How do I connect my Linksys WRT54GL to my Home Hub 2.0?

tolien · 10 Jun 2009 at 15:15

There's no "slave" at all. You're using the Linksys (if it's connected to the HomeHub by the switch ports) as just a switch and wireless AP and not touching the router parts at all. It shouldn't be doing any NAT and you won't need to forward ports on it.

They'd appear as two wireless networks.

Skidilliplop · 10 Jun 2009 at 15:33

You don't have anything silly like MAC filtering enabled on the homehub do you?

I have had the same setup at home between a Thomson Speedtouch and a WRT54GS and now an o2boxIII and the same WRT. O2box is a rebranded thomson just like the homehub.

It has worked fine in the setup as follows:

ADSL > thomson | LAN port 1 > Cat5 Cable > LAN port 1 | WRT.

That worked fine. DHCP was running on the thomson and passed through the linksys to wired and wireless devices fine. Wireless worked fine.

Make sure your default gateway is pointing to the homehub on all PCs. Try it using static IP addresses first for simplicity. From a networking point of view there is nothing wrong with that setup at all.

Just not to neglect the obvious, you are connecting using a CAT5 cable between them not a modem cable or anything else? and you definitely have DHCP on on one of them and off on the other and thre are enough addresses in the pool for all computers on the network?

pennywise · 10 Jun 2009 at 18:53

alexjholland said:
Also Pennywise, regarding you setting up the same SSID, key and channel, does this mean that the two wireless networks effectively merge into one? Or do they just appear as two identical networks? What are the implications of this?

It seems to be one network, I haven't had any problems walking around the house with a laptop and losing connection or anything, although I have the wireless strength boosted up slightly to 70mW, so the Linksys could just be covering the whole place. I could experiment and see if this was the case, but the fact it's working now (and working well) is good enough for me.

Skidilliplop · 12 Jun 2009 at 09:21

For roaming you should use the same SSID and Key but you should use non-overlapping channels. If you use the same channel the two APs will interfere with eachother where the ranges overlap. If one is significantly more powerful than the other you wouldn't necessarily notice, similarly if you have confiugred a preferred Access point in the profile. For roaming you should use channels 5-6 channels appart for adjacent APs so the frequency ranges don't conflict.