Trying to understand which protocol would be best for me, and why.
Router/firewall - switch - from the switch I have 2 old routers converted to openwrt as dump APs with a few of the free ports used for is switch function with devices connected. 1 is up stairs and the 2nd downstairs.
Away from the house is a garage I want to extend wifi to (wire not really feasible). I have a 3rd device with openwrt.
I'm looking at using either wds or mesh to get WiFi to external location. But I'm not sure what protocol to use. The signal to the building is about the same to either the upstairs or downstairs ap.
Can I use the mesh protocol with the wired backend on the 2 house aps to connect the 3rd garage ap that is 100% wireless, or does that cause loops? Would wds be better for this? In the past I've used relayd to connect and then used hard wired devices in the garage. But it honestly would be best and easiest to just extend the same ssid to the garage. While I test different setups, I'm using a Linksys gaming or wifi bridge to connect back to the house with devices hard wired to it.
I figure if the garage AP could roam to either the upstairs AP or downstairs depending on signal or in case of if there is a malfunction with either device would be best.
Thoughts? Thanks. I'm trying to see what solution would be best.
In order to use mesh (802.11s) or WDS, you will need both of the involved devices to be running the same firmware. So do you have 2 OpenWrt capable routers that you'll be using in this situation?
If not, you'll probably need to use relayd on an OpenWrt device (the one at the far end that connects wirelessly back to the main network). The other method you can consider would be a simple routed configuration where the OpenWrt device is a wireless client. This means that the downstream networks (I.e. the one in the garage) would be on a different subnet. This can complicate things like streaming between devices or sharing resources on your lan (possible to work around in many cases, but does add some complexity), but that scenario would be of no consequence if the key is just to have internet access in the garage.
Thank you.
All 3 openwrt devices can easily be on the same firmware and hardware.
Hardware is 3 Netgear wndr3800 devices.
Currently upstairs and downstairs are on 23 snapshot, since I hit wifi regressions when I went from 23.03 to 23.04, so it was easiest to update to snapshot. The 3rd device (garage) I'm not sure, as I haven't powered it on in awhile. I'm just planning at the moment to see what t next steps should be.
Last I checked, wds and mesh protocols are both supported with this hardware when I checked the various interfaces from the command line.
Does this info help?
Sorry, I've been posting and replying via mobile at the moment while I'm brain storming next steps. I'm have the hardware in front of me later.
Since you can run OpenWrt on all relevant devices, WDS or mesh are both good options. Mesh is often used when there will be multiple APs with wireless backhaul, wereas WDS is a bit easier to configure and works well in the context of a single device that needs the wireless backhaul.
Keep in mind that the WNDR3800 devices are 802.11n and rather old, so you will see pretty slow performance in this context, but may be fine for basic access.
They're old, but stable and cheap for my uses.
I'd use 2.4 to connect the garage back to the house. Then use most devices on 5ghz ssid, maybe a few that aren't compatible on a 2.4 (which I assume would be halved).
Speed isn't really that much of a concern.
So you think try wds first?
So you think mesh (802.11s) would be too complicated since 2 of the 3 in the network would have a wired backend?
Would the mesh protocol give any advantages with the more complicated setup?
So far, I think I'm leaning towards trying WDS first to connect the garage, but I'm just thinking it all out.
Will wds switch to the 2nd access point if the first goes down, or will it try to stick to whatever it's first connection was?
I'm always a few generations behind. I've been scoping out what I'll use to replace the wndr3800.
Usually when looking I look for something cheap enough that I can afford to always have a spare on hand. Last time I needed a few, they were only $20 bucks on eBay. I like to commit and get all the same, makes it easier to maintain, but that's another topic, lol