Gli.net & hotel wifi

I am looking to buy this:

https://www.amazon.com/GL-iNet-GL-AR750S-Ext-pre-Installed-Cloudflare-Included/dp/B07GBXMBQF/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=gli.net&qid=1597517604&sr=8-1

which comes with openwrt installed. Hoping to get some advice on whether or not it can do what I need.

I am looking for something that I can travel with, that I can connect to the hotel wifi and rebroadcast a new ssd for my+kids devices. This would essentially look like a router with wifi in and wifi out.

Hotel Wifi -> router -> my SSID

It would need to allow me to spoof the mac address or allow me to accept the captive portal once for all devices.

Hoping it would also allow me to use open vpn in this mode as well.

Currently, I have a Western Digital Wireless Passport Pro, which does this, and does it pretty well. My only complaint is its size and the fact that I can't do open vpn.

Thanks
Travis

gl.inet use a heavily customized version of openwrt with their own gui for management/configuration, you should refer/ask in the gl.inet forums, you will find answers to all you asked if you search there, basically all yes.. beware that ovpn performance wont be great. i don't think you will get anymore answers here for non official openwrt firmware.

@jesanor, thanks for responding. I had no idea it was a modified version, their site just says runs "openwrt".

I will reach out to them. I would prefer something running stock openWRT, I will have to do some researching.

If possible, if you or someone else could help, I would still like to know if stock open wrt can act as a router with wifi in/wifi out?

I guess a follow up question, I may be able to answer my own question if I had access to a demo site that let me see/play around with functionality in the UI. Is there a demo site I can play with?

Travis

you can install official openwrt if you want to. you will lose gl.inet gui which can be a bit more "simple" for novice networking/openwrt users.

https://openwrt.org/toh/gl.inet/gl-ar750s

yes, configure as repeater or client

https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/network/wifi/connect_client_wifi

my best option is virtualbox (or a virtual machine of your choice) and install openwrt so you have a full working stock openwrt "router" to play around with.

The GL.Inet can do wifi repeating no worries. I have one and use the 2.4GHz radio to connect to the hotel network and broadcast a separate SSID on 5GHz for my devices to use within my room. This works generally pretty well.

The GL.Inet scripts do have some bugs though so I've started playing with Travelmate installed on vanilla OpenWRT on the same router.

Only just started testing though. Seems to work ok so far and due to COVID haven't been able to test it in an actual hotel yet though.

@jesanor Thanks for your answers. I also reached out to Gli.net and they were able to confirm the same. They call it WISP repeater mode.

@npkamen Thanks as well. I am in the same boat as you, not much travel as of late, but getting ready for future travel seasons :slight_smile: