Using TP-Link TL-WR842N V3 as a Managed Switch

Installing and Using OpenWrt Network and Wireless Configuration
1

Hi there,

First post here and I have just installed LEDE in my TP-Link. I wanted to take away the router function and just use it as a managed switch with AP. Can someone advise me how to do this and if there are any beginner guides on ow to achieve it quickly.

Actually I should probably clarify something:

I have two internal networks, 192.168.1.0/24 and 192.168.2.0/24 both of the gateways to the networks will be directly connected to the TPlink and I want to be able to ping/communicate devices from both networks, for example:

192.168.1.100 ping 192.168.2.100

Any help would be great.

Many thanks
Chris

2

That's a router, though it's routing two networks to/from each other without NAT.

1 Like
3

Yea...I wrote a whole response...

...but what you describe is routing without NAT...you would turn off Masquerade in the WAN of the downstream routers and add a static routes on the OpenWrt to those LAN sunbets.

4

@ChrisGUK What are you trying to achieve?

If you've got two networks as you've indicated, you'll need infrastructure to assign addresses (manually, DHCP, or similar) on each network, as well as managing routes to each network from the other side of your TP-Link device.

5

So I have two networks that have their own routers, I want to make a route to and from both networks so devices can communicate with each other.

Like I said my box is a fresh install. It is a default LEDE install without any interface config. Maybe a steep curve for me.

6

If you've already got routing and the other services on the two networks then it sounds like you're trying to get a single, physical device to provide wireless access to each of those two networks. The general "sketch" would be to provide either one SSID with 802.11X assigning clients to each of the networks (by VLAN), or two SSIDs to allow "selection" of the network by a client's choice of SSIDs. Either the two SSIDs would be "permanently" assigned to their own VLAN or the 802.11X assignment to VLAN, at least within the OpenWRT box. Then you'd need to decide if you wanted to split the two VLANs to two physical ports on the device, or "trunk" the two VLANs over a single Ethernet cable (or LAG) to a VLAN-aware switch.

The implementation decision would depend primarily on the other network infrastructure. With that information in hand, the configuration of OpenWRT to accomplish those goals is "straightforward".