Routers In Chains Allow Access

  • Anonymous January 8, 2012 at 6:01 pm

    Hello,

    I was surprised to find that Hotspotsystem remembers the device node of the ROUTER through which a user connects rather than the client.

    Setup: testing at a beta site, I have a WRT54GL setup up with coovachilli, with the hotspot controlling both the lan and wlan. I chained another router running DD-WRT without hotspot on it, and connected to that.

    So far so good, I was asked to log in to the hotspot.

    Problem: Hotspotsystem apparently counts the second, DD-WRT router as the connected device for the log in, NOT the client device. The result is that once someone logs in successfully through the DD-WRT router, ANYONE can connect for free through the DD-WRT router.

    Ideas? Am I doing something wrong here?

    Anonymous January 8, 2012 at 9:14 pm

    Hello,

    What do you mean by ‘chained an other router’? How?

    I guess you set it as a repeater which works the way you described.

    You should use WDS if you want to extend the signal.

    (null)

    Anonymous January 8, 2012 at 9:48 pm

    Yes, you need WDS, I can second that: An access point (AP) does pass through the MAC address of your clients (L2 transparency), but a client (STA) does, not, it always puts in its own MAC address. So if you put a bunch of computers behind a device configured as STA (wireless client), they will all seem to come from the same MAC.

    If you put that as a WDS-STA (WDS client) or WDS-AP (repeater) then there is full level 2 transparency again, and MAC’s are passed through. So configure your devices as WDS, even if you are not actually repeating, but just hooking up cables. Don’t worry about the fabled WDS overhead. WDS overhead only exists if you are actually repeating the wireless signal, not if you are converting it to a cable.

    Anonymous January 8, 2012 at 11:29 pm
    Roland wrote:

    Hello,

    What do you mean by ‘chained an other router’? How?

    I have an ethernet cable running from a LAN port of the Hotspot router to the WAN port of the DD-WRT router

    Anonymous January 9, 2012 at 8:23 am

    And did you put DD-WRT in router mode, or is it still in default gateway mode?

    If still in gateway mode, will not only mask the MAC address, it will even mask the IP address. You cannot do that if you want separate logon’s

    Put the 2nd router in router mode. Ensure you know what IP address it has, turn off DHCP and set the gateway to the first router’s address.

    I am not sure if the router mode will bridge the WAN port, so to be safe, connect the cable to one of the LAN port, not WAN port.

    Now you can use the remaining 3 LAN ports and the WiFi-AP for the remaining equipment. In this setup, there is actually no need for WDS.

    Anonymous January 9, 2012 at 2:43 pm

    Thanks maus, I got it working now. I had tried several different modes on the router over the last week, even going so far as bridging the WAN port in the firmware. Simply disabling WAN and plugging the cable into a LAN port did the trick with the router working in router mode. I’m not sure why the Linksys running DD-WRT wouldn’t simply see the bridged WAN port and allow transparency, but it only costs me one port to do it this way. I can live with that.

    Now to roaming… lol

    Anonymous January 9, 2012 at 3:18 pm

    In router mode, it still assumes it will be placed between two different subnets and need to do routing between those two. So its by design that it works on level 3. A gateway is even worse, as it does port mapping and firewall.

    What you really want is a simple non-routing access point with built in 5-port switch. If you dive deep into the DD-WRT config, you can make it like that, I am sure, but its not one of the pre-set choices. But you’d have to dive deep, so best not to bother and be happy with your 4-port switch

    Anonymous March 9, 2012 at 9:01 pm

    Hello all,

    I’m having a similar issue. I have a DD WRT ASUS router connected to my cable modem, which I am using for my personal internet access, and want to meddle with as little as possible. I have a second DD WRT Linksys router as my hotspot. They are connected LAN port to LAN port via ethernet. DHCP is disabled in the Linksys (hotspot), it is set as Router, and has the IP 192.168.2.1 (the Asus is 192.168.1.1). When I connect to the Hotspot, my laptop gets an IP address in the 192.168.1.x subnet, and I get free internet access (I haven’t seen the hotspot login page thus far).

    I’m not very savvy with networking, but is it bridging the connection somehow? It seems to be ignoring the Linksys router entirely, and tracert goes straight to my Asus router…

    Also, I cannot access 192.168.2.1 wirelessly. I have to connect via ethernet and set a static IP to 192.168.2.x to get to the web GUI.

    Anonymous March 11, 2012 at 5:21 pm

    Your setup is different. Your ASUS is your private network, and you do not want anyone into that. Also (I assume) you are not running chilli on the ASUS, but on your Linksys.

    For what you want (unlike case above) you just setup your Linksys as normal: Setup as Gateway, (which is default), but with a different subnet than the ASUS (which you did), activate DHCP client on WAN and DHCP server on LAN (at first) and connect the Linksys WAN to the ASUS LAN. Next setup chilli and hotspotsystems as normal (which deactivates DHCP again.

    For your setup, you should not be confused with this thread. This thread wanted *both* devices as hotspot, you want one as private and one as hotspot.

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