I have a Linksys RE7000 extender that I have been trying to use as a bridge only device for a NAS that has poor USB wifi support. The extender has a habit of, after a couple of days, messing up the operation of the wifi causing dropouts that a power off reboot clears.
I suspect the now unsupported device has a general firmware bug, even after firmware update, and I am exploring other options for improving the operation of it.
First block of questions is for those who have done the openwrt upgrade of this device. What’s it worth the effort? Did the bug mentioned above get cured?
Next question is a general setup question. Does openwrt work well in a bridge configuration?
Last question is an install one. Am I understanding correctly that the .bin file installs like the Linksys firmware? Do I need to build a serial or usb link cable?
Thanks for any help. Just trying to decide if it is worth pursuing the install, or if I should just e-waste it as yet another poor quality device.
If you plan to use the device to provide an Ethernet connection to a downstream device with a wifi uplink to your network... the details of your upstream network become criticial.
Generally speaking, this functionality is not supported by the wifi standards. There are workarounds/hacks for this... in fact, that's what the vendor firmware has implemented in order to achieve the goal.
If your upstream wifi is running OpenWrt, you can use 802.11s (mesh) or WDS to connect the RE7000 in a bridge configuration. Otherwise, you'll need to use relayd (which is a hack) on OpenWrt.
The router device is a bell fibe modem which has mesh via its proprietary devices (Plume), so maybe a route there with openwrt on the extender? Don’t really know though.
For clarity, I am not fully versed in the standards and connectivity limitations. Mainly, just a home user trying to solve a cabling issue in an apartment. If the modem closet was large enough, I would have stuffed the NAS there.
Future thinking is in play as well, as I have another media device that will also need some kind of wifi bridge, as it also only has an Ethernet port. It is also a bit of a data hog when in use and would fully utilize the 100/1000MBs port capability, when in use. Normally it would be directly connected to a pc via the Ethernet cable and treated as an isolated network. Just hoping there may be a possibility there, fingers crossed.
The approach will require the use of relayd. That is a hack and it is not the easiest thing to configure. Read through the link I provided earlier to see if this is something you are comfortable with.
That's okay... it's a deep rabbit hole.
Connecting by ethernet is always preferred when possible, but yes, if you need to use wifi because of the limitations of your physical space, that's understandable.
Depending on what this is, wifi is not an ideal situation for that device. I'd keep it wired.
Yes, OpenWrt can setup additional networks so that you can have things isolated... but, I would not suggest trying to achieve that with your RE7000 (which will need relayd) since it's not really a well documented/supported thing to do on top of relayd (in truth, I don't even know if it will work properly).
Sorry I cannot parse my reply quite like you did, not enough experience with the message editor. I will block the replies as a way to keep them easier to follow
I glanced over your link and it seems no worse than manually configuring for other computer settings, so I think I would be ok there. It almost feels like what the extender is doing now. Hopefully the bug is firmware based and the hardware is fine. I don’t really need the wifi extender capability here as there is lots of signal for both bands, so hopefully it can work well being a “media bridge”
Ok on the rabbit hole. Maybe something to read when I am bored in retirement
They were afraid of wire here, or lazy. Not even phone jacks. I don’t know how it was supposed to be work from home capable with one cat5 cable port in the living room🤦♂️
The other device is basically is a radio with the heavy processing for the filtering of the rf spectrum being done by the computer. This , regrettably, results in lots of sampling of the signal and hence the traffic. In its present software level it requires a 100Mb lan port for processing speed. If I ever go to V2 of the software it requires 1Gb lan port. I expected I would have to put the computer local to the device and remote to the computer to reduce the bandwidth. At least I was able to confirm my thinking there. Maybe as a lark I will try it, just to see how bad it could get😆
Thanks for your help. I imagine the chain will auto close before I can get things installed and configured. Hopefully someone who has installed on their device will comment in before then, but I expect the holiday season has everyone a little preoccupied. If I run into trouble I will try and quote this chain if the message chain does close up
