Skip to content

Latest commit

 

History

History
79 lines (59 loc) · 9.37 KB

Configuring-secondary-OpenWrt-Wifi.md

File metadata and controls

79 lines (59 loc) · 9.37 KB

Configuring a secondary OpenWrt device with Wi-Fi 802.11s mesh networking for improved connection speed & reliability

With a Wi-Fi router with OpenWrt firmware installed and Wi-Fi network configured, an optional step to improve Wi-Fi range and speed is to configure a secondary OpenWrt Wi-Fi Access Point (AP). The primary and secondary OpenWrt devices are connected using 802.11s wireless mesh networking, with no wired ethernet network cabling required.

If you don't have a OpenWrt router with a Wi-Fi network configured yet, then review Installing OpenWrt on a Wi-Fi router guide first.

To do so, you'll need to complete these steps

  1. Configure WLAN roaming on your primary OpenWrt Wi-Fi router
  2. Configure 802.11s wireless mesh networking on your primary OpenWrt Wi-Fi router
  3. Install OpenWrt on a second Wi-Fi router
  4. Configure secondary OpenWrt device as a "dumb" Wi-Fi Access Point
  5. Configure and test 802.11s mesh network connection between OpenWrt devices
  6. Configure wireless networks on your secondary OpenWrt device

The instructions below were tested on OpenWrt 23.05 release.

Configure WLAN roaming on your primary OpenWrt Wi-Fi router

Enable WLAN roaming so that when you have multiple Wi-Fi Access Point devices, your mobile Wi-Fi devices can seemlessly switch Wi-Fi Access Points and connect to the Wi-Fi Access Point with the best signal strength.

  1. Navigate to Network → Wireless page, then select edit button next to your Wi-Fi network. Under Interface configuration section, select WLAN roaming tab, then select checkbox for 802.11r Fast Transition.
  2. Under Mobility Domain, enter a 4 digit hexadecimal value (ex: 1a2b).

Configure 802.11s wireless mesh networking on your primary OpenWrt Wi-Fi router

First, update your primary OpenWrt Wi-Fi router's software and configuration to support 802.11s wireless mesh network.

  1. In a web browser on your computer, navigate to http://192.168.1.1/ or http://openwrt.lan/ address to view the OpenWrt admin web site.
  2. If you didn't customize the OpenWrt firmware image to include wpad-mesh-mbedtls and mesh11sd software packages, then navigate to System → Software page, select Update lists button and wait for OpenWrt to download the latest list of available software packages. Next, select Installed tab, and remove any packages that begin with wpad. Then, select Available tab, and install wpad-mesh-mbedtls and mesh11sd software packages. Reboot your OpenWrt device. Under Software page, double check the Installed tab to verify wpad-mesh-mbedtls and mesh11sd software packages were installed.
  3. Next, configure OpenWrt to create a 802.11s wireless mesh network. Navigate to Network → Wireless page, find your device's 2.4GHz 802.11n radio, and select Add button.
    1. Under Interface Configuration section, General Setup tab, under Mode menu, select 802.11s.
    2. Enter the network name, such as MeshLink. This network name is broadcasted and visible by nearby Wi-Fi client devices.
    3. Under Network, select lan. If you're using network segmentation with VLANs, then select a single VLAN network. Don't select multiple networks, as 802.11s mesh network doesn't support VLAN tagging.
    4. Under Wireless Security tab, under Encryption menu, select WPA3-SAE (Strong security)
    5. Under Key, enter a new password to use. This is different password than the Wi-Fi network password used to connect Wi-Fi client devices, and is only used by your OpenWrt device.

Note: You can use any available wireless radio for the wireless mesh network, but using a lower frequency like 2.4GHz instead of 5GHz provides better connection performance through walls & ceilings.

Install OpenWrt on a second Wi-Fi router

Follow the same steps as Installing OpenWrt on a Wi-Fi router guide, with the small changes below.

  1. Use OpenWrt firmware-selector to customize the sysupgrade OpenWrt firmware for your device hardware. Select Customize installed packages link, then under "Installed Packages", change wpad-basic-mbedtls to wpad-mesh-mbedtls package and add mesh11sd package. Then select Request Build button. After the build is completed, then select Sysupgrade button to download your customized OpenWrt firmware image that supports 802.11s mesh networking.
  2. Skip the last step to connect the secondary OpenWrt Wi-Fi router to your internet modem or gateway to test & verify internet connectivity.

Configure secondary OpenWrt device as a "dumb" Wi-Fi Access Point

The secondary OpenWrt device configuration needs to be updated to act as a "dumb" Wi-Fi Access Point.

  1. To log into OpenWrt and change settings, temporarily connect a wired ethernet cable from your computer to the LAN ethernet port (not the Internet/WAN port) on your secondary OpenWrt Wi-Fi Access Point. Do not connect your secondary OpenWrt Wi-Fi Access Point to your primary OpenWrt Wi-Fi router yet or to your Internet modem or gateway.
  2. In a web browser on your computer, navigate to http://192.168.1.1/ or http://openwrt.lan/ address to view the OpenWrt admin web site. Double check you are connected to your secondary OpenWrt Wi-Fi Access Point and not connected to your primary OpenWrt Wi-Fi router.

You should see a login page like yet this:
Image

  1. Follow the steps in OpenWrt Dumb AP configuration instructions to configure your secondary OpenWrt Wi-Fi Access Point to use a different IP address in the same subnet to avoid address conflict with your primary OpenWrt Wi-Fi router, such as 192.168.1.2, use the IP address of your primary OpenWrt (192.168.1.1) for DNS, disable redundant functionality like firewall, DHCP server, DNS server, and WAN interface. After applying the changes to your Wi-Fi Access Point, temporarily connect a wired ethernet cable from your primary OpenWrt Wi-Fi router's LAN port to your secondary OpenWrt Wi-Fi Access Point's LAN port.
  2. Configure the same wireless network settings on your secondary OpenWrt Wi-Fi Access Point, including WLAN roaming settings. For instructions on enabling WLAN roaming, follow the same steps as Configure WLAN roaming on your primary OpenWrt Wi-Fi router.
  3. Test and verify Internet connectivity. Navigate to your secondary OpenWrt device's IP address (192.168.1.2) to login to OpenWrt.
  4. Enter your password and login to OpenWrt. Navigate to Network → Diagnostics page, then select IPv4 Ping button to ping openwrt.org to verify your secondary OpenWrt device can connect to the your Internet.

Configure and test 802.11s mesh network connection between OpenWrt devices

Now that your primary OpenWrt Wi-Fi router has wireless mesh network configured and your secondary OpenWrt device is configure as a "dumb" Wi-Fi Access Point, the next step is to configure wireless mesh network on your secondary OpenWrt Wi-Fi Access Point and test wireless mesh network connectivity between your OpenWrt devices.

  1. Navigate to http://192.168.1.2/ or the IP address of your secondary OpenWrt device, then follow the same steps as Configure 802.11s wireless mesh networking on your primary OpenWrt Wi-Fi router to create a 802.11s wireless mesh network.
  2. Verify wireless mesh network connectivity between your OpenWrt devices.
    1. Navigate to http://192.168.1.1/ or http://openwrt.lan/ address to view the OpenWrt admin web site for your primary OpenWrt Wi-Fi router.
    2. On Status → Overview page, in Associated Stations section, look for Mesh Point client.
  3. Disconnect the temporary wired ethernet cable that connects the LAN ports of your OpenWrt primary Wi-Fi router and your secondary Wi-Fi Access Point.
  4. Verify you can still connect to your secondary Wi-Fi Access Point by navigating to http://192.168.1.2/ or the IP address of your secondary OpenWrt device.

Next steps

Now that you completed configuring a secondary OpenWrt Wi-Fi Access Point (AP) to improve your Wi-Fi range and speed, you can continue to improve your Wi-Fi network with the following guides.

  1. Configuring OpenWrt with additional Guest Wi-Fi network - coming soon
  2. Configuring Wireguard VPN remote access - coming soon