WHR-HP-G300N with WDS fails after 24 hours

[Waterlogged]

My Network setup for getting bridging my internet connection from my barn, to my house (barn has broadband access, house doesn't)

 

Cable Modem

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WHR-HP-G300N (Labeled Barn) (attached to Hawking outdoor Omni 9dBi HAO9SIP)

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(via WDS)

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WHR- HP-G300N (Labeled House) (attached  to Hawking outdoor directional 14dBi HAO14SDP)

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Clients

 

Both G300N's are running DD-WRT v24SP2-EU-US (8/19/10) std - Build 14998

 

Getting WDS running was difficult, but in the end, the configuration I found that worked was setting the Barn router to:

 

 

• Mode: WDS Station
• Network: NG-Mixed
• SID: XXXX (identical to House router's SID)
• Channel: Auto
• Channel Width: Quarter (5mhz)
• Under the WDS tab,  I have entered the House MAC address as a "LAN" entry and enabled Lazy WDS.
• Security is set to WPA2 Personal, AES
• Under the Setup-Advanced Routing tab, Operating mode is set to Gateway.

 

 

For the House router:

 

 

• Mode: WDS AP
• Network: NG-Mixed
• SID: XXXX (identical to Barn router's SID)
• Channel: Auto
• Channel Width: Quarter (5mhz)
• Under the WDS tab,  I have entered the Router MAC address as a "LAN" entry and enabled Lazy WDS.
• Security is set to WPA2 Personal, AES
• Under the Setup-Advanced Routing tab, Operating mode is set to Router.

 

This setup worked to get WDS rebroadcasting from my house-based clients to the Barn and out to the internet.

 

First issue: 

The setup seems to work just fine, but then it dies somewhere around 12-24 hours later.  The main symptom I am seeing is the Status-Wirless page reports the wireless connection has the same signal strength as is usual on this link (9%-12%), but I am not able to ping the Barn router which sits at 192.168.11.1.  If I reboot the barn router, it comes back up and now the packets will route just fine.  Any ideas about what is causing the failure, or what I can try to fix it?  It doesn't seem related to the key rotation rate, as suggested in another post.  On both routers it is set to 3600.  I don't want to disable this because I am putting out a pretty good signal that anyone could grab.

 

Second Issue:  

I'd like to let wireless clients connect up to the Barn router, but if I change the Barn router to WDS AP, although clients can connect, the link between the routers no longer appears on the wireless status page.  If I remove the encryption, then the WDS AP setting will work and I get the clients in the barn to connect and the house, but no encryption.  Known bug?  Any way to work around?  For now, I am going to put one of my old G54 routers wired into the Barn G300N to give the barn wirless coverage on a different channel/SSID.  If I change the Barn router to just AP, I get the same result.

 

By the way, I am not looking for amazing speeds here, but would rather have a rock-solid connection.  The pipe out of the barn is only 10mb on a good day, so anything more than that is wasted.  Setting the channel width to 5mhz seemed to make the signal strength a little better, but when I analyzed the signal spectrum using inSSIDer, the channel width appeared to be the full size.  I am not sure where the error is here, either in the measurement or the router's respect of that setting.

 

 

[buddee]

Buffalo will be releasing a new buffalo dd-wrt build very soon, which fixes WDS and other bridging modes as well. The main problem with the 14xxx series and WDS is that the "loopback" feature masquerades ALL packets, this breaks WDS and has since been removed. Also another solution is to use the community dd-wrt build which is already up to 16214, but be advised, once you flash to the community build of dd-wrt on that unit, it is hard to revert back to stock firmware should you choose to do so, that is why i advise patience instead, and just wait on the buffalo branded dd-wrt.

 

On the encryption issue, you may try with WEP and see if this helps. I know, a step down, but since WDS is not a standardized 802.1 protocol, it tends to be picky about settings. Other solution if you did want to use WPA2 with AES is just link them using the "client mode" repeater method, which is what i use to link my units. You'd link the routers using client mode, then create a virtual interface (VAP) for your wireless clients to connect to. Other than that, i am not really one to speak of WDS solutions because i do not use WDS :/

[gbxk86a]

That seems to be good news.  Would you know if the new version will fix "client bridge" problems.  I have tried several days not to be able to bridge the two WHR-HP-G300N together, one as AP and one as client bridge.  That is the mode I used for several of my existing g routers.

 

I did not experience bridge breaking, but rather the bridge is never built.  The AP can see the the client bridge, but the PC connecting to the client bridge was not assigned an IP by the DHCP of the AP so it can be part of the network including internet access.

[gbxk86a]

Okay, I finally make my network work, using WDS for the two Buffalos and client bridges for the other two Netgears.  See my explanation under this post

 

http://forums.buffalotech.com/t5/Wireless/WZR-HP-G300NH-DD-WRT-Client-Bridge/td-p/53802

 

I still hope a new dd-wrt firmware comes out to solve the client bridge problem so that I can set them all up as client bridges.  I think swapping wireless devices and routers are easier if they are all set up as client bridges.  For now, the network I set up serve my purpose quite well, but I am still upset with Buffalo not honoring their spec claim.

[buddee]

I am unsure if it will fix client bridge mode or not, as i do not have access to the newer build to test it yet, but i am going off what others have said, and mainly the dd-wrt devs themselves. So time will tell.

[Waterlogged]

Thanks for these great suggestions.  I am going to try the client -bridge mode first and see if I can get a connection that works.  Right now, I have enabled remote routing and I use my cell phone to reboot the router in the barn when it goes down, but that is less than ideal.

 

Buddee, if you have a link to the DD-WRT thread, I'd love to read it.  As soon as the new Buffalo bits are available, I will re-flash and mark this thread as resolved if it does indeed resolve it.

 

David

 

[gbxk86a]

Please let me know how you do it if you can get the client bridge working with dd-wrt stock firmware.

 

I have experience to set up at least seven routers of 3 different brands/5 different models, but I had hard time to set up a client bridge with a Buffalo WHR-HP-G300N.  I have tried for several days, and I finally gave up.  Reading other forums, I have yet seen one who claimed he/she gets the client bridge functionality working.

 

My WDS between the two WHR-HP-300N seem to be stable.  They are about 30 feet apart separated by one dry wall.  I think signal strength and signal quality are the key to keep stable connections.

[jpborjas]

Does V24-SP2 build 17135 address the issue talked about in this thread?

[akrahn]

I just upgraded all three of my WHR-HP-G300N routers and so far the uptimes on the WDS stations have not gone down. Looks promising...

[jpborjas]

Have you noticed any issues with port forwarding? I can't seem to be able to forward anything out of the main router. Forwardign to the router, like port 80 for the admin page, works just fine. Also, there's now a red lock indicator for Security, on the router's display.