Connect camera providing access point to LAN

I'd appreciate some guidance on what to read, or how to go about achieving the following:

I have a camera which broadcasts a Wifi Access Point, with a Webserver at a fixed IP address (192.168.0.10) for downloading the pictures etc.
I have a LAN with a different range of IP addresses (192.168.1.1/24), with its own router with NAT to the Internet (with DNS, DHCP server and firewall).
I have a separate OpenWRT router (GL.iNet Beryl) with separate radios for 2.4 GHz and 5Ghz operation.

I'd like to set OpenWRT up to act as a client on the camera network, and on the LAN, (on different frequencies seems simplest?) and send all requests for its address on the LAN to the camera, and replies from the camera back to the originator on the LAN.

I also need some mechanism (maybe using an ethernet port, or a second LAN address?) to reconfigure the OpenWRT if I screw up, or need to update its firmware etc.

I'm more interested in understanding how best to achieve this and why, than a canned solution, so will happily be told what to go and read - searches didn't seem to turn up much.

Thanks!

If the camera runs an AP, that means you must connect to it (with a device in sta mode), rather than have it connect to another AP. That may not be a big deal, or it may be a show stopper.

How do you connect to the camera for downloading pictues and such? Do you use an app? A web browser? some other system? Does it work for mobile and desktop?

Thanks for your reply. I should have perhaps explained why I want to do this.

Perhaps it was also not clear that the Webserver at 192.168.0.10 is on the camera.

I connect to the camera with a web browser. As it acts as an access point, I have to disconnect my laptop from the LAN to do so, meaning I lose internet access and access to the rest of the LAN.
Instead, my goal is for the OpenWRT device to act in station mode as a client to both the camera and the LAN. If I do that and can send traffic between them, then I can keep my laptop on the LAN, and still access the camera using OpenWRT .

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What you'll want to do is setup a wifi sta mode connection, and associate that with a new network interface. See this article:

I'd recommend associating that new network interface with the lan firewall zone.

From there, you should theoretically be able to connect to the camera by its IP address. It is possible that it will not work, though, if the camera doesn't accept connections from a different subnet.

You should also check out the Travelmate package that willg racefully handle the situation where the camera's wifi is not available.

Thanks, but that does not address what I want to do. At the end of the instructions, one radio is in client mode, and one is in master mode. Travelmate seems to be the same.

I want both radios to be in client mode, so I can use an existing LAN (not provided by the OpenWRT device, but by a separate access point).

Radio1: address 192.168.0.9 client to cameras's AP
Radio2: address 192.168.1.123, client to LAN AP (a separate device)
Routing: all traffic from the LAN sent to 192.168.1.123 should be translated and sent to 192.168.0.10, and replies returned accordingly.

Sure, you can do that... you'll need to create two different network interfaces, then tie each of those to the wifi sta mode configurations.

You'll then need a static route on the main router -- does your main router support user-configured static routes? It will be 192.168.0.0/24 via 192.168.1.123

If possible, I would rather not touch the main router, but use masquerading / NAT on the openwrt device.

You could try enabling masquerading on the firewall zone that contains the interface with the 192.168.1.123 network. Then, setup port forwarding so that a request to 192.168.1.124 is forwarded to 192.168.0.10. Keep in mind that if this is over port 80 or 443, it will take priority over the LuCI web interface for your openwrt router. You can use a different port (for example 8080 > 80) or you can change the uhtttpd listen port.

Thanks for your patience. I'd like to set this up via configuration files if possible (easier to add explanatory comments if I need to come back to it later). I'll go and read up on UCI. If I could make one more request, could you please point me to which configuration files are the ones I will need to be changing?

Thanks again for your help.

The other issue is that both APs must be set to the same channel if they're on the same band.

You’ll be changing these files:

cat /etc/config/network
cat /etc/config/wireless
cat /etc/config/firewall
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L: I'm intending to run the radios on different bands to avoid issues, but point noted for future reference. Thanks.

P: Thanks. That is most helpful. Time to go and do my reading in detail, and try it out.