Associating Access Point with main router

[irishpride44]

I'm trying to get a Joowin EW72 AP to work with my main router via a wireless connection. I entered the password and set it up but it doesn't allow any nodes connected on its LAN to get on the internet. Checked the main routers logs and it never connected with it.

I've tried different modes like WDS, Client ect. Not sure if its just a misconfiguration error on my end.

Also I keep having to do a wired connection to the main router downstairs to update these access points software packages. Can I just slipstream the ipks in a single file so I can set up these access points upstairs?

[fEsTiDiOuS]

Is this what your trying to do?

The problem with that is there is usually no level 2 traffic transmitted over a wireless link. Only end points (The cell phone, the laptop) can be connected to a wireless link. The first wireless connection would have to somehow have level 2 networking if the end points connected to the second wireless link were to work.

This can be done if you setup a Wireless mesh using 802.11s.

DIY WI-FI MESH with OpenWrt

Or if you use some sort of a layer 2 tunnel, like L2TP through the first wireless link.

Or check out this post. They are referencing using ARPNAT and relayd. I don't know about those things yet:

Bridge for Wifi, bridging a wifi and eth0

Hello, i have some Router (Fonera 2100) and I want to use them for bring some Ethernet-only-Devices in my Wifi. Fonera 2100 is supported by OpenWrt. The device has 1x Ethernet-Port and Wifi, no WAN-Port. First, I tried to make a bridge for eth0 for testing. You simply have to set the check mark at bridge. The result is a virtual device br-lan. Everything ok. This is for Bridging Wirered->wifi But I need it the other way. The Router gets his connection via wifi, and the router should bring …

There may be other options, or maybe I completely misunderstood your question.

[irishpride44]

Yes the first picture of the APs connecting to routers via wireless is what I want to setup. I don't think 802.11s will work due to requiring WPA3 which my 802.11ac devices are unable to connect to this encryption type.

[lleachii]

@fEsTiDiOuS

The problem with that is there is usually no level 2 traffic transmitted over a wireless link. Only end points (The cell phone, the laptop) can be connected to a wireless link.

???
This is untrue...
I'm not even sure what "level 2" means.

@irishpride44

Can I just slipstream the ipks in a single file so I can set up these access points upstairs?

As long as the upstream AP is set to a static channel (non DFS channel if 5.4 GHz), you can connect to WWAN. Simple. You should already see the "Join" button on your Wireless scan. No packages needed.

The other SSID will be an AP for the clients.

[anon89577378]

@lleachii

I'm not even sure what "level 2" means

Probably meant layer 2.

[fEsTiDiOuS]

Sorry! Thanks OldNavyGuy. I meant Layer 2. With out Layer 2 ARP Requests from the clients don't reach your main router; and vice versa.

[lleachii]

@fEsTiDiOuS

With out Layer 2 ARP Requests from the clients don't reach your main router; and vice versa.

Can you explain this?

Maybe I'm missing something; but ARP works for me all the time (on Atheros chips). And that's regarding bridging.

Joining WWAN (non-bridged) means the router NATs for clients...but again it successfully sends and receives ARPs for the router.

@irishpride44 - can you show us your network and wireless configs?

[fEsTiDiOuS]

TLDR version: I'm sorry for being confused. Please ignore me....

Hmm... I guarantee I was confused, sorry. A while back I wanted to bridge two networks with a wireless link; but because of a chrome-cast, that couldn't handle devices on a different subnet, I had to get both sides of the wireless link to be on the same subnet. Basically I wanted a wireless link that acted exactly like an Ethernet cable. -- To me that looked like with @irishpride44 was trying to do. - I guarantee I was, and am, still confused.

The only way I was able to seamlessly join two networks on either side of a wireless link is with some sort of Layer 2 tunnel. I'm fairly certain now that I was having a strange incompatibility. Some thing to do with ESS (Pg67) maybe, or with Ethernet-II frames ¯_(ツ)_/¯ This is a good article about L2TPv3 if you are interested.

I did get it to work, but because I was using slow Rabpberry Pi's without network switches, and they were fragmenting all the packets it was laughably slow. I did get it up to ~30Mbps on a single 20Mhz channel by the end of my struggles.

Sorry I was (and still am!) confused some. @irishpride44 my concerns about Layer 2 networking very probably don't apply to your situation. Thank you @lleachii for calling me out. I apologize for the noise.