Considering a change in network topology...

[htismaqe]

I'm looking for some validation...

Our environment here at home is very mobile. All of my family are heavy tablet and phone users, plus the girls have iPods.

The only fixed devices on the network are:

1. Two Netgear WGR614 routers, functioning as 2.4Ghz access points
2. The mother-in-law's PC, connected via WLAN because running cable is not possible.
3. My iMac, connected via WLAN because running cable is somewhat inconvenient.
4. A Playstation 3, connected via cable because it is about 3ft from the fiber NID.

I had originally collocated my NAS with the PS3 and router, due to proximity and the need for wired connectivity (see diagram "current.png").

However, in recent months I've been working more and more with VMs and large disk images on my iMac. I would really like to get the NAS and iMac connected via gigabit ethernet. In addition, I've worked on a couple of PCs for extended family members lately and having to rig up a temporary wireless bridge is a hassle. What I'm considering for a permanent solution is depicted in diagram "proposed.png".

Here is what I am considering - I want to take my old Netgear WNDR3700, load DD-WRT, and configure it as a client bridge. Then I can put the NAS and iMac right next to each other. The only potential drawback I can think of is that the 3700 is a 2-stream radio while the iMac is an Atheros 9380 3-stream. However, I wonder if the transmit power of the 3700 overcomes that somewhat - the signal strength of connecting it may compensate for the loss of 1 stream in terms of throughput. Also, my Internet connection is only 30Mbit and I've eliminated the bandwidth bottleneck between my iMac and the NAS, so a reduction in wireless throughput might not matter.

All of the other devices in the house already connect to the NAS via 2.4Ghz wireless at low N speeds (except the PS3, which is very rarely used to stream music via DLNA) so I don't see this as being an issue either.

Feedback?

 

[abailey]

That looks solid to me. I don't see any drawbacks to your plan since other devices are already using 2.4ghz wifi to get to the NAS and the 2x2 Client Bridge will be as fast as that and should be faster than your internet connection. I assume the client bridge is on the 5Ghz spectrum?
I use a 5Ghz (2x2 - 300Mbit link rate) client bridge in my house and when I do a full duplex test I get 90Mb/s. Now I have a good signal and my 5Ghz channel is only used by a couple of devices so I have little air time competition.

 

[htismaqe]

That looks solid to me. I don't see any drawbacks to your plan since other devices are already using 2.4ghz wifi to get to the NAS and the 2x2 Client Bridge will be as fast as that and should be faster than your internet connection. I assume the client bridge is on the 5Ghz spectrum?
I use a 5Ghz (2x2 - 300Mbit link rate) client bridge in my house and when I do a full duplex test I get 90Mb/s. Now I have a good signal and my 5Ghz channel is only used by a couple of devices so I have little air time competition.

Yeah, it will be 5Ghz (the 3700 could do either but I'm going to disable 2.4Ghz most likely).

There's only 4 devices using 5Ghz today and there will be 1 less (the iMac) with the bridge setup, so I'm not really worried about contention too much.

Right now, I image the laptops by taking them to the living room and plugging them in wired anyway. There's really not room for it there, so I might actually be improving that situation by moving the central GigE LAN to my office where I can plugin multiple laptops at once.

 

[thiggins]

I suggest grouping wireless clients by class / streams supported. Single stream devices (phones, iPads) will limit throughput use by dual-stream devices (laptops)

 

[htismaqe]

Yeah, I don't really care about that. They all function and are fast enough for nobody to complain. I would prefer to keep my network segmented by user rather than device type. Separating by device type also complicates coverage, since my kids are situated at one end of the house and me and my wife at the other.

At any rate, I'm not going to make a change. I spent all freaking day on this and can't get it to work.

I can get DD-WRT to bridge on the 2.4Ghz network but not on the 5Ghz. Gargoyle will bridge on the 5Ghz but won't allow me to use 40Mhz - every time I save the changes, it sets the channel bandwidth back to 20Mhz.

 

[htismaqe]

I've come to the conclusion that there's something wrong with the router itself.

If I configure the router in AP mode using the stock firmware, instead of bridging the WAN port, it kills it. It gets a DHCP address and then stops passing traffic altogether.

If I unplug from the WAN port and plug into the LAN (like most of the pre-Genie routers, like my WGR614's), it passes packets for 30 seconds then resets the LAN port.

So it's live for 30 seconds, dead for 5, live for 30, dead for 5. It's broken.

 

[stevech]

If I configure the router in AP mode using the stock firmware, instead of bridging the WAN port, it kills it. It gets a DHCP address and then stops passing traffic altogether.

So it's live for 30 seconds, dead for 5, live for 30, dead for 5. It's broken.

Some router/AP combos, in AP mode, require use of a LAN port and disable the WAN port.

 

[htismaqe]

Some router/AP combos, in AP mode, require use of a LAN port and disable the WAN port.

Current Netgear firmwares support "AP mode" - it's a setting in the GUI. You enable it and then connect the WAN port of the AP mode router to your router.

http://kb.netgear.com/app/answers/d...t-a-wireless-router-to-access-point-(ap)-mode

The WNDR3700 actually has the pre-Genie GUI, so even though it supports this newer mode, it also supports the "old" way which is like you said - disable DHCP and the WAN port and use a LAN port.

The problem is that NEITHER method works on this particular router. Given that I couldn't get Gargoyle or DD-WRT to work, I'm guessing that the old hardware is just bad.

 

[htismaqe]

I thought I'd let you guys know that I ended up running a 50-ft Cat6 run through the attic.

It wasn't easy but it took a lot less time than I spent on configuring that damn 3700.

My write speeds to the NAS tripled and my read speeds increased FIVE TIMES.

 

[Trip]

Ahh.... Cat6 -- the cure for the common consumer wifi bridge.

 

[azazel1024]

Pretty much. What is a pain is cat6a. Having to terminate the shielding, all that kind of stuff. Le sigh.

I've been running it in my brother's play. He got a 1000ft spool and all of the other goodies. MAN is that cable thick. Got 4 drops to his office directly above his server rack in the basement. That was the easy stuff. Then I did a pair of runs across the basement, up through the garage in to his master bedroom. Need to do the entire upstairs later as well as to his living room. Living room should be easy because it is across the basement directly above it (basement is unfinished. It was partially finished, but had mold, which was remediated stripping the basement to bare studs). The pain is going to be wiring the upstairs. My thoughts are routing from the basement up through the mainfloor "core". Sadly no way to do it without punching through drywall in a couple of places. Then up to the attic and then I can run it down to each room.

Not sure if I'll do each drop straight from the basement or if I'll do 2-4 from the basement up to a semi-managed switch with LACP in the linen closet, then run it from the switch to the attic and to each room. I guess part of it is figuring out what my brother wants in each room. I know at least 2 drop in each of the other 2 bedrooms, plus a hook up in the linen close for an AP, but if he wants 2 drops in each room + AP, it might be easier to just run 2 up to a switch and then branch...especially because I am thinking POE injector on both ends to feed the switch (I am uncomfortable running POE injectors on data lines, so could be 2 data and 1 pure POE line that isn't connected to the switch directly).

To digress, I am glad you managed to get the line run. Its often a pain in the butt, but nothing beats wired ethernet. I remember years ago my father did something similar with a cat5 across the house up to my bedroom over the garage. It was a horrible pain for us running it, but it worked great (of course this was also in the pre-wireless days. Not even sure if 11b was confirmed at the time...maybe/probably, this was ~'97 when we ran it). Worked great for LAN quake games with the 10Mbps ISA adapter in my P166mmx. I mean, our cable internet connection in those days was a 3/512 connection IIRC. Few years later I was rocking a 10/100 PCI adapter and we had a 5/768 cable connection.

 

[htismaqe]

To digress, I am glad you managed to get the line run. Its often a pain in the butt, but nothing beats wired ethernet. I remember years ago my father did something similar with a cat5 across the house up to my bedroom over the garage. It was a horrible pain for us running it, but it worked great (of course this was also in the pre-wireless days. Not even sure if 11b was confirmed at the time...maybe/probably, this was ~'97 when we ran it). Worked great for LAN quake games with the 10Mbps ISA adapter in my P166mmx. I mean, our cable internet connection in those days was a 3/512 connection IIRC. Few years later I was rocking a 10/100 PCI adapter and we had a 5/768 cable connection.

Yeah, running it wasn't fun but it only ended up taking about 45 minutes (compared to the ENTIRE DAY I wasted on trying to setup a client bridge) and the cable was only $12.

BTW, me and my roommate had a small 10b2 network for a while in the mid-90s. Those were the days!