Set up repeater - no internet connection

[Petofi95]

Hi guys!

I have set up a wifi repeater using my old router with dd-wrt firmware. It took me a while but now it seems that the repeater is established properly but I'm still missing internet access.

My "main router" is provided by my internet provider, its IP address is 192.168.100.1 although i can access it through 192.168.0.1 as well. The old one is a TP-LINK TL-WR741ND and I gave it 192.168.100.2 as IP address.

Actually i did everything as its written in this tutorial.

The problem is that I have no internet access using the repeater. I can see it, I can connect to it but no internet access.

I hope you can help me, guys. If any further information needed just ask for it.

Thanks.

 

[Solandri]

I've always found DD-WRT's repeater and bridging functions to be flaky when you first set them up. Power cycling the router once after configuring it usually fixes it. Check the router's status->wireless page after rebooting to make sure it's connecting properly.

Also try manually setting the local DNS on the repeater to 192.160.100.1 (your main router) or 8.8.8.8 (Google).

 

[Petofi95]

I've always found DD-WRT's repeater and bridging functions to be flaky when you first set them up. Power cycling the router once after configuring it usually fixes it. Check the router's status->wireless page after rebooting to make sure it's connecting properly.

Also try manually setting the local DNS on the repeater to 192.160.100.1 (your main router) or 8.8.8.8 (Google).

Thanks for your answer! Unfortunately power cycling didn't work. I tried setting the local DNS but still no connection.

I also realized that using 192.160.100.1 as local DNS makes a little difference. I don't know why but when I try to get internet access it takes something like 10 seconds and then says I do not have internet connection. Without this DNS it says the same without "thinking".

Any ideas?

edit:
the router status that you asked me to check

 

[Solandri]

Unfortunately my spare DD-WRT router is being used elsewhere so I can't check the menus against yours. Doesn't DD-WRT have an explicit repeater mode? Instead of manually setting up a virtual wifi AP in client bridged mode like the guide you posted does?
http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Repeater_Bridge

You should also be able to test by plugging a wired device into the repeater's LAN port. If that doesn't have Internet access (but can ping 192.168.100.1), then the problem is somewhere in your client bridge setup. If it can't ping 192.168.100.1, then the client bridge isn't connecting at all. If it can access the Internet, then your problem is in the virtual wifi AP setup.

 

[Petofi95]

Unfortunately my spare DD-WRT router is being used elsewhere so I can't check the menus against yours. Doesn't DD-WRT have an explicit repeater mode? Instead of manually setting up a virtual wifi AP in client bridged mode like the guide you posted does?
http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Repeater_Bridge

You should also be able to test by plugging a wired device into the repeater's LAN port. If that doesn't have Internet access (but can ping 192.168.100.1), then the problem is somewhere in your client bridge setup. If it can't ping 192.168.100.1, then the client bridge isn't connecting at all. If it can access the Internet, then your problem is in the virtual wifi AP setup.

Well.. according to all the things that I've read I do not have "official" repeater mode due to atheros chipset. So I can't create repeater bridge that easily.

I tested the wired thing with my notebook (the router is connected to it anyway because I'm doing the dd-wrt settings there). Unfortunately I can't even ping 192.168.100.1
So I don't know what now....

Thanks for your help anyway.

 

[Petofi95]

Eventually your words helped me! You mentioned "client bridge" and I remembered that the tutorial which I followed said to set wireless mode to client. Now I set it to client bridge + I use 192.168.100.1 (my router's address) as local DNS on the repeater.

It works fine. Thanks a lot!

 

[Solandri]

Eventually your words helped me! You mentioned "client bridge" and I remembered that the tutorial which I followed said to set wireless mode to client. Now I set it to client bridge + I use 192.168.100.1 (my router's address) as local DNS on the repeater.

Heh heh. That was the next thing I was going to have you check. Some versions of dd-wrt just have client mode with a radio button to pick between bridged and regular mode. Others have an explicit bridged client mode in the drop-down menu. So it's very easy to get those two mixed up.

In client bridged mode, the dd-wrt router acts like a wifi adapter. Devices connected to the dd-wrt router are connecting directly to your main router's network. That is, you can ping devices connected to the dd-wrt router from your main network. This is what you want for a repeater.

In client mode, the dd-wrt router acts like a separate router. Devices which connect to the dd-wrt router are on a separate subnet with NAT, and the dd-wrt router is the only device pingable from your main network. Basically, instead of plugging an ethernet cable into the WAN port, the dd-wrt router is using wifi as its WAN connection. This won't work as a repeater. I've also found this mode to be extremely flaky in dd-wrt.

 

[Pat_64]

if the set manual asks you to change the adapter setting to a new ip4 address don't change just leave it as is.