WDS vs repeater mode

[cogumel0]

I have an RT-AC66U and a RT-N66U.

My main router is the RT-AC66U.

I want to extend my wireless network and am trying to choose between WDS vs repeater mode. I have a few questions regarding this:

1) From what I see it appears that repeater mode does not create a real bridge but rather a pseudo-bridge (clients behind the bridge use MAC of bridge itself to communicate with anything outside bridge, among other things). Can someone confirm this?

2) My understanding is that since both routers use broadcom chipsets it should be possible to implement WET mode, which my understanding is would create a real bridge (even though it appears to have some caveats). Is this a limitation of the hardware or does the firmware simply not implement it?

3) I currently have my RT-N66U setup as a repeater and am able to get 45mb/s download speeds off the internet on computers behind the bridge (my connection is 50mb/s). However, when sending files from a computer outside the bridge to a computer inside the bridge the speed drops to about 25mb/s. Both computers are connected via ethernet cables so it has nothing to do with distance from the router, can someone explain why this happens?

4) Lastly, and more importantly, ignoring the fact that in WDS (at least using Asuswrt or Asuswrt-Merlin) you can only use WEP, are there any advantages of using WDS over repeater mode? Would my throughput increase if I were to use WDS instead?

Thank you in advance

 

[cogumel0]

Over 100 views and not a single answer?

<shameless bump>

 

[elorimer]

I will only say, the wireless log on my RT-N10+ functioning in repeater mode reports: "Op Mode:WDS only". Even though WDS is only available in access point mode, and the security in repeater mode is WPA2-AES.

Of course, its firmware isn't Asuswrt, and my RT-N16 doesn't have WDS active. But it sure acts like WDS with better security.

 

[cogumel0]

elorimer, thank you for the reply.

I know WDS can use WPA2 with other firmware (DD-WRT and Tomato come to mind), but I'm still not sure there are any advantages over using Asuswrt in repeater mode, or any disadvantages of using Asuswrt in repeater mode for that matter.

If I were to use WDS I would either use DD-WRT or Tomato (probably Shibby Tomato), but I know either one will have a slight hit in throughput which is why I am asking the differences between WDS and repeater mode.

 

[RMerlin]

elorimer, thank you for the reply.

I know WDS can use WPA2 with other firmware (DD-WRT and Tomato come to mind), but I'm still not sure there are any advantages over using Asuswrt in repeater mode, or any disadvantages of using Asuswrt in repeater mode for that matter.

That WPA2 support is a bad hack. WDS by its design cannot work with an encryption that involves a rotating key. My guess is, those firmwares supporting it are cheating, by having the key rotation set to 0. So you are effectively dropping a big portion of the security provided by WPA2 by doing so, leading you to a false sense of security.

 

[icece]

Ad 1) yes
Ad 3 & 4) there are so much dependencies how is the implementation of chipsets, drives, SDK. There is no general answer. Best practice - test the different scenarios with the hardware & software you have

 

[cogumel0]

RMerlin,

To be fair for my use which is just at home I don't think it matters if they drop the rotating key.

Nowadays everyone knows that a WEP key can be broken in under 5m.

Anyone wanting to crack a network key in a residential area will only be targeting WEP networks because of how difficult others are to crack.

The assumption will always be that if you are using WPA2 you'll use a proper implementation of it.

So while it might be true that it is less secure, I think it will still deter people from cracking it as much as a proper implementation and that's good enough for my needs.

 

[agilani]

I've tried both - here are a few observations

I setup a WDS bridge between an rt-n56u and rt-n66u using the asus firmware.

Performance for WDS was good. I was never able to get it setup with WEP. It just did not work. I got it setup with no encryption whatsoever and in order to make myself feel safe hid the ssid so people couldn't find my router and connect to it. The other option is to only set it up for wds only, but you would lose use of that radio for any clients. I didn't really like this setup because I either lost the use of a radio or pretty much was relying on hiding of my ssid for a false sense of security and my data is being sent over wireless with no encryption to boot! I had a netgear 3500v2 that I was using dd-wrt with in a repeater bridge mode, but I would get a lot of errors and spotty performance.

the rt-n56u does not support dd-wrt (not a Broadcom chipset). When newegg started bring the refurbished rt-n66r routers, I purchased two of them and set them up with DD-WRT. Getting dd-wrt on these was a complete pain because of some 64k nvram issue which I frankly didn't understand and didn't want to look into and the wiki site is not updated and many of the links don't work. After finally finding and loading the experimental 3.x dd-wrt code I set it up as a repeater bridge with wpa2-personal-aes. So basically one side is running stock asus firmware (rt-n66u) and the other dd-wrt (rt-n66r).

Performance seems on par with WDS and frankly I'll probably end up staying with this configuration because the link is encrypted. I'm getting a link speed of 243M and no packet loss like the netgear on the 5G radio between the two routers (450M connectivity when the routers were in the same room). I haven't really done any load testing, but I'm getting my full 35M down 5 up through this setup. What are you using to measure speed? If you are using windows file transfer are you aware that it is displaying the file transfer speed in MB/s and not Mb/s?

Looks like merlin supports repeater bridge as well so I'm going to test that next. I like the stockish asus firmware much better than dd-wrt.


Oh, one last thing keep in mind that in WDS each of the nodes can be configured to communicate directly with all of the other nodes. Using the repeater bridge setup is more of a hub and spoke setup. This is only really relevant if you are using multiple wireless repeaters and have client to client centric connectivity requirements which is not the case for most home setups.

Hope this helps!

 

[Livin]

I setup a WDS bridge between an rt-n56u and rt-n66u using the asus firmware.

Performance for WDS was good. I was never able to get it setup with WEP. It just did not work. I got it setup with no encryption whatsoever and in order to make myself feel safe hid the ssid so people couldn't find my router and connect to it. The other option is to only set it up for wds only, but you would lose use of that radio for any clients. I didn't really like this setup because I either lost the use of a radio or pretty much was relying on hiding of my ssid for a false sense of security and my data is being sent over wireless with no encryption to boot! I had a netgear 3500v2 that I was using dd-wrt with in a repeater bridge mode, but I would get a lot of errors and spotty performance.

the rt-n56u does not support dd-wrt (not a Broadcom chipset). When newegg started bring the refurbished rt-n66r routers, I purchased two of them and set them up with DD-WRT. Getting dd-wrt on these was a complete pain because of some 64k nvram issue which I frankly didn't understand and didn't want to look into and the wiki site is not updated and many of the links don't work. After finally finding and loading the experimental 3.x dd-wrt code I set it up as a repeater bridge with wpa2-personal-aes. So basically one side is running stock asus firmware (rt-n66u) and the other dd-wrt (rt-n66r).

Performance seems on par with WDS and frankly I'll probably end up staying with this configuration because the link is encrypted. I'm getting a link speed of 243M and no packet loss like the netgear on the 5G radio between the two routers (450M connectivity when the routers were in the same room). I haven't really done any load testing, but I'm getting my full 35M down 5 up through this setup. What are you using to measure speed? If you are using windows file transfer are you aware that it is displaying the file transfer speed in MB/s and not Mb/s?

Looks like merlin supports repeater bridge as well so I'm going to test that next. I like the stockish asus firmware much better than dd-wrt.


Oh, one last thing keep in mind that in WDS each of the nodes can be configured to communicate directly with all of the other nodes. Using the repeater bridge setup is more of a hub and spoke setup. This is only really relevant if you are using multiple wireless repeaters and have client to client centric connectivity requirements which is not the case for most home setups.

Hope this helps!

Are you still using this setup?

I just setup WDS across two AC68U routers using Merlin FW and it works fine but I'm concerned with not having security on 5GHz. I want to enable clients to connected both wired and 2.4GHz Wifi and only use the 5GHz for the bridge/repeating.

any advice is appreciated!

 

[cofetym]

Try adding Powerline in the mix.

 

[agilani]

Are you still using this setup?

I just setup WDS across two AC68U routers using Merlin FW and it works fine but I'm concerned with not having security on 5GHz. I want to enable clients to connected both wired and 2.4GHz Wifi and only use the 5GHz for the bridge/repeating.

any advice is appreciated!

I now have a series of three routers the base station is running the stock firmware. One unit is in repeater mode running dd-wrt and the other repeater is running merlin. I like merlin better, I just never gotten around to getting the dd-wrt router re-flashed. The merlin config was slightly more problematic. I remember it automatically assigning duplicate ip addresses and I had to quickly identify which unit I was conntected to physically and change the ip addresses manually. Otherwise the configuration has been rock solid since I installed it.

I also tested having the repeater bridge connect to a guest ssid on the main router. It worked, but I never switched over to it.

that's all I can remember. If you need help I can always try and give you some screen shots.

So to be more specific. keep the base station as is with stock firmware and install merlin on the remote unit (or keep merlin on both). Switch over from wds to repeater mode which allows you to use encryption (wpa2 with aes) with the remote unit.

 

[marden]

I have been following this thread but I am a little confused. I came across this thread trying to figure out one thing. I have an ASUS AC-56U and want to convert it to a repeater bridge. However I don't want to use DDWRT. Is it possible to create a repeater bridge for this router using Merlin and if so How do I do it?Can someone please provide the process if it is possible? Thank you in advance.

 

[agilani]

I have been following this thread but I am a little confused. I came across this thread trying to figure out one thing. I have an ASUS AC-56U and want to convert it to a repeater bridge. However I don't want to use DDWRT. Is it possible to create a repeater bridge for this router using Merlin and if so How do I do it?Can someone please provide the process if it is possible? Thank you in advance.

Wow, you revived a old thread. Surprised it's still here.

You can setup repeater mode on almost any Asus stock or Merlin firmware now. After you update the code to the latest. Initialize it and attach your computer directly to it. Configure it for repeater mode and give it a static IP address that doesn't comflict with your primary router. You'll need to tell it what the ssid and password of the primary router are and assign a different ssid and password for the repeater.