I am attempting to setup a friend with a WLAN and I am stuck on one last part. Here is the setup so far. The cable modem hookup is located at the bottom of a hill in a barn. He is trying to get the wireless connection up to the top of the hill through some dense foliage over ~400m. So I have the cable modem connected to a wireless router which has an external amplifier and a directional outdoor antenna pointing up the hill.
The good news is that I can get the signal at the top of the hill with no problem. I verified this with my PDA. The bad news is that I need to get that signal to his basement without any wires.
The options I was looking into at the top of the hill were:
1)Antenna -> Wireless Router ->AP
2)Antenna -> Bridge -> Wireless Router
3) ???
So here is where I am stuck. I dont know enough about the AP or the Bridge to know if they are the best for the job. Is what I am proposing possible given the laws of physics and reason? Is there a third option that I am completely overlooking?
A note about my picture. Even though I was able to access the internet at the top of the hill without the need for the antenna (the PDA), I want to leave it in place to maintain a robust connection.
I am trying to keep costs down, so the less equipment I need to buy the better.
Thanks in advance.
Jacknife
08-23-2007, 11:44 PM
As long as the directional 400m link up the hill maintains the 'robust' connection that you're aiming for, I think an Antenna--Bridge--AP setup at the top would work quite well.
I deploy a similar setup in my apartment, although the directional antenna requirements are much less severe. I have a feeling that your high gain directional antenna placement will require the most experimentation.
M/Q
08-24-2007, 08:21 AM
Jacknife mentioned the correct approach. Most wireless routers will not act as a bridge. The receiving device at the top of the hill needs to be a bridge or access point client. After that an AP or wireless router acting as an AP could be used to increase the coverage on top of the hill. Make sure to use a channel that is non-interfering, I would suggest using channels 1 and 11.
bigeeguy
08-24-2007, 11:57 AM
Thats great! Thank you both a bunch for your help.
So I did a little hunting and found some parts. For the Bridge and AP/Router:
WiFi from a ground floor into the basement can be tricky though...
umdivx
08-28-2007, 10:28 AM
I'll throw in my cheap recomendation.... Buffalo G125 (can be had for as little as $40 in the US) and then throw on DD-WRT (www.dd-wrt.com) firmware and you have yourself the most robust setup you can think of.
- Josh
bigeeguy
08-29-2007, 06:08 PM
Thanks for your tip umdivx, but I was to quick on the draw. I have already purchased the WET54G and WRT54GX2.
Now I have a few more questions about setup. How should I set up both routers?
1) Should they both have the same SSID's or will that break things?
2) Should I make both routers have different IP's (ie 192.168.1.1 and 192.168.1.2 for example).
3) For the DHCP, should I enable that on the router connected to the cable modem and disable it in the house router?
4) If the bridge and the house router are on different frequencies (1 and 11 as M/Q suggested), is that all that I need to do in order to keep them from interfering with each other? Or do I also have to enable features such as ACK, CTS, ???, etc?
5) Is there any other obvious things that newbies forget when setting up something like this?
Jacknife
08-30-2007, 11:51 AM
Let's see here...
1) Should they both have the same SSID's or will that break things?
The WET54G bridge will be receiving a wireless signal from the directional antenna, not broadcasting a signal with an SSID. However, changing the SSID on the WRT54GX2 can't hurt anything.
2) Should I make both routers have different IP's (ie 192.168.1.1 and 192.168.1.2 for example).
Yes. Both devices need separate IP's.
3) For the DHCP, should I enable that on the router connected to the cable modem and disable it in the house router?
I would leave the DHCP turned on in the house. You might want to set up a static IP connection between the cable-connected router and the WET54G Bridge.
4) If the bridge and the house router are on different frequencies (1 and 11 as M/Q suggested), is that all that I need to do in order to keep them from interfering with each other? Or do I also have to enable features such as ACK, CTS, ???, etc?
I think 1 and 11 ought to do the trick.
5) Is there any other obvious things that newbies forget when setting up something like this?
Just remember that you will always forget something obvious, and it never goes right the first time. It's beneficial to concede this right from the get-go!:)
bigeeguy
08-31-2007, 07:26 AM
Thanks Jacknife, that was just what I was looking for.
I definitely dig you on your comment to question #5.
M/Q
08-31-2007, 07:51 AM
One subject that I have not seen referenced is possible interference. You have to be careful about other RF emitting devices, i.e., cordless phones and microwaves. They tend to be forgotten, yet can create all sorts of headaches.
bigeeguy
09-02-2007, 02:07 PM
Hit a big snag when trying to set this up
I am currently able to ping the router in the barn (barn_R) and the bridge in the house (house_B) from the wireless PC connected to the house router (house_R) just fine, but I cannot connect to the internet from house PC. Specifically, I attempted to connect to www.google.com. I can also connect to the web interface for each device (this may have been implied from my above statement, but I am just trying to be clear). After spending many house on the phone with Linksys Tech support, I still have no clear direction.
In order to get this far, I had to connect the house_B's ethernet port to the ethernet port (1 of 4) of the house_R and not the internet port. I dont know if this is correct, but this is the only thing that allowed the house_R to even see the house_B. I have all security disabled for right now. The house_B and barn_R are set to have the same SSID and Tx channel. The house_R is setup to be a DHCP server with port ranges xxx.xxx.xxx.50 thru 54. The barn_R is setup to be a DHCP server with port ranges xxx.xxx.xxx.100 thru 104. The signal strength as reported by the house_B is around 95% and the house_R reports a strength of ~80%.
The tech on the phone had me try to ping 4.2.2.2 but it always timed out. Im not sure what that IP address is. They also had me change a bunch of parameters, something to do with fragmentation, beacon ???, and a whole bunch of other things with no success. Im no expert, but my problem seem a bit more fundamental than that, but who knows.
So, what am I missing here. I feel I have to be close given the fact that I can ping everything. ARRRRGGG, so frustrating.
umdivx
09-02-2007, 03:17 PM
the ONLY device that should be plugging into the Internet port (aka WAN port) should be the MAIN router where the cable modem is, ALL other equipment on the network, AP's, Routers, PC's ect.... should be using LAN ports.
Also make sure that you have DHCP turned off on ALL other routers in the chain, other then the MAIN router where the cable modem is.
so basically set the bridge at the top to say 192.168.1.2, where the main router is set to 192.168.1.1, then the AP at the top of the hill sharing the internet is set to 192.168.1.3.
Sounds like you just have a network topology/configuration issue here, sounds like the wireless links are perfectly fine.
- Josh
umdivx
09-02-2007, 03:27 PM
Also a quick question, how is the AP in the barn connected to the router in the main house where the cable modem is? is it a wired or wireless connection?
Could you draw up a topology drawing with all the peices and put in the IP address you have set and all that? Will give us (and you) a better idea of your setup.
- Josh
bigeeguy
09-03-2007, 03:20 PM
OK here is my network topology diagram. Right now, the bridge is connected to the House_R via the LAN port 1 as you mentioned umdivx.
I previously had the House_R setup as a DHCP server as well as the one at the bottom of the hill because it didnt appear as though the House_PC was getting an IP. I will change it though.
A few more questions.
1) If the bridge is suppose to link two seperate networks, why cant both routers be setup as a DHCP server? I would think it would work like that on much bigger networks, but Im not certain.
2)There is a traceroute function in the web interface of both routers. Can I use this to help get to the bottom of things? If so, how would I go about using it? I mean, what am I looking for when I run it.
3) Is getting the house_pc on the internet even possible with this setup? The tech support people seemed a little uncertain if this would even work.
4) Do I have to setup up the Gateways, DSN, ??? in order to make this work correctly. If so, what should they be set to.
I really appreciate your continued effort to attempt to get me unstuck everyone. Thanks for bearing with me.
umdivx
09-03-2007, 03:55 PM
OK here is my network topology diagram. Right now, the bridge is connected to the House_R via the LAN port 1 as you mentioned umdivx.
I previously had the House_R setup as a DHCP server as well as the one at the bottom of the hill because it didnt appear as though the House_PC was getting an IP. I will change it though.
A few more questions.
1) If the bridge is suppose to link two separate networks, why cant both routers be setup as a DHCP server? I would think it would work like that on much bigger networks, but Im not certain.
You CAN do that but then you get into double NAT issues, but you also do this to seperate networks, so IF you do want the house at the top of the hill to do DHCP, set it to do 10.0.1.x instead of 192.168.x.x
You can then plug the ethernet cable from the bridge at the top of the hill into the WAN/Internet port of the house router, and set the WAN to static and use the 192.168.x.x for the WAN port, then the LAN DHCP set to 10.0.1.x so that any and all PC's connected to the house router at the top of the hill are getting 10.0.1.x ip addresses.
make sense?
You just can't have two networks doing 192.168.x.x and do double NATing just really complicates things.
3) Is getting the house_pc on the internet even possible with this setup? The tech support people seemed a little uncertain if this would even work.
if you do the way you showed in the attached drawing layout, it should work just fine, or if you got the route I mentioned above, setting the WAN port to static IP of the 192.168.1.39 and then the LAN set to DHCP and use 10.0.1.x should work just fine.
but if you run DHCP on the house router, and want to trasnfer files between the house PC and the barn PC that won't work if you are doing HDCP on the house router at the top of the hill.
I'd just disable DHCP and run the house router as just an AP and that should work just fine.
4) Do I have to setup up the Gateways, DSN, ??? in order to make this work correctly. If so, what should they be set to.
Not sure what your asking here.
- Josh
bigeeguy
09-03-2007, 04:44 PM
Ok, I am a bit confused. So right now, both routers and the bridge have a static IP (ie the ones shown in the figure). If I set the Barn Router to be a DHCP server, then that should take care of allocating an IP to the Barn PC. So if I disable the DHCP server feature on the house router, then how will the house PC get its IP?? Im no networking expert (obviously), so that part is escaping me.
Concerning the gateway, DNS question, I vaguely remember a place (I believe in the bridge setup) where the gateway could be set. I thought it was set for xx.xx.1.37, but I dont recall. I unfortunately am not sitting in front of the network right now, so I cannot be certain of what I am saying here. I guess I was just curious if there were any network settings that are keeping me from connecting?
If I can ping a device, is there any reason why I couldn't access it with a browser?
Thanks again
umdivx
09-03-2007, 10:08 PM
Ok, I am a bit confused. So right now, both routers and the bridge have a static IP (ie the ones shown in the figure). If I set the Barn Router to be a DHCP server, then that should take care of allocating an IP to the Barn PC. So if I disable the DHCP server feature on the house router, then how will the house PC get its IP?? Im no networking expert (obviously), so that part is escaping me.
The house PC at the top of the hill will get its IP address from the barn router at the bottom of the hill, the same router that is connected to the cable modem.
here let me walk you through a simple explanation here. First you have the router in the barn connected to the cable modem right? and the ethernet cable that goes from the cable modem is plugged into the WAN (aka internet) port on the router correct?
Routers have TWO sides, a WAN (Wide Area Network, aka Internet) side and a LAN (Local Area Network, your local network, not the internet) side. Both the WAN and the LAN can be static or DHCP.
So the Barn router's WAN part is set to DHCP, meaning that the WAN/Internet side of your router is getting a real world internet IP address from your cable modem, something like 216.46.216.236 or whatever, that is a Internet IP, and your LAN side is set to 192.168.1.x, a 192.168.x.x is a NON-Routeable IP address, or LAN address, meaning that only your local network can use that IP addressing Scheme.
So the router at the top of the hill, in the house, is also an Internet router, meaning it has a WAN port and 4 LAN ports. well since that router isn't connected to a internet connection directly, meaning it's not connected to a cable modem or DSL modem, you DO NOT need to run DHCP on the LAN side, you can set the LAN IP address, which you have already done, then disable DHCP, and just let the main router at the bottom of the hill handle all the IP addressing for ALL pc's on the network. So essentially the ehternet cable that goes from the wireless bridge at the top of the hill in the house, that ethernet cable instead of going to the WAN port, it'll go to any one of the 4 LAN ports, since your not doing directly to a internet connection, and when you disable DHCP that just turns that wireless router into a Swtich and an AP in one, and it just disables the routing and DHCP, making it just a simple networking device of sorts.
Make any sense yet?
Concerning the gateway, DNS question, I vaguely remember a place (I believe in the bridge setup) where the gateway could be set. I thought it was set for xx.xx.1.37, but I dont recall. I unfortunately am not sitting in front of the network right now, so I cannot be certain of what I am saying here. I guess I was just curious if there were any network settings that are keeping me from connecting?
For DNS you can literally use ANY dns servers, I personally use www.opendns.com dns servers which are:
208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220
also before you said Linksys tech support had you ping 4.2.2.2 well that is also a DNS server, I belive its ATT or sprint dns server for the west coast.
4.2.2.2, 4.2.2.3, 4.2.2.4, 4.2.2.5 4.2.2.6 are also all dns servers.
so as far as configureations go, this is how it should look it a way.
=============================================
Main router connected to the cable modem:
WAN: set to DHCP
LAN:
IP: 192.168.1.37 (which is what you have now but you could/should set this to 192.168.1.1, will make things much easier)
Subnet: 255.255.255.0
Gateway: leave blank
DNS: you can either leave this blank, or use the Opendns server ip addresses.
DHCP Server turned on: 100 - 255 for available DHCP addresses.
=========================================
Next setup, The wireless bridge at the top of the hill,
IP Address: 192.168.1.38, you have this at .38 now, but you can simplify it and set it to .2 as it is the second device in your network chain that has a static IP address.
so if you did 192.168.1.2 for the IP
then subnet: 255.255.255.0
Gateway: 192.168.1.1 (that is if you switched the main router in the barn to 192.168.1.1, if not for the gateway you set it to whatever IP address the main router in the barn is set to.)
DNS servers: use the OpenDNS ip addresses.
=============================================
Next device in the chain, the wireless router in the house ontop of the hill,
IP address: is currently 192.168.1.39, but you can/could switch it to 192.168.1.3 as it is the second device in your wireless chain.
subnet 255.255.255.0
Gateway: 192.168.1.1 (or the IP address of the main router in the barn)
DNS: use the open DNS servers
Also Turn off DHCP on this router, and the ethernet cable that runs from the wireless bridge, plug it into one of the 4 LAN ports on this router.
Also for the wireless config of this device, Set the SSID separate to the SSID of the router in the barn, if you don't the pc in the house, might try and connect to the wifi signal coming from the barn at the bottom of the hill and might be the reason your having IP address issues. (Never mind I see you have it set to HOME, and the other is BARN)
==================================================
So if you double check EACH device in the chain and follow that exactly, that should solve ALL your issues and get it working correctly.
If I can ping a device, is there any reason why I couldn't access it with a browser?
The device could be locked up, meaning it'll still ping but web browsing is stopped, I've seen that happen before when trying to connect to access points and all that.
hope this clears some things up,
Josh
Mark Matchett
09-24-2007, 01:48 PM
I have a very similar situation that I'm planning to tackle. I think I understand how it has been explained. My question is about one comment in the original post.
He is trying to get the wireless connection up to the top of the hill through some dense foliage over ~400m.
How are you accomplishing this through the foilage. From what I have read foliage is tough.
Thanks,
edit by admin: not advisable to post real name and location on the web.
Alan87i
09-24-2007, 06:18 PM
Foliage is tough on WIFI. More trees and the greater the distance the tougher it gets. Directional Yagi's or parabolic grid type antennas Help a great deal!
Back to the DHCP topic.
Nice post Umdivx !!!
I want to add from my experience.
In addition to all the advice on how a typical IP table is set on user devices ( Routers,bridges,Ap's.
I had problems with a lot of equipment not responding if the STATIC IP set for the device was with in the Main Routers DHCP table !!
For instance setting each device with a static IP address of 192.168.1.1 first and so on next device .1.2 and .1.3 is perfect What I'm saying is if it is set up this way The main routers LAN DHCP server settings should give out address's starting after the last STATIC IP address on currently on the network.
Meaning set the starting IP address to 192.168.1.5 ( Leaving a slot for .1.4 ) (incase another device is needed in the future)
And end it where the user wants ,,, .1.10 for 5 PC's max.
I found if the Main routers DHCP server was not set up this way ( In a range outside of Static set devices ) the network would suffer greatly.
Of coarse it could have been caused by the D-link router I was using. Never the less I always use this config.. when setting up a networlk, except I do it in reverse. Set the Main routers DHCP server and all other devices staticly after the last IP in the servers table.
I hope that made sense.
Allan
VA2CBE
M/Q
09-24-2007, 07:04 PM
Allan, you bring up a good point. Most DHCP server are intelligent enough to realize there are static IP addrs in the DHCP scope range and do not use them. But there is a significant amount of management traffic that is required to determine those IP addrs and if they are still active on that particular subnet.
With that in mind the best approach would be what you suggest and have the static IP addrs outside of the range used in the DHCP scope.
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