Linksys WRT54G becomes a wireless bridge with DD-WRT

After a recent move I found myself without any place to plug in my ethernet cables to access the internet. In the new place, there was a single telephone jack in the house, in the kitchen no less. A DSL modem was connected to the telephone jack, and then to an Apple Airport Express, providing wireless service for my roomie’s Powerbook (and mine too, for that matter). But there was simply no way for me to connect my wired ethernet devices without stringing wires across the floor, or stapled to door frames, etc., and I really was trying not to make the new place ugly with cables.

I started doing some reading to find a good, cheap wireless bridge that I might be able to use to connect my wired equipment to the wireless network. After a quick session on Google (maybe a little too quick, as it turns out), and after checking the web site for the offerings of the local Micro Center, I bought a Hawking HWBA54G for about $80, including tax, etc. I took it home, followed the setup instructions to get everything ready, then powered everything up. Using the Setup CD provided by Hawking, I easily configured the device for Bridge operation, and then attempted to connect to the internet using my Windows XP system.

It seemed as though everything was copasetic… I connected, could download, upload, browse the web. The connection even supported using Torrents to transfer files, and at a fair speed it seemed. The I discovered my problem… I couldn’t talk to the bridge anymore, because it was off on another subnet, inaccessible to me now. When my Windows machine had used DNS to configure itself, it had moved onto a subnet of 10.0.1.xxx while the bridge had remained on the subnet 192.168.1.xxx.

So, no problem… just change the manual address of the bridge so I could see it, and things should be hunky dory. I used the reset button to return the bridge to the factory defaults, ran the Setup CD again, and then attempted to connect to the internet using my XP machine. But no matter how I cajoled and coaxed the bridge along, no matter how many times I started once again with factory defaults, no matter what I did to try and connect, I never got another connection through the Hawking Bridge. Never. Another visit to Google showed that I was not the only user that had experienced this problem.

So, back to the store with the Hawking Bridge, and then back home with my $80 in my pocket again…..

I wasn’t sure at this point what I would do for connectivity, and started to look at other bridge solutions. I wasn’t keen on shelling out another $80, either. But, as luck would have it, I still had my Linksys WRT54G wireless router with me. I hadn’t really thought much about it at first, since in normal operation it is intended to provide an Access Point, not act as a bridge. However, I remembered reading about the OpenWRT project somewhere along the way, and began to delve a little more deeply into just what might be possible using some open source software from the net.

After visiting several places on the web, I finally found my way the DD-WRT project. This project was originally based on the official GPL Sources of Sveasoft Alchemy, but has moved beyond that. Check the website for more details, or read more about the DD-WRT project at Wikipedia.

To make a long story short, I followed the instructions on the DD-WRT forums for loading the software onto my WRT54G, and setting up bridge operation. Lo and behold, back in business! Since the WRT54G has 4 ethernet ports on it, I plugged in my wired network equipment, turned everything on, and Wowee! Everything was working. My laser printer, which uses Bonjour to announce itself on the network, was immediately available to me when using my Powerbook, which impressed me. I set up my roomie’s Powerbook to take advantage of the laser printer too, so he could stop making trips to his desk to plug in the USB cable to his printer when he wanted to print. Yay!

So far I’ve been pretty happy with DD-WRT, but I’m sorry to say that since I’ve begun using DD-WRT I’ve discovered that some people are not happy with the direction that DD-WRT has been moving. DD-WRT seems to be slowly moving away from a free open source approach to a revenue-generating approach.

I’m already looking at other alternative software for my WRT54G, and am considering trying the X-WRT project. It looks like X-Wrt is following a free open source path, and I hope they continue to do so. If and when I decide to upgrade my connection again, I’ll keep you informed with a new post!

Happy Networking,

Mirth Maker