Starlink - bridge wifi client with wired devices

Installing and Using OpenWrt
1

Connect wired devices to openwrt and have it bridge them onto wifi

I have a Starlink wifi router that I need to connect a couple of wired devices to.

Here's what I do:

  • setup a WIFI client connection to Starlink to get a 192.168.1.x IP
  • setup a LAN address of 192.168.2.1 and disable DHCP
  • connect wired laptop (on a LAN port) with an address of 192.168.2.2 and can get into ssh/gui
  • setup realayd bridge between lan and wifi, set forward traffic to accept in firewall UI

Now, I want to be able to set my wired laptop to DHCP and get a 192.168.1.x address from the starlink router over the bridged wired network.

I cannot find an explanation of how my firewall and network zones should be setup.

Which zones which interfaces should be in, and how the firewall should look.

The docs have a good explanation of what interfaces are (not what. Linux admin would be used to) so I understand that.

I've found several tutorials online but I cannot get the DHCP address to the wired device.

This does not work for me: https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/network/wifi/relay_configuration

I can't make this work either: https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/network/wifi/atheroswds

2

In general a black box ISP gateway device such as the Starlink indoor box should be used only as a link to the Internet and not as a central part or your network. This means set up a basic routed client following the "travel router" use case, and do not allow any of your devices other than the OpenWrt router to connect to the Starlink wifi AP.

WDS requires WDS compatibility on both sides of the link, and conventional APs such as ISP gateways are not WDS compatible. So this is a non-starter.

relayd is a klugey thing which should only be used when necessary, and it is not necessary here as you should be able to have all of your LAN devices on the LAN side of your OpenWrt router. Additionally relayd only works for IPv4, and as Starlink offers decent IPv6 service (while their IPv4 is CGNAT), you should move toward IPv6 as possible.

When using your own router on Starlink it is much better to buy the Ethernet Adapter, which is made for this use case, than use a wireless connection. Some people have also tried eliminating the indoor box entirely with a direct connection from the Dishy to a third-party router, but I have not seen anyone post complete instructions for that being successful.