6 addr: fe80::40a3:6bff:fec1:19f4/64 Scope:Link UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:30 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:6482 (6.3 KiB) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Branden Snyder Posted June 2, 2016 Share Posted June 2, 2016 The br-lan might be causing some issues. Can you provide your /etc/config/network and /etc/config/wireless files from the bridge device? Also, can you provide the model of the bridge device? It appears to support multiple concurrent SSID's but I want to confirm. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Rud Dog Posted June 2, 2016 Author Share Posted June 2, 2016 Branden Snyder Here are the links to the config files. The Atheros, AR9330 rev1 AG71xx Mips 24K Processor. https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B7gaNrXwvDnfMUh1WUlVZ0JaSEE https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B7gaNrXwvDnfcHpreHFqTEJyOGs https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B7gaNrXwvDnfc0xfMVVfb0l2Tnc https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B7gaNrXwvDnfMUZDZGdnU3FoY0k First time sharing docs this way let me know if it came out ok. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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