I'm done with this crappy consumer router, recommend me a good one!

I don't know of any quick "plug and play" distros that support wireless aside from DD-WRT and Mikrotik, both require Atheros chipsets.

Its not just the cards, its the drivers. I don't think most linux drivers support AP mode.

A Trendnet PCI BG or ABG card is around $25-35, that is the route I took.
 
0ldman said:
I don't know of any quick "plug and play" distros that support wireless aside from DD-WRT and Mikrotik, both require Atheros chipsets.

Its not just the cards, its the drivers. I don't think most linux drivers support AP mode.

A Trendnet PCI BG or ABG card is around $25-35, that is the route I took.
Click to expand...

So the other distro mentioned (smoothwall, m0n0wall, endian, ipcop) are just for wired routing?

mabey you could recommend some not so friendly distros that support wireless, id be willing to give it a shot if there is a manual.

Buying that card is a good fallback option, but i really was looking for a way to do this with the parts i already have (waste not, want not :p )

Mabey someone else knows a good way i could do this :confused:

Thx for your reply 0ldman, most appreciated :D
 
I wasted an entire summer suffering with a Linksys POS. Replaced it with a ZyXEL X-550 and my wireless connections never drop anymore, not to mention getting 5-6x the D/L speed. My shitty Linksys could barely sustain 100k, and even then it would drop after 10-15mins. My ZyXEL does 800K+ and all-day. Thank god for this forum, or I could've still be wasting my time with Linksys. Good riddance.
 
Not so simple would be setting up Ubuntu or another distro and doing it all manually. I don't know of any quick fix router OS that supports wireless. Clarkconnect and Endian don't, I haven't tried m0n0wall or IPCop, but I don't think they support wireless either.

I pulled a used Celeron 900 with 256MB of RAM and a CF Card with CF to IDE adapter, pulled the 256 and installed 64. Dell's can be usefull sometimes. :)

Just running Ubuntu/Clarkconnect/Endian on this, routing and AP would be a decent load on this system. Its running just above an idle with DD-WRT.

Mikrotik RouterOS would do the trick as well. The config is a bit harder, but the features rock. System requirements are still low.

The biggest reason I'm harping on the system requirements is overhead. The base system will saturate a 100mb network routed with a Celeron 400, leaves plenty of CPU and RAM for enabling QoS, filtering, etc. Enabling QoS puts a decent load on the CPU, depending on the connection speed.
 
0ldman said:
Not so simple would be setting up Ubuntu or another distro and doing it all manually.
Click to expand...

This sounds good, as i already have ubuntu on the machines. Didint realiser i could do it from within a normal distro (my networking knowledge is amature at best) but i could give it a try. Ill do a search for some manuals and report my progress.

Sidenote: i checked the m0n0wall website and under features it does list wireless, but it stipulates on the chipsets like the other os's u mentioned. I quote "wireless support (access point with PRISM-II/2.5/3 cards, BSS/IBSS with other cards including Cisco)".
I think my orinoco card is prism, so i could try this if unbuntu fails. Also my intel drivers already work in unbuntu, but whether or not AP mode works is a different kettle of fish.
 
I wouldn't recommend setting up a 'standard' distro to do routing just from a security standpoing. There will be lots of unnecssary daemons running and so forth.
 
MichaelJB said:
This sounds good, as i already have ubuntu on the machines. Didint realiser i could do it from within a normal distro (my networking knowledge is amature at best) but i could give it a try. Ill do a search for some manuals and report my progress.

Sidenote: i checked the m0n0wall website and under features it does list wireless, but it stipulates on the chipsets like the other os's u mentioned. I quote "wireless support (access point with PRISM-II/2.5/3 cards, BSS/IBSS with other cards including Cisco)".
I think my orinoco card is prism, so i could try this if unbuntu fails. Also my intel drivers already work in unbuntu, but whether or not AP mode works is a different kettle of fish.
Click to expand...

I haven't tried it with my laptop and Intel card. My RaLink does not work in AP mode. Driver issue.
 
Just the thread I was looking for. Earlier this evening, my WRT54G with DD-WRT (been running great for quite a while now) decided to crap out on me. The power light is flashing which indicates that the NVRAM got corrupted somehow. I have spent the greater part of this evening attempting to resurrect the router to no avail.

I'll have to concur with a number of posts on this thread that the new firmware did wonders for the router, and definitely improved Bittorrent speeds and so forth.

Nonetheless, this problem now leaves me with having to get a new wireless router ASAP. For a household that is downloading 24/7, I need something that is reliable 24/7 and something that won't crap out when Bittorrent is running at the same time someone is playing on Xbox Live and someone else streaming a movie from the server.

One requirement I have is that the router must be silent, as all the wiring, etc. is in my bedroom, hence, a PC-based router system can't fit that bill.

Consequently, that pretty much leaves me with possibly the DGL-4300 or a Cisco 800 series router. I was also looking into the new Apple Airport Extreme (coming out in a few weeks), though, I'd prefer to wait on that until some reviews are available.

Any other suggestions for these specific requirements? Basically, the most reliable, and fastest high-end consumer based router available.
 
Fulgore said:
Just the thread I was looking for. Earlier this evening, my WRT54G with DD-WRT (been running great for quite a while now) decided to crap out on me. The power light is flashing which indicates that the NVRAM got corrupted somehow. I have spent the greater part of this evening attempting to resurrect the router to no avail.

I'll have to concur with a number of posts on this thread that the new firmware did wonders for the router, and definitely improved Bittorrent speeds and so forth.

Nonetheless, this problem now leaves me with having to get a new wireless router ASAP. For a household that is downloading 24/7, I need something that is reliable 24/7 and something that won't crap out when Bittorrent is running at the same time someone is playing on Xbox Live and someone else streaming a movie from the server.

One requirement I have is that the router must be silent, as all the wiring, etc. is in my bedroom, hence, a PC-based router system can't fit that bill.

Consequently, that pretty much leaves me with possibly the DGL-4300 or a Cisco 800 series router. I was also looking into the new Apple Airport Extreme (coming out in a few weeks), though, I'd prefer to wait on that until some reviews are available.

Any other suggestions for these specific requirements? Basically, the most reliable, and fastest high-end consumer based router available.
Click to expand...

Zyxel X-550 fits the bill as well. I'm currently downloading newsgroups at 4200kbps and 3 torrents at 400kbps down and 200kbps up, while my girlfriend is downloading some torrents of her own, my roomie is doing god knows what (probably playing WoW like he usually does).

I'm posting in between rounds of Call of Duty 2 on a server in Texas where my ping is 75ms.

I got this router for $10 at CompUSA after rebates. I don't think it can be found that cheaply at the moment, but it should be significantly cheaper than the DGL-4300.

I went from a crappy Belkin 802.11b router to a D-Link DI-624 to a Netgear WGR614. Neither of those could handle torrenting alone, much less in conjunction with other stuff. I then bought the Buffalo WHR-G54S. Stock firmware couldn't handle all that much. DD-WRT was better, but heavy torrenting often killed it.. combining it with gaming meant erratic pings and a router that needed rebooting often. So I bit the bullet and got the DGL-4300. Worked beautifully. I saw the Zyxel on sale at CompUSA so I picked that up too based on a review and some charts at tomsnetworking.com that made it look comparable to the DGL-4300. Turns out that it was. The web interface is interestingly almost totally identical to the D-Link's. It actually performed slightly *better* for me than the DGL-4300, but that could be due to any number of factors.

I returned the DGL-4300.
 
Fulgore said:
One requirement I have is that the router must be silent, as all the wiring, etc. is in my bedroom, hence, a PC-based router system can't fit that bill.

Consequently, that pretty much leaves me with possibly the DGL-4300 or a Cisco 800 series router. I was also looking into the new Apple Airport Extreme (coming out in a few weeks), though, I'd prefer to wait on that until some reviews are available.

Any other suggestions for these specific requirements? Basically, the most reliable, and fastest high-end consumer based router available.
Click to expand...

The cisco 871 is a nice router. Thing is you can get away with a "pc" based router that is quite. You could always get like a wrap board or something but something I've done in the past is find a used neoware that had xp embeded on it. Get a cf adapter and run one of the unix firewalls off it. No moving part and small. Works well. Even if you mounted a laptop hd in it it would be still very quite. Another option would be like a miniitx board running a via chip.

To answer the questions about wireless with the unix/linux routers. Some of them support wireless but don't support a lot of the more advanced features. Best way I've found to do it is use an access point. If you want it on a seperate network you just run it off another nic. Works the best.
 
kumquat:

Thanks for the suggestion. Now if only I could find it in Canada, heh. I'm currently looking at the DGL-4300 for $135 + tax.

One thing I've seen with the benchmarks are that routers that use the Ubicom StreamEngine chipset are typically the highest performers.

swatbat:

I'd love to get the Cisco 871 if I could find it for a decent price. You're also right, I could probably build a quiet PC based router, but I'm not too sure if I could do it cost-effectively, or in the next day or so unfortunately.
 
Fulgore said:
kumquat:

Thanks for the suggestion. Now if only I could find it in Canada, heh. I'm currently looking at the DGL-4300 for $135 + tax.

One thing I've seen with the benchmarks are that routers that use the Ubicom StreamEngine chipset are typically the highest performers.

swatbat:

I'd love to get the Cisco 871 if I could find it for a decent price. You're also right, I could probably build a quiet PC based router, but I'm not too sure if I could do it cost-effectively, or in the next day or so unfortunately.
Click to expand...
LOL.

The DGL-4300 will make you happy as well. They apparently have the same chipset, and as I said the firmware is virtually *identical* except for the colors. I suspect that they're basically the exact same router. Like I said, I used both and both performed very well.
 
Fulgore said:
I'd love to get the Cisco 871 if I could find it for a decent price. You're also right, I could probably build a quiet PC based router, but I'm not too sure if I could do it cost-effectively, or in the next day or so unfortunately.
Click to expand...

I've seen the 871's go for less the 300 used on ebay. 320ish for the wireless one. Still expensive but not too bad.
 
DGL-4100/4300 is great if you need a router with a little more power than the standard linksys but do not want to mess with linux or cisco IOS.

IPcop/moonwall/etc are much more powerful than a DGL-4100/4300 or just about any other consumer router but does take some extra work to get going.

Cisco routers are king. There is a reason why most of the large networks are ran on Cisco gear. You will probably have to buy an older router which might not have the PDM, Cisco's web GUI, so you will probably have to config via IOS. Plenty of examples out there but not a walk int he park if cisco IOS is new to you.


Linksys is a great router for 90% of the consumers out there but some of us geeks demand more. I have used all three choices, DGL and IPCOP at home and I use Cisco routers at work. I would suggest going the linux firewall route. You get all the power and features that you could want, plus it gives you a chance to freshen up you linux knowledge. Plenty of amazing documentation out there to install the linux software.
 
It looks like I had to order the DGL-4300, so it should arrive over the next day or two. I'll give it a shot to see how it works out. I'll definitely write something up for here with my impressions.

With regards to the PC-based router/firewall, I'm overly tempted, though, the only old PCs I have lying around have fairly noisy power supplies and system fans, which aren't really a good idea for my bedroom. I have no doubt that this is the most powerful home-based solution, outside of purchasing some expensive Cisco gear, but for now...I'll move up gradually if I have to.

I've been searching eBay quite a lot last night and this morning, and the Cisco 800 series routers with wireless seem a little expensive ($500 USD range). Ultimately, if the DGL-4300 doesn't work out to my expectations, that will undoubtedly be my next step. Unfortunately, once again, there doesn't seem to be any reviews out there on their performance with Bittorrent, Xbox Live, etc., which I'd really love to see. I'm guessing that they'd blow every consumer-based router out of the water, but I'm not yet willing to test that theory out until I at least try the DGL-4300.
 
Since you have an extra computer you might want to give one of the linux router options a try. IPCop takes about 20 minutes to setup and is practically idiot proof. Clarkconnect is even easier. Both use webbased configuration pages. If it works for you then you can save some money and just replace the powersupply and cpu fan with quiet versions.
 
IPCOP....

Why settle for anything less?? :D

Mine's been up for 141 days so far... no inclination that it will go down anytime soon..... most was over 300 days, but I rebooted for an update.
 
A few things:

1. Download the latest (v1.7 the last I looked) firmware. It will probably come with 1.3 or 1.4, which is missing several key features.

2. Make SURE you install the rubber feet on the bottom so it cools properly. This is a high-performance router and it can heat up if not cooled properly.

3. Before you try to set it up, connect the power and do a complete reset on the router (hold the reset button for 30 seconds). I could not access mine via a desktop until I did this. Half the management pages would be missing.

4. If you are using VPN Software that supports NAT Traversal, such as CheckPoint SecureClient, you will need to turn IPSec Pass-Thru OFF. That's the opposite of normal.

You should be good to go from there!

-Larry

Fulgore said:
It looks like I had to order the DGL-4300, so it should arrive over the next day or two. I'll give it a shot to see how it works out. I'll definitely write something up for here with my impressions.

With regards to the PC-based router/firewall, I'm overly tempted, though, the only old PCs I have lying around have fairly noisy power supplies and system fans, which aren't really a good idea for my bedroom. I have no doubt that this is the most powerful home-based solution, outside of purchasing some expensive Cisco gear, but for now...I'll move up gradually if I have to.

I've been searching eBay quite a lot last night and this morning, and the Cisco 800 series routers with wireless seem a little expensive ($500 USD range). Ultimately, if the DGL-4300 doesn't work out to my expectations, that will undoubtedly be my next step. Unfortunately, once again, there doesn't seem to be any reviews out there on their performance with Bittorrent, Xbox Live, etc., which I'd really love to see. I'm guessing that they'd blow every consumer-based router out of the water, but I'm not yet willing to test that theory out until I at least try the DGL-4300.
Click to expand...
 
swatbat said:
The cisco 871 is a nice router. Thing is you can get away with a "pc" based router that is quite. You could always get like a wrap board or something but something I've done in the past is find a used neoware that had xp embeded on it. Get a cf adapter and run one of the unix firewalls off it. No moving part and small. Works well. Even if you mounted a laptop hd in it it would be still very quite. Another option would be like a miniitx board running a via chip.

To answer the questions about wireless with the unix/linux routers. Some of them support wireless but don't support a lot of the more advanced features. Best way I've found to do it is use an access point. If you want it on a seperate network you just run it off another nic. Works the best.
Click to expand...

Another vote for the Cisco, They are rock solid routers. Should have no problems with it, and if you do Cisco stands behind their products
 
-(Xyphox)- said:
Another vote for the Cisco, They are rock solid routers. Should have no problems with it, and if you do Cisco stands behind their products
Click to expand...
Buy some Cisco gear off eBay then give them a call if something goes wrong. See what Cisco says ;)

They have been helpful with us, but we have an expensive service agreement with them.
 
kumquat said:
Buy some Cisco gear off eBay then give them a call if something goes wrong. See what Cisco says ;)

They have been helpful with us, but we have an expensive service agreement with them.
Click to expand...

As do we, all of our network gear is cisco, i.e routers,switches, AP's ect
 
Ok, so I picked up the DGL-4300 router this afternoon, and have been playing around with it, so here are some initial impressions.

None, the first thing I did was upgrade to the latest firmware, 1.4 -> 1.7. And second, I have Rogers Hi-Speed Extreme Internet (6mbit down/800kbit up).

I then attempted to do some downloads using Bittorrent on one computer (wired) and then general browsing on another computer (wireless) and performance seemed fine, and I didn't experience any noticeable slow downs on either computer. In addition to that, I then used my Vonage VoIP service, and ran into my first problem. I could hear the person on the other end fine, but they couldn't hear me. I then went onto to reboot both routers, and that seemed to solve the problem. What it was caused by, I don't know.

I next went onto Xbox Live using both wireless and wired (while no other computer has any internet activity whatsoever) and attempted a Gears of War multiplayer game, and have been struggling to 'fix' this problem all evening now. There appears to be tremendous lag with the Xbox Live service in general, something I never experienced with my old Linksys WRT54G (w/ DD-WRT). I've been doing some Google searches and some people have noted that I ought to turn off the "dynamic fragmentation" GameFuel feature, which I have, but it still appears that the lag is present. I saw some other sites which have noted that Microsoft has fixed this problem, so I'm not too sure what the current consensus is. Turning off GameFuel entirely would make this router a waste, and if that's the only fix, this router has to go back.

Any other suggestions and or experiences?
 
Fulgore said:
Turning off GameFuel entirely would make this router a waste,
Click to expand...
I don't understand that claim at all. GameFuel is just "auto-QOS" and it's not that special. You bought the router for its throughput and ability to handle many connections.

I can't really comment on the XBox Live issue.
 
Apparently, the GameFuel feature does make a difference according to the numerous reviews all over the web.

It's also one of the main "features" of this router, so that's why I'd consider it a waste if I had to disable it simply because Xbox Live is having problems. I'm trying to figure out what the issue is, and if it can be resolved.

I've seen some other posts on other sites which suggest that I downgrade back to the 1.3 or 1.4 firmware as those are Xbox Live certified while these newer firmwares are not. However, if you look at the other bugs that these newer firmware's have fixed, that would seem to be a shaky option at best.
 
kumquat said:
Buy some Cisco gear off eBay then give them a call if something goes wrong. See what Cisco says ;)

They have been helpful with us, but we have an expensive service agreement with them.
Click to expand...

Are you implying they don't honor warranties if it was bought off ebay?
 
hmmm, interesting thread.

i've been using my wrt-54g dd-wrt for awhile now but I too have noticed that torrents basically bring this thing down to it's knees, especially with QoS on.

I'm thinking about trying one of these linux implementations with a spare P4 box I have laying around (i know, overkill, but it's all i got).

1) does QoS work well these things? this is very important, i want to be able to surf AND use torrents at the same time
2) can I add wireless capability if I just use my wrt-54g as a wireless AP?
3) which implementation would be good for a intermediate *nix user like myself? I'm thinking of getting my feet wet with m0n0wall first

if the answer to the first 2 are yes, i'm going to start building one right away

edit: does m0n0wall offer a feature where I can set static DHCP leases? I see in the screenshots for IPcop that it has that ability
 
1) Yes (m0n0 has extensive traffic shaping features)
2) Yes
3) m0n0wall is good (I'm very happy with it.)

Yep, m0n0 does static DHCP
 
Spartacus said:
1) Yes (m0n0 has extensive traffic shaping features)
2) Yes
3) m0n0wall is good (I'm very happy with it.)

Yep, m0n0 does static DHCP
Click to expand...

you dont happen to know where i can find a list of supported wireless cards, iv searched the monowall site but without luck.
 
MichaelJB said:
you dont happen to know where i can find a list of supported wireless cards, iv searched the monowall site but without luck.
Click to expand...

The newest version of m0n0wall (1.3b2) is built on FreeBSD 6.2-RC1. The hardware support is tied to FreeBSD 6.2-RC1.

http://www.freebsd.org/releases/6.2R/hardware-i386.html#WLAN

I prefer to keep my wireless gear separate from my main router/firewall. I use a D-Link router setup as a WAP plugged into the same switch with the m0n0wall. That way I can change/upgrade one without affecting the other.
 
Same here. In fact, I hit up eBay right after I setup my Smoothwall router just so I could finally run a simple WAP as opposed to a disabled wireless router. Besides, this way it easily translates all the networking protocols to the wireless end without too much trouble. Here's my setup:
network14.jpg
 
Spartacus said:
1) Yes (m0n0 has extensive traffic shaping features)
2) Yes
3) m0n0wall is good (I'm very happy with it.)

Yep, m0n0 does static DHCP
Click to expand...

thanks, that helped alot, I bought the NICs, just waiting for them to come in then I can start this sucker. after reading a bit into m0n0wall and in the interest of saving some power, how hard is it to setup that CF to IDE converter and use it instead of a HD? How big of a CF card do I need? Is it as simple as writing the image to the CF and booting off it? Does the CF to IDE converter make my mobo see the CF as a native HD?
 
Spartacus said:
The newest version of m0n0wall (1.3b2) is built on FreeBSD 6.2-RC1. The hardware support is tied to FreeBSD 6.2-RC1.

http://www.freebsd.org/releases/6.2R/hardware-i386.html#WLAN

I prefer to keep my wireless gear separate from my main router/firewall. I use a D-Link router setup as a WAP plugged into the same switch with the m0n0wall. That way I can change/upgrade one without affecting the other.
Click to expand...

thx for that link.

sorry if this is a silly question, but if i use my current wireless router as AP wont i still have all the same problems, as all the connections still have to go through the AP? or mabey im missing something, mabey the 'routing' is what needs all the memory and cpu and an AP doesn't do this? sorry my knowledge of networks is limited at best. Basically wanna know if i use current wireless router as AP to new nix router will i still have the same problems?
 
pookguy88 said:
thanks, that helped alot, I bought the NICs, just waiting for them to come in then I can start this sucker. after reading a bit into m0n0wall and in the interest of saving some power, how hard is it to setup that CF to IDE converter and use it instead of a HD? How big of a CF card do I need? Is it as simple as writing the image to the CF and booting off it? Does the CF to IDE converter make my mobo see the CF as a native HD?
Click to expand...

I haven't used a CF to IDE converter, I'm using a WRAP embedded system, it has a native CF port. The converters are pretty much plug & play from what I know.

>>How big of a CF card do I need?

The smallest one you can find. :)

From the release notes:

"WARNING: the generic-pc image no longer fits on 8 MB CF cards! (>= 10 MB required)"

If your BIOS supports booting from USB, you can also boot and run it from a USB stick!

http://m0n0.ch/wall/beta-1.3.php

>>Is it as simple as writing the image to the CF and booting off it? Does the CF to IDE converter make my mobo see the CF as a native HD?

Yes^2 :)
 
MichaelJB said:
thx for that link.

sorry if this is a silly question, but if i use my current wireless router as AP wont i still have all the same problems, as all the connections still have to go through the AP? or mabey im missing something, mabey the 'routing' is what needs all the memory and cpu and an AP doesn't do this? sorry my knowledge of networks is limited at best. Basically wanna know if i use current wireless router as AP to new nix router will i still have the same problems?
Click to expand...

I don't think the weakness on most wireless routers is so much the wireless radio part of the box as much as it is the inability to handle a butt-load of TCP connections (P2P). Many SOHO wired routers also can't handle P2P.

Try the *nix router/firewall with your old router as a WAP and see how it performs. It will likely work fine. If not, then dump the old router and find another one to use for the WAP. That's the benefit of what I stated above in keeping the router/firewall and wireless gear separate. You know the *nix firewalls work well, so stay with them. Don't start over with a new router/firewall every time you want to upgrade your wireless, no need for that. Treat the WAP as a separate issue.
 
Spartacus said:
I don't think the weakness on most wireless routers is so much the wireless radio part of the box as much as it is the inability to handle a butt-load of TCP connections (P2P). Many SOHO wired routers also can't handle P2P.

Try the *nix router/firewall with your old router as a WAP and see how it performs. It will likely work fine. If not, then dump the old router and find another one to use for the WAP. That's the benefit of what I stated above in keeping the router/firewall and wireless gear separate. You know the *nix firewalls work well, so stay with them. Don't start over with a new router/firewall every time you want to upgrade your wireless, no need for that. Treat the WAP as a separate issue.
Click to expand...

when you hook up a wireless WAP, should it go on the same switch that's on the LAN nic or should it go on the OPTx nic? Like should the WAP be on the same NIC as the rest of the network or should it be seperate?
 
The LAN port vs. OPT port for wireless all depends on what you want to do.

If you are treating the wireless clients just like your wired clients and want them to file share with wired clients, then plug it into the LAN.

If you want to isolate the wireless clients from the LAN, then you could use the OPT port. You could also probably handle traffic shaping or firewall rules differently if the wireless clients are on the OPT port.
 
Spartacus said:
The LAN port vs. OPT port for wireless all depends on what you want to do.

If you are treating the wireless clients just like your wired clients and want them to file share with wired clients, then plug it into the LAN.

If you want to isolate the wireless clients from the LAN, then you could use the OPT port. You could also probably handle traffic shaping or firewall rules differently if the wireless clients are on the OPT port.
Click to expand...

hmm, i want them to be like my wired clients, so all i have to do is plug the WAP into a switch (that all my wired clients are on) that i'll be using for the LAN port? do I need to do any configuration on the m0n0wall side? WAP side?

edit: thanks for your help/advice btw
 
>>so all i have to do is plug the WAP into a switch (that all my wired clients are on)

Exactly.

>>do I need to do any configuration on the m0n0wall side?

Nope. It doesn't care if the clients are wired or wireless.

>>WAP side?

Well, I'll assume here that this is a wireless router to be configured as a WAP. Two things you need to do that.

First, change the IP address of the router so it does not conflict with m0n0wall (or whatever *nix box you are running). You can't have them both on 192.168.0.1. Change the "WAP to be" router to something like 192.168.0.254. That keeps it way up out of the way of your DHCP assigned clients, and it's easy to remember it's IP for future setup.

Second, turn off DHCP on the "WAP to be" router. You don't want to be running two DHCP servers.

When you connect the WAP to the switch, use one of the LAN ports on the WAP, not the WAN port. You can also use the other LAN ports on the WAP as normal if you need them (run out of ports on the main switch).

>>edit: thanks for your help/advice btw

Sure, happy to help.
 
Spartacus said:
>>so all i have to do is plug the WAP into a switch (that all my wired clients are on)

Exactly.

>>do I need to do any configuration on the m0n0wall side?

Nope. It doesn't care if the clients are wired or wireless.

>>WAP side?

Well, I'll assume here that this is a wireless router to be configured as a WAP. Two things you need to do that.

First, change the IP address of the router so it does not conflict with m0n0wall (or whatever *nix box you are running). You can't have them both on 192.168.0.1. Change the "WAP to be" router to something like 192.168.0.254. That keeps it way up out of the way of your DHCP assigned clients, and it's easy to remember it's IP for future setup.

Second, turn off DHCP on the "WAP to be" router. You don't want to be running two DHCP servers.

When you connect the WAP to the switch, use one of the LAN ports on the WAP, not the WAN port. You can also use the other LAN ports on the WAP as normal if you need them (run out of ports on the main switch).

>>edit: thanks for your help/advice btw

Sure, happy to help.
Click to expand...


sounds good, now just gotta wait for my Intel NICs to come in and gotta find me a CF-IDE converter in Canada... :)
 
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