Can you use a Belkin 802.11g router to connect to another wireless network and then share the other wireless network though its own 4 Ethernet ports?

Answer 1

The wireless bridge function is no longer available. All recent versions of the Belkin F5D7230-4 router (version 7000 and above) no longer support this function although I cannot find any announcement on the Belkin website. Check the version number on the outside of the package. The web screen for version 7000 does not have the "wireless bridge" option.

This is from a search I did on the Belkin web site. This tells you how to setup the router to become a bridge.

How To: Configure WDS (Wireless Bridging) with the 54g router

The information in this article applies to the following products:

1. 802.11g Wireless DSL/Cable Gateway Router (F5D7230-4)
2. 802.11g Wireless Network Access Point (F5D7130)

Router Configuration

1. Open a Web Browser 2. In the address bar type http://192.168.2.1 3. Click on Wireless Bridge in the left hand column under Wireless 4. Enter your password if any and click Submit 5. Check the box that says Enable Wireless Bridging, click Apply Changes. 6. Click Home, note the WLAN MAC address under LAN settings

Access Point Configuration.

1. Open a Web Browser 2. In the address bar type http://192.168.2.254 3. Click on Wireless Bridge in the left hand column under Wireless 4. Enter your password if any and click Submit 5. Check the box that says, Enable Wireless Bridging 6. Check the box that says, Enable ONLY specific Access Points to connect and enter the WLAN MAC address from the router, click Apply Changes. Note: The channel must be identical on both the router and the access point.

Note: The WDS feature is not completely specified in IEEE or Wifi standards. Therefore interoperability between 802.11 products of different vendors is not guaranteed.

Yes, you can, but only using Belkin Router and Access Point, or 2 Belkin Routers (one configured as AP).

You must set the MAC Addresss of AP in the Router and the WEP (Also channels must match).

I have 2 Belkin routers in Bridge. You know it is working when you get DHCP from the AP. I tried using two belkin routers (802.11g, Firmware 4.05.03, Boot 2.01.09, Model F5D7230-4V4) in a chain. The layout is like this:

Cable Modem <- Belkin Router A <- Belkin Router B <- rest of the network.

I configured Router A with "Enable wireless bridge" and "Enable specific access points to connect". I used WEP 128bit (WPA did not work) -- same channel ID and SSID.

I got DHCP from Router A to the machines connected to Router B, but after a while Router B doesn't respond any more. Last night, I set it up, checked the connectivity, and in the morning it is not there any more.

Any idea about what could be going wrong?

Thanks, Is Router B set up as a bridge as well? Both routers have to be set up as bridges to work.

WDS OnlyThis is a related answer and it adds extra WDS/bridging setup info. Credit goes to the people on fatwallet forums who gave me the last missing puzzle piece. I write this away from the hardware being discussed so no exact menu/option names are used but it should be clear enough if you banged your heads on the walls trying to get it to work. I hope this disambiguates enough as not to be completely redundant.

The configuration discussed is illustrated below:

DSL Modem -- Wired router -- Wireless router A \/ ... \/ Wireless router B

Wireless router A = Belkin F5D7320-4 v3000 w factory firmware

Wireless router B = Belkin F5D7320-4 v2000 w factory firmware

Motivation:

The wireless network uses a different address than the wired network and router A has NAT enabled i.e. it works as a gateway. Router B has NAT disabled and is used to connect some wired ethernet clients to the internet. Router A also has one wired client. The location of some of the clients makes it difficult to use cables so WDS is used.

The beef:

There are two important observations that come up during setup but are badly documented on the web:

1. After changing certain settings the router has to be restarted (hard reset, unplug) BUT not after each change AND there is a better way, see 2. If this is not done I found that some settings didn't take effect. Rebooting takes ~30s. The"restart router" option didn't seem satisfactory and I don't recommend it for this scenario.
2. Saving the router settings via its menu and then immediately restoring instead of a hard reset seems to work reliably and it's faster. However if things don't work as expected fallback to 1.

The routers use WDS and work as access points; note that they are NOT used as dedicated APs, meaning the switch hw is enabled on both. As mentioned above, only router A uses NAT. Both routers have static IPs and no DHCP server is enabled. If you enable the DHCP server on the router do it only for one of them.

For BOTH routers in the WDS section there are 3 important settings each w a check box and all are checked.

1. The first enables the WDS/bridging.
2. The second lists the MAC addresses allowed to connect (on router A you put the MAC of router B and vice versa)
3. The third DISABLES the client's ability to connect to the APs!

This is an important point for two reasons:

1. WDS uses bandwith and the wireless throughput decreases for the wireless clients. It is possible to allow them to connect which brings us to the second point.
2. if the clients are ALLOWED to connect to the APs (w WDS enabled), ONLY WEP security will work! Your network's security will be limited to WEP.

Security:

I wanted to use only WDS but I wanted better security than WEP. The WDS page on both routers mentions only WEP security which is misleading. Both routers support WPA (but NOT WPA2) with PSK or Radius servers. This setup uses WPA-PSK. I tested both TKIP and AES and both work. When setting up WPA-PSK with TKIP or AES remember to use the same password on both routers and to double check for typos before "obscuring" it (if you so choose).

Channel and SSID:

1. Both routers have to use the same channel.
2. Both routers have to use the SAME SSID. When using it with WEP and allowing client access for both 802.11b and 802.11g I used different SSIDs for roaming and that works as well. In that scenario the settings below were tried in almost all combinations and didn't interfere with the WDS. "Clientless" WDS didn't work with different SSIDs when I first tried it but I didn't experiment any more. If you want it to work as described this is irrelevant but you can always try it *8-)
3. SSID broadcast is disabled but it's not important for this discussion.

For better throughput I

1. enabled only 54g
2. disabled the protected mode
3. enabled the turbo mode (on the v2000 it's called something else; maybe "frame bursting")

If you enable MAC filtering remember to enter into BOTH routers the MACs of ALL your clients and the routers themselves. They will go in a different section than WDS related MACs! Remember to do this for all new hardware as you add it.

Summary:

WDS/bridging w WPA-PSK is possible without allowing wireless clients and using the same SSID on both routers.

Using WDS and allowing wireless clients is possible only with WEP and then you can use different SSIDs.

The ability to use WPA gives new life to this old hardware and if you can find it don't hesitate to use it.

Answer 2

Such configuration is called a bridge. From my experience I know that if you have two identical wireless routers it's possible to set a working bridge. If you have different routers of different brands it's matter of luck. In order for you to use bridge configuration your router should support it. You can check in the manual or in the router's settings.