I wanted to extend the range of my network around my house and learned the best way to do this is with several Linksys brand wireless routers. I have one private wireless network that is simple (one access point) and a large open network that extends around my property with many access points. This network is in front of the firewall and open for neighbors or friends to easily connect to. Access point locations: I have a garage and shed which have power running to them but no ethernet access. The solution will be to send a internet signal to these locations wirelessly. In this guide I will be explaining how to install DD-WRT on a Linksys Wireless Router WRT54G2 and setting up a WDS (Wireless Distribution System)

Wireless Distribution System - Overview

Installing DD-WRT

1. Reset the router to defaults on the Linksys Admin page, and let it reboot or manually reboot it after its finished.
2. Set your computer to a static IP address of 192.168.1.10 and 255.255.255.0 for a mask and plug ethernet cable into LAN port of the WRT54G2 unit.
3. Log in to route with (username is blank, password = admin) and navigate to firmware upgrade page. Browse to the VxWorksKiller-G2V1-new.bin file, press Upgrade and wait 60 seconds for it to reboot on its own, if it does not, then powercycle the router manually. Wait another 60 seconds and reboot it again. Router should now be listening for tftp transfer of dd-wrt firmware.
4. Tftp the DD-WRT firmware to the router, use “dd-wrt.v24-11536_NEWD_micro-plus_ssh.bin” after successful tftp, wait 3 min for the router to finish writing new nvram deafults, etc… It should reboot on its own at least two times, so give it 3 min and then go to http://192.168.1.1 (If it not reboot on its own, wait another 1 min, and then power cycle it) Log in to route with (username is blank, password = admin).
5. When if finishes booting up…do a hard reset on the unit…let it boot again, and configure.
6. Don’t forget to set your computer back to automatically obtaining DHCP and DNS.

Configuring WDS

Now comes the part were we allow the updating devices to connect to eachother. There are two options to relay signals from one wireless . One, would be to setup WDS which is what we will do. The second would be to turn the access point into a repeater. It basically becomes a client of another access point and uses it’s own DCHP service to give out ip address. The problem with this is that your creating multiple subnets. You can’t traverse access nodes because each node would have a different ip block.

On with the configuration. Simply enter in all the MAC addresses for the access points you would like to connect to.

WDS MAC Address Setup

WDS (Wireless Distribution System) is a Wireless Access Point mode that enables wireless bridging in which WDS APs communicate only with each other only (without allowing for wireless clients or stations to access them), and/or wireless repeating in which APs communicate both with each other and with wireless stations (at the expense of half the throughput). This firmware currently supports two types of WDS, LAN and Point to Point.

After you have completed this step on my the access points you should have a mesh network setup and ready for devices to connect. There is an option called “Lazy WDS” basically it saves the hassle of finding the MAC addresses and adding them into each router. Since I am setting up a small network adding the correct MAC addresses in not a problem to me. I find that if Lazy WDS is used some nodes might connect incorrectly to others nodes at a further distance.

Important Notes

After setting everything up I realized the range on the WRT54G2 is shorter than the previous WRT54Gv1 wireless routers that I had setup. The external antennas would have been very nice with these units. Also if two access points are closer to each other than the head node they will talk to each other and not connect to the head node which of course is the path to the internet, this will cause problems.