Networking hardware suggestions?

[steve30]

My Mother has set up a wireless network, with internet access downstairs. Upstairs I have my own private network (currently just wired stuff, but I've sometimes used it with wireless stuff).

I need my private network to be able to access the internet connection which is present on the downstairs wireless network. Using hardware available to me, I set up a Windows 2000 laptop, with a wireless card. This connects to the downstairs network, then Windows 2000 shares this internet connection to an Ethernet card, which is connected to my switch.

What kind of standalone hardware did I ought to get to replace the laptop with internet connection sharing? I'm not sure if I just need a bog standard wireless access point, or something else.

I've shown the setup in a diagram (attached).

Thanks.

[NiHaoMike]

A DD-WRT router in client mode.

[nali]

What kind of standalone hardware did I ought to get to replace the laptop with internet connection sharing? I'm not sure if I just need a bog standard wireless access point, or something else.

I've shown the setup in a diagram (attached).

Thanks.

If you don't need firewall then a wireless-ethernet bridge will do. I've got a bunch of redundant Linksys bridges at work which you can have for the price of postage unless you're local (PM me)... the only caveats are you'll need to find a power adapter which IIRC is something like 5V 2A, and I'm not sure what encryption types they support as they're a few years old now.

[steve30]

A DD-WRT router in client mode.

Might be worth a play with. I've fancied trying out DD-WRT for a while, but never got round to getting any hardware to install it on.

What kind of standalone hardware did I ought to get to replace the laptop with internet connection sharing? I'm not sure if I just need a bog standard wireless access point, or something else.

I've shown the setup in a diagram (attached).

Thanks.

If you don't need firewall then a wireless-ethernet bridge will do. I've got a bunch of redundant Linksys bridges at work which you can have for the price of postage unless you're local (PM me)... the only caveats are you'll need to find a power adapter which IIRC is something like 5V 2A, and I'm not sure what encryption types they support as they're a few years old now.

Do you have the model numbers? I think WPA2 will be necessary. I disabled WPA2 earlier on today so I could access it on my old WaveLAN card, then I used it for a few hours, and then someone else re enabled the WPA2 with a new password, so I had to go back and disable it again so I can access it now. *sigh*.

[Monkeh]

http://www.amazon.co.uk/TP-LINK-TL-WR841N-300Mbps-Wireless-Router/dp/B001FWYGJS/

Use OpenWRT. Pray the existing AP supports WDS or you will have to NAT, route, or play silly games.

[steve30]

The ISP supplied router doesn't look like it supports WDS. It does seem like a very basic featured device, although I suppose ISPs have to supply simple stuff, or the average customer will complain that they can't get it to work  .

[Monkeh]

The average customer never even has to login to their router.

Do you care if you continue to use NAT?

[Marco]

I'd forget about wireless and use homeplugs ... I've had some trouble with them in the past, but I'm now using Devolo 650+ and they are working really great (even without an extra ground line which it can also use).

[steve30]

The average customer never even has to login to their router.

Do you care if you continue to use NAT?

Using NAT is fine.

[Monkeh]

The average customer never even has to login to their router.

Do you care if you continue to use NAT?

Using NAT is fine.

Then I'll refer you to my suggestion.

[dexters_lab]

i have a couple of old Linksys WRT-54GLs here that i dont use any more, they have dd-wrt already on, you can have one for a tenner including postage if you want it?

[Monkeh]

I hate to say it, but why bother?

They're ancient, have sluggish CPUs, even more sluggish radios, and many are gone past the best before date.

[Razor512]

Are you trying to do a wireless bridge between the routers, or do you want to have your own private network that is connected via Ethernet?

if you want maximum separation, then the hardware solution that ensures that no local traffic escapes outside of your private network, is to use 3 routers

The main router being the stuff that the ISP provides, and then 2 secondary routers. This will ensure that no network can access the local resources on another network

The down side of this is that each network will be behind a double NAT (you will disable wireless access to the ISP supplied router) as you do not want any devices other than the 2 routers connected to the ISP router.

You do this if you are in a house hold where someone is prone to netting network aware malware, but they need to access certain local resources.

If your router offers VLAN functions then you can avoid the extra routers, but depending on the router you may lose some of the hardware acceleration which will significantly slow things down, e.g., WAN traffic may drop from 980mbit/s to around 400mbit/s. (bad if you have a gigabit internet connection such as google fiber)

---------------------------------------------------

PS if you must use a PC as a router, then consider loading an OS designed for it such as untangle. The windows connection sharing is not the best performer, especially when it comes to IO intensive workloads. https://www.untangle.com/

---------------------------

If you don't mind having a single local network, then by far the best setup, is a single main router (if possible make sure it is your best router, with the fastest CPU and most RAM (especially important if you torrent a lot), then for everything else, just use switches and access points. (you can use old routers as APs, even if they do not have an AP mode. Simply set up the wireless on them, then change their local IP (e.g., from 192.168.1.1, to 192.168.1.16). After that, disable the DHCP server in the secondary routers, then connect them using Ethernet in a LAN to LAN config rather than a WAN to LAN. This will avoid a double NAT, reduce latency, and maintain hardware acceleration on all routers.

The AP mode in many routers, for example, the netgear  routers, will lose hardware acceleration when in AP mode which uses the WAN port as a LAN port and avoids a double NAT. That mode disables hardware acceleration for some reason.

[dexters_lab]

I hate to say it, but why bother?

They're ancient, have sluggish CPUs, even more sluggish radios, and many are gone past the best before date.

yea i guess that is why they are sat unused here!

your right, they are past it... i should think of a creative way to blow them up.

[steve30]

For now I've decided to take up Dexters_lab's offer of a spare WRT-54GL. That'll do me fine for the time being.

Thanks for the suggestions from everyone else. I probably will upgrade to something newer, and try out different things in due course. I would rather use a standalone device than a PC as a router. I'm just using a 150MHz Pentium machine with Windows 2000 with a 802.11B card and a 10Mbps Ethernet card because it was all I had that would do the job at the moment (I don't have much in the way of modern computer hardware).

[Delta]

I hate to say it, but why bother?

They're ancient, have sluggish CPUs, even more sluggish radios, and many are gone past the best before date.

Because they will still do the job?

I think this is one of the reasons why some much stuff ends up binned. Just because something is not the best and newest available, doesn't mean it's useless.

Run it until it dies! 😀

[Monkeh]

I hate to say it, but why bother?

They're ancient, have sluggish CPUs, even more sluggish radios, and many are gone past the best before date.

Because they will still do the job?

I think this is one of the reasons why some much stuff ends up binned. Just because something is not the best and newest available, doesn't mean it's useless.

And what is the job?

A WRT54G is quite useless to me for most tasks as realistic throughput is half what my connection is capable of.

Run it until it dies! 😀

Some of them are over 12 years old. They're dying a long list of deaths.

[steve30]

It will do fine for me, though I can see why it won't do for a lot of people.

Our new fibre-to-the-cabinet internet connection achieves 70Mbps Down/14Mbps Up, but I don't need anywhere near that speed. Even if I can get 20Mbps or so over wireless, it will be more than good enough, and still be an improvement on our old ADSL2+ connection. Currently I'm accessing it over wireless at about 5Mbps, and I can hardly notice. I obviously don't transfer much data  .

Of course I'm sure there are people for whom even a 70Mbps fibre connection would be too slow  .

[Razor512]

For the WRT54GL, the WAN speed is around 50mbit/s, and the LAN performance is the full 100mbit/s

They can still make a decent access point if you are okay with 23mbit/s real world performance from the WiFi

[dexters_lab]

A WRT54G is quite useless to me for most tasks as realistic throughput is half what my connection is capable of.

one man's rubbish is another man's treasure...

not only that, it's still a current product!

[Delta]

Erm, read his post. The job is to bridge t'internet connection from his Mum's WiFi router (a BT HomeHub) into his wired network upstairs.  One these old routers for a tenner sounds ideal.

Mate, it sounds like you would hate some of the gear I use every day! (a 17 year old top of the range car, and a 35 year old top of the range hifi amp being my favourite "old cheap things that do a marvellous job")

[retiredcaps]

Even if I can get 20Mbps or so over wireless, it will be more than good enough, and still be an improvement on our old ADSL2+ connection.

I have a Linksys WRT54G v8 running stock Linksys firmware (circa 2009) and I can get 15Mbps on my wifi when my ISP connection was 15Mbps.  So 20Mbps might be achievable.

[Monkeh]

A WRT54G is quite useless to me for most tasks as realistic throughput is half what my connection is capable of.

one man's rubbish is another man's treasure...

not only that, it's still a current product!

Only because some will still pay for a decade old design because some ancient post on the internet said to. They are old, slow, and have no unique features. Absolutely nothing to recommend them over more modern hardware, unless you really like the looks (.. I do really like that stackable design).

Erm, read his post. The job is to bridge t'internet connection from his Mum's WiFi router (a BT HomeHub) into his wired network upstairs.  One these old routers for a tenner sounds ideal.

If he doesn't want to achieve the full throughput of the internet connection (which he's now said he doesn't care about), yes, it'll work until it sooner or later gives up. If he did want full performance, it won't even come close. I read his post and started trying to determine more details before you even came along, thanks.

Mate, it sounds like you would hate some of the gear I use every day! (a 17 year old top of the range car, and a 35 year old top of the range hifi amp being my favourite "old cheap things that do a marvellous job")

I have no problem with old gear. You seem to have very much got the wrong end of my argument.

Even if I can get 20Mbps or so over wireless, it will be more than good enough, and still be an improvement on our old ADSL2+ connection.

I have a Linksys WRT54G running stock Linksys firmware and I can get 15Mbps on my wifi when my ISP connection was 15Mbps.  So 20Mbps might be achievable.

~30Mbps is quite achievable depending on the unfortunate realities of wifi, especially in an extremely congested band.

[dexters_lab]

Even if I can get 20Mbps or so over wireless, it will be more than good enough, and still be an improvement on our old ADSL2+ connection.

I have a Linksys WRT54G running stock Linksys firmware and I can get 15Mbps on my wifi when my ISP connection was 15Mbps.  So 20Mbps might be achievable.

i think mine topped out at about 30mbps, that was running dd-wrt with a small overclock... when we changed to a 50mbps connection i had to upgrade