bridge two wifi networks

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MetalDwarf

[H]ard|Gawd
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Jan 20, 2002
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I have two wireless networks on opposite sides of a building, I cant run a cable to connect them. they each have an independent internet connection and several computers each.

is there a way to bridge the connection so that the computers can see each other on a LAN? they are in range of each others wireless radio's i would like it to just bridge the two together under one SSID so that all teh wireless computers think they are on the same network. is there a way to do this? one of the routers is a WRT-54GL, the other a crapy dlink but it could be replaced with another WRT-54GL
 
Subbed. I'm curious as to the best way to go about doing this as well.
 
Ok... I'm a network noob but I'm going to throw this out there: a multi-homing configuration with a wireless bridge. Going to guess you can manage to accomplish this with DD-WRT on your WRT-54GLs.

EDIT - Eh, it looks like I fail. Google tells me you'll have to use the 4mb flash version of DD-WRT but I can't find out if they'll manage multi-homing. : Shrug : This is where I step aside and let the people who know what they're talking about have their say. :)
 
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How would this even work? You would still have 2 DHCP servers essentially running on 2 different internet connections. One way is a software based VLAN like Hamachi, but that doesn't look like what you're looking for.

You want to use one global SSID that any device can connect to, but still be able to distinguish which router the client devices connect to?

EDIT: A few grammatical errors that made my statements confusing.
 
more info

Each wifi router are for a different office. Due to stupid ass email requirements they are both on different ISP's.

my ultimate purpose is that i would like to be able to share resources better, specifically I want to set up a WHS for backup purposes. so i need both networks to be able to see it and backup too it. My solution at the moment is to tunnel to it via the internet, which is retarded, since i have a perfectly good 54mb/s wifi network in range, and my UL speed on the faster connection is like 100K/s.

so all the computers on each network need to be able to see the server for backup. I cant run a wire, and they both need to maintain their current ISP's.
 
Cmustang87 said:
How would this even work? You would still have 2 DHCP servers essentially running on 2 different internet connections. One way is a software based VLAN like Hamachi, but that doesn't look like what you're looking for.

You want to use one global SSID that any device can connect to, but still be able to distinguish which router the client devices connect to?

EDIT: A few grammatical errors that made my statements confusing.
Click to expand...

You can disable DHCP serving on one of the routers right? And if the wireless networks are linked, it should be able to assign DHCPs to computers connecting to the other router via wireless. The only thing you wouldn't be able to do is handle the balancing of the load between the two connections, if that was even a concern.
 
The problem is going to be having two DHCP servers on the same network. You are going to have to bring that down to one for this to work.

Here is how I'd do it:

Disable the DHCP server on the router that is using the slower of the two Internet Connections. Change the address of that router from 192.168.1.1 to 192.168.1.2 (assuming the other router is 192.168.1.1).

Make sure that whatever address you set the router with the disabled DHCP server to is not within the rage that is assigned to clients by the other router.

Get a Wireless Bridge or an Acesss point that can function as a wireless bridge and use it on one end or the other to connect the two networks.

At this point you would essentially have both networks using the one single DHCP server and that one single network connection.

You will still have the 2nd router for the 2nd internet connection with the disabled DHCP server on the same subnet. You will need to change the TCP/IP information on any computer that you want to use that secondary internet connection from DHCP to manual and enter IP information (any IP that is in the same subnet but not within the DHCP range of the main router). For the gateway and possibly also the DNS server fields you will put the IP you set the secondary router to.


So your network would look something like this:

Internet Connection #1 -> WiFi-Router #1 (192.168.1.1) DHCP Enabled
Internet Connection #2 -> WiFi-Router #2 (192.168.1.2) DHCP Disabled

Office #1:
Computer #1: Gateway/DNS set to 192.168.1.1 via DHCP
Computer #2: Gateway/DNS set to 192.168.1.1 via DHCP
Computer #3: Gateway/DNS set to 192.168.1.1 via DHCP

Office #2:
Computer #1: Gateway/DNS set to 192.168.1.2 via Manual Configuration
Computer #2: Gateway/DNS set to 192.168.1.2 via Manual Configuration
Computer #3: Gateway/DNS set to 192.168.1.2 via Manual Configuration

They would all be on the same subnet and able to see each other, but they would still be using their own internet connections.

The only downsides is that you will have to manually enter the TCP/IP info for any computer you want to use the secondary internet connection, but if these are just office computers then you should only have to do it once and it's not really a big deal. Any computer that connects to the network will be using the first internet connection unless they specify manual information, which is why it would probably make sense to have that be the faster of the two connections.
 
^^^
Sweet, that's kinda what I had pictured in my head... good to know I was on the right track.
 
If he's only looking to be able to do this just for systems to be backing up to the WHS, why not set up an FTP?
 
why not put 2 NICs in your WHS, and having each NIC be on a separate network?

or are you needing to share resources between devices on both networks?

At one point, you say you want to share stuff between the 2, but then later say it's just for a WHS-backup solution?


getting a single WHS server setup and on both network is easy as pie. Getting devices between the 2 network to talk to each other is a different story.
 
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