WRT54GL - Several covering a school...

[OoteR02]

Here's the situation:

I'll have limited usage of these (at the most ~20 devices.)

I didn't think the situation all the way through when I bought them. Here is what I have.

4 WRT54GL Routers, all within range of each other (in a square basically). Mounted on the wall.

Each has it's own cable pull from our main switches, that is connected to their WAN side port.

I'd like them all to reside on the same ESSID, and allow the laptops to roam and just connect to the best signal (which will depend on the room they are in.)

I configured them all with DHCP on, but with different IP ranges. For some reason I had it in my head that it would work.. It doesn't, it seems they will hop from router to router and think they didn't lose connection (same ESSID, WPA2 pass etc), but the IP range will be off and they do not connect to anything.

I did buy the L version in case I need to install DDWRT or something similar to open up what they can do.

Am I correct in thinking that I need to scrap using the pulled wires on all but one, and set the others up to work as wireless extenders (ddwrt)?

 

[tonyyy]

Are these all connected to a switch? or a main Router?

You do not need to have all 4 routers set with DHCP on.

Do not use the WAN port. Connect all routers using the LAN ports back to the main switch/router.

The best way to do this is to have the main router be your DHCP server.

Setup all other routers with a static IP and DHCP turned off.

static ip will allow you to connect/configure each wireless router if there is a problem.

Setup all routers with the same ESSID/wireless encryption but on different channels. These channels need to be +6 so they do not overlap for example:

1 7 13

Otherwise there will be interference if they are set to the same channel.

This way you can roam between different wireless routers.

 

[OoteR02]

They are all connected to an HP switch, DHCP is provided by a server2k3 box.

So you are saying turn off the DHCP, and hook my main switches to the LAN side of the routers? Oh, and seperate the channels? Sounds like a plan. I'll try it out with one of the in my office.

For some reason it seemed it would be much harder than that.

 

[JackMDS]

This is the way they should be configured.

Using a Wireless Router as a switch with an Access Point - http://www.ezlan.net/router_AP.html

Otherwise you are creating multiple segregated independent Networks.

 

[tonyyy]

Correct.

since you have 4 APs you'll have a duplicate channel just place it on the opposite corner

you say you have the area setup like a square?

1, 7

13, 1

This would be the best way to lay out the airports.

I would begin testing with one WRT54GL at a time. Assign static IP. make sure you connect to this device via wireless and that you are able to get a IP from the DHCP server from your wk3 box.

also make sure the static IP address you assign to each WRT54GL is not a IP address from the DHCP pool otherwise you will run into some duplicate IP address conflicts.

Once that works you can do the same for the other 3 WRT54GL's with a different Static IP address and test the wifi and dhcp.

you should be able to roam from one WRT54GL to another as long as they all have the same ESSID and Encryption.

 

[OoteR02]

Thanks guys, I'll be testing it out on Wednesday when all the kids are out of my way.

I just tested it on one in my office, iphone and laptop are getting the addy's how I want, so it looks good!

 

[tonyyy]

great! glad I could help!

 

[kevnich2]

Disable DHCP on ALL of the WRT54GL's - then connect the uplink to one of the 4 LAN ports, don't use the WAN port.