I currently have two LEDE routers setup. One as the AP and another as a client. I used this guide to hook them together using WDS and I can verify that the client is correctly distributing internet to other computers. However, I can't seem to be able to install any extra packages on the client router. It is unable to connect to the repo and download packages. It seems like the router itself is unable to access the internet, but the devices connected to it can.
How do I fix this issue?
Put your LAN interface on dhcp client, it should resolve the issue.
@all, this seems to be a recurring problem among AP users... There must be something missing in the wikis.
What @DjiPi said is correct. I'm assuming that the client router has a static IP address, so that's how you can connect to it and try to update packages, but it has no default route.
So to get it to have a default route, you can either make it a DHCP client, or add a static default route to it, pointing to the AP router as the default gateway.
I have a very similar setup, using the DHCP option, but now that I'm thinking about it, static might be safer - you'd be able to at least connect to the client on the wired side even if the AP, for whatever reason, isn't reachable to give it an address.
Thanks for the info guys. So I am at the static routes page and my networking skills are less than ideal. What do I need to specify exactly for the route rules? My AP router's lan interface is on 192.168.1.1 and my client router is on 192.168.1.2
There must be something missing in the wikis.
Yeah I wasn't able to find a WDS wiki page on the LEDE site. Only found it on OpenWRT and it did not specify anything about changing LAN interface to be DHCP client or setting a static route
Off topic, but somewhat related, do you guys know if its possible to setup Linksys WRT1900ACS as a Wi-Fi repeater by using the same 5Ghz radio? I tried to specify an additional interface on the radio, with Access Point (WDS) and same SSID and encryption key, but the interface failed to initialize. I followed the steps here and it doesn't work.
There is a section about using DHCP Client on LAN:
(...) Alternatively, you may try to let the router itself to fetch an IP address via DHCP from the AP (...)
If using DHCP Client, I strongly recommend that you always serve the same IP to it using the Reserve IP feature of the main router, using MAC address; if not then you'll have to find the IP after each renewal.
But, after fast-reading the wiki, it seems to be something missing about specifying the default route.
Edit: Forgot to mention: for static addressing, you should set the client router LAN to 192.168.1.2, mask 255.255.255.0, default gateway 192.168.1.1 (e.g. Your main router) and DNS to 192.168.1.1 as well.
There is a section about using DHCP Client on LAN:
Ah I see, I skipped that portion because I was using LuCI to set it up and there's no mention of it in that section. Also the guide doesn't say that using DHCP is necessary to enable LuCI to grab packages, although on second thought, it makes sense if you start thinking about what's happening with the network. I think maybe some rewording might be necessary to make that more apparent to new users though.
Forgot to mention: for static addressing, you should set the client router LAN to 192.168.1.2, mask 255.255.255.0, default gateway 192.168.1.1 (e.g. Your main router) and DNS to 192.168.1.1 as well.
Awesome, that worked! Thank you so much!
Any tips for wi-fi repeater question? Trying to get my 5Ghz radio to connect as a WDS client and also repeat the signal. Already tried adding a new AP WDS interface to the same radio but it fails to enable.
Any tips for wi-fi repeater question? Trying to get my 5Ghz radio to connect as a WDS client and also repeat the signal.
My WDS client acts only as a wired/wireless bridge, so I don't have first-hand experience of what you're trying to do.
Already tried adding a new AP WDS interface to the same radio but it fails to enable.
Same radio as the WDS client? ISTR there are restrictions about what combinations of interfaces are possible on the same radio, and this may not be one of them.
In any case, I would try to use separate radios for WDS vs. "repeater" AP, so that you don't have repeats of the same packet compete for the same spectrum.
If you have 2.4GHz-only devices that you'd want to roam between the two APs, then you should use the 5GHz radio only for the WDS client interface, effectively making 5GHz your "backhaul". Then create the repeater AP (as a regular AP, no WDS) on the 2.4GHz radio with the same SSID and key as the main AP, but on a non-overlapping channel. Make it part of the same bridge as the WDS client interface, configure that bridge interface for either DHCP or static (routing accordingly as mentioned earlier in the thread) and it should all just work.
More preferably, if you only care about 5GHz-capable devices roaming, flip the radios' roles (and remember to place the WDS AP in the main router on the "right" radio).