Today I thought I would try switching from DD-WRT to OpenWrt on my Netgear R7800. I want to duplicate the same configuration that I had prior, which was that my R7800 would connect via WDS to my R9000 (running DDWRT) so that I can connect LAN devices but also repeat the wifi for better range.
Whilst connecting via WDS works fine, I can't seem to work out how to also setup a wireless network (same SSID, pass, encryption as base station) on the same radio. Whenever I try to add another interface to the radio (alongside the Client WDS), the radio stops working. Does anybody know how I can solve this?!
It used to be that AP and STA at the same time was not possible on a DFS channel, though it would work on a non-DFS channel. I don't know if that is still true.
Don't have knowledge to speak to that to be honest. On DD-WRT, to achieve my desired result, you would add a "virtual interface" to the radio. Is there an equivalent/similar way of doing this in OpenWrt?
In OpenWrt click Add next to the radio on the main wireless page. Set the mode to Access Point and the network to lan. Configure your SSID and encryption. For this use case, everything is bridged into one network, the lan.
In most countries (which reminds me, make sure your country is set on your radio Advanced Settings), the DFS channels are those between 52 and 140 inclusive. If the R9000 is operating on one of those channels try changing it. A repeater will operate on the same channel as the AP it is receiving from, selecting a different channel on the R7800 will not change anything.
Did try changing the channels to 36 on my R9000 and it did not work. The WDS does work as expected when I try it on the 2.4GHZ radio (ap and client interfaces). But, the ap interface on the 5ghz does not work at all.
Possibly, but due to the R9000 not having an openwrt build, I don't have a choice really. I can connect via WDS just fine, and the 2.4ghz radio works with both, but not the 5ghz.
