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Wifi to ethernet (lemmy.world)

submitted 11 months ago by Dav@lemmy.world to c/networking@sh.itjust.works

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Hi all, looking for some guidance on getting wired networking upstairs to my pcs.

Currently I have my internet connection coming in downstairs. Without running cables upstairs is it possible to connect something to my existing wifi network and then break it out to to ethernet?

Any help much appreciated.

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[–] Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca 9 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (3 children)

If you've got a spare router laying around; you can probably flash DDWRT, OpenWRT or similar to it, then use the wifi on it as a client-bridge. Does exactly what you asked for: connects to wifi and bridges the lan ports to that connection.

I used to do this at LAN parties almost 15 years ago. I know for sure DDWRT will do it.

[–] Dav@lemmy.world 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I've got a spare router lying around. I'll give this a try.

[–] user224@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Make sure to use a WDS bridge if supported, rather than some workaround DD-WRT offers, or putting everything behind yet another NAT and separate network.

[–] Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

WDS is what DDWRT uses for wifi client bridging. (it's mentioned on the first page of the link i provided)

[–] user224@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Except client bridge which is a sort of a workaround: https://wiki.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Client_Bridge

[–] Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca 1 points 11 months ago

Ah, I see. It's been a long time since I dove into this....

OP will probably want to use plain Client Mode then. Same thing, but a bit more stable and with an extra NAT.

Not really a big deal unless you need clients on the primary network to reach the services on secondary network. Then you've just gotta be aware of the extra NAT and the port forwarding required.

[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Don't bother with ddwrt since it is really behind the curve.

OpenWRT is where its at but you need to proper hardware

[–] ShepherdPie@midwest.social 1 points 11 months ago

After running DDWRT for years on my old router, I completely agree with this. The worst was googling tutorials to do something on the router and everything always referencing OpenWRT.

[–] user224@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 11 months ago

And you can most likely still create a VAP on it to act as WiFi extender.

I've used one as a VPN client this way. Connect to WiFi network, connect to Mullvad using Wireguard, create virtual access point and it semi-practically worked.
Semi, the WRT160NL couldn't really handle it. Especially after adding a separate guest network with another VAP. Crashing like every 3 minutes. It can realistically only act as either a WiFi client or single AP.

But that is device-dependent. This is an old trash.