The Life of Colt Trickle

I decided that instead of buying the Linksys Wireless Bridge product that I would try to setup the Linksys Wireless Router (WRT54G) I already had as a wireless bridge. I needed to connect my XBOX 360 (Location: Basement) to the wireless network with out having a wireless adapter for it. The main wireless router I will be connecting to is located on the 2nd floor.

In order to do this, I had to go out and download the “wrt54g alchemy firmware” version 6rc5 from the web. This is only compatible with certain models of the device (wrt54g v2.2 and wrt54gs v1.1). You will need to hard wire your PC to the router for the initial setup. After you have downloaded it, you will need to upload it to the router from the Administration – Firmware Upgrade page the web interface for the router. After this is completed, here are the steps below to get it connected to your existing wireless network.

1. In the Setup – Basic Setup screen, set the Internet Connection Type to “Automatic Configuration – DHCP”.
2. On the same page, set the local IP to 192.168.1.129 assuming your main router is 192.168.1.x.
3. Set the Subnet Mask to 255.255.255.128.
4. Set the Gateway to the IP address of the main router (i.e. 192.168.1.1).
5. Set the DHCP Server to Enabled and the starting IP address to 150.
6. Save the settings on this page. You will need to reboot your computer at this point.
7. Log back into the router’s web interface by going to 192.168.1.129.
8. On the Setup – Advanced Routing screen, check to see if the operating mode is set to Gateway.
9. On the Wireless – Basic Settings screen, set the Wireless Mode to “Client”, the Wireless Network Mode to “Mixed”, and the SSID to the main router’s SSID.
10. On the Wireless – Security screen, set your WPA setting to match the main wireless router’s settings and save the settings
11. At this point, you should be connected to the main wireless router. You can verify this by going to Status – Router page and you should see an IP address assigned by the main wireless router.
12. On the Security – Firewall screen, disable Firewall Protection because you are protected by the main wireless router’s firewall. Also, make sure that “Block Anonymous Internet Requests” is unchecked.
13. (Optional) To enable PCs attached to the main router to be able connect to PCs attached to the wrt54g: Login into the wrt54g using telnel or ssh by running the command “telnet 192.168.1.129″ and use same root/passwd as for the web interface. Then type this command (copy it exactly):

    # echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf/`route | grep default | awk ‘{print $NF}’`/proxy_arp

This worked flawlessly for me and I hope it does for you as well. If you have any question, leave a comment and I will respond.