Bridging 802.11 wireless networks...

Kyle OMalley plug-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us
Wed, 24 Jul 2002 00:57:40 -0700


Jiva DeVoe wrote:
> I have an Apple AirPort and a NetGear MR314 and I want to put one on one
> segment of my network, and the other on another segment.  The two segments
> are not connected to each other.  I want to connect them via the wireless
> hubs.  Can I do this?  And how?
> 
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It's my understanding that 802.11x doesn't have the capablity for true
layer 2 bridging. The closest it comes is setting one (truely 802.11x)
unit up as the access point and the other as an ap client
("infrastucture mode"). The problem with this setup is that the AP
client will only bind to one mac address, plugging the AP client into a
switch/hub simply won't work. Typically what I do is plug the AP client
into a router, run static routes for an entirly different subnet into
this router then run the network connected to the AP client on these
IPs, the biggest problem I'd say is most/some lan software won't work on
different subnets. I'd say your next bet is to make that router plugged
into the AP client do proxy-arp'ing, iirc the linux kernel has support
for this in the default setup and this should (while I'd imaging it
might be buggy) allow the same subnets to exist over this one link. The
simplest solution short of running cat5?
Get two linksys wap11's, they do bridging (but only to other
wap11's) as they at that point break 802.11 but do complete %100 layer 2 bridging.

-Kyle