OpenWrt Forum Archive

Topic: Extend a WLAN (WPA2 enterprise on primary & span new network )?

The content of this topic has been archived on 21 Apr 2018. There are no obvious gaps in this topic, but there may still be some posts missing at the end.

I would like to optimize the Wifi connection range in one of the dorm rooms and I would like to extend the WLAN range. However there is the problem that provided network is with WPA enterprise (I.e. not using PSK, but user(!)/password combination), so simple range extending is not possible.

So the Openwrt router should act as client on the provided network and can span a new (simpler) network for private use.

How would I configure this with OpenWrt? Especially what would be the basic "concept" in OpenWrt for this?

See below what I did, but some questions I already puzzle about after unsuccessful tries:

  • How many interfaces (and "which") do I use?

  • Can they use the same radio device?

  • Do I need to install relayd?

  • Do I need to install the the host client in the WAN zone and the new private network in the LAN zone?

  • Can I do this on the same radio device or are there any special hardware requirements perhaps?

I have tried to use a TP-Link WR841N for this, but with my first tries I was out of luck trying to setup externder configuration against even a simple host PSK network (I'm not currently at final location)
I must say I did understand simple IP routing quite well like several years ago, but I'm more or less new to the linux (Openwrt) interfaces concept.

I saw that WPA enterprise seems to require some special package to be installed, as the standard configuration doesn't support this. Not as this point yet.

I tried to join the host network first (using join netwok button in Lucy), and then tried to create a new interface (?) on the same radio device (using new SSID, WPA-PSK and other IP subnet). I put the interfaces to different zones: the client part in WAN, the new network in LAN.
However as soon as I try to enable the second interface, the router becomes unresponsive. Did all with Lucy..

To be honest, I'm not really sure what I am doing here. But I would be very grateful if someone could share some insights here.. Hope this all makes sense.

841n v11 or lower only has 4 MB flash.  This means you will need to use Image Builder to make a custom image since there isn't space to install wpad at run time.  Remove wpad-mini and probably you will need to remove pppoe etc to make space.

Once that is done you are setting up a routed client.

The discussion might have continued from here.