R7000 WDS/Mesh/Bridge questions

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LordBadHabit
LordBadHabit's picture
R7000 WDS/Mesh/Bridge questions

Hi guys,

 

I currently use a R7000 running the latest Advanced Tomato firmware and overall it´s running without any issues.

But now I´m planning to move to a new house where it will no longer be possible to connect my NAS, PC + Xbox by cable to the router.

I have a Plex Media server running on the NAS and use that to stream HD video content to the Xbox.

 

Therefore I´m thinking about building a WiFi bridge using a second router (NAS has no WiFi) and maybe someone of you could help me with my decision. So devices connected by cable on both sides, a WiFi bridge between the 2 routers and of course WiFi for mobile devices from both routers.

1. Which router to use? (easiest would be a second R7000, or is there maybe something cheaper without limiting the maximum possible bandwidth of the bridge? Of course it should be as stable as possible...

2. Talking about bandwidth, what could I expect there? I think it would be sufficient for HD movies with  the signal strong enough...but would that be also true for 4k (thinking about future upgrades...)?

3. Is there maybe a How-To that I could follow? I found a quite old one but I´m not sure that´s still valid

4. Would there be any advantage in using DD-WRT maybe?

 

Many thanks in advance for any comments.

Regard,

LBH

aqueenan
aqueenan's picture
Tomato works; DD-WRT might

Tomato works; DD-WRT might work too. If you want to use the same radio for bridge and access point, use the Virtual Wi-Fi feature, but be aware that it would halve the bandwidth. Better to use different radios entirely, e.g. 2.4 for bridge and 5 for access point, or vice versa.

I wouldn't follow that HOWTO - it's for configuring WDS which is insecure. Here's a better guide. Just configure the Wireless Mode as Wireless Ethernet Bridge instead of Access Point, and enter the credentials of the other WiFi access point. The one gotcha I've found is that, when enabling the WiFi bridge in Tomato, it disables the WAN feature, which disables the DNS and DHCP server, so if you want to use dnsmasq as your DNS and DHCP, you'll need to do that on the router that isn't configured as a bridge.

4k is only 35-45Mbps, up to 68Mbps for high frame rate, so as long as you use 802.11n or better you should be fine.

Kind regards,
Aaron.

LordBadHabit
LordBadHabit's picture
Hi, thanks for the link,

Hi, thanks for the link, looks good.

 

So, using the R7000, building the bridge with 5 and use 2.4 for Clients would be the best option I think.

The router that is connected to the WAN needs to be configured as Access Point (with 1 Client Wifi on 2.4 + 1 Bridge WiFi on 5) with DHCP and DNS, the second one as Wireless Bridge connecting to the 5 WiFi.....sounds easy, let´s see :-)

 

 

LordBadHabit
LordBadHabit's picture
Just one other thing, as the

Just one other thing, as the R7000 is not that cheap, what would you think about using a WiFi Extender?

Like a TP-Link RE580D or a Netgear Nighthawk EX7000?

 

Should do extactly what I want it for but is simpler to install....

 

Any experience with those?