I have about, oh, I don’t know, 6, maybe 7 various small wireless routers (WRT54GS, WRT54GL, Buffalo WHR125G, Asus WL-520gc, WRT54G2) that are supported by the DD-WRT alternative firmware suite. I love these things because I can set them free to do more than what they were originally built to do.

That said, I hate the documentation available via the DD-WRT community site. It is a demonstration of what’s wrong with wikis: articles that get longer and longer with “I did this and it did/did not work, I did something else and got there, no that won’t work) and all sorts of different instructions that at best should be different articles specifying their special case, rather than append hell. The forums can have helpful suggestions, but since they are quite active, it tends to be hard to find the bits you’re looking for.

So, for my own sake as well as some others, I have a short little bit I want to contribute about my experience making these devices become bridges for wired equipment. Some of you at this point are saying “bridges to nowhere for electricity? What?”

Say you have a device, like a desktop computer or a TiVo, which has a wired Ethernet port. But nowhere near this device is a port to connect it to your router/hub/switch device to give it connectivity. You could probably find something to make this connect to wireless directly, but often these things are more expensive than they need to be or hard to find. But you have a DD-WRT compatible router available? In that case, you can set this up to take the Ethernet from the device and make this connect to your already established wireless network. This type of device in networking terms is called a bridge.

So, let’s get to business. You need to flash your router to a stable version of DD-WRT. Their automated little web app can tell you what you should likely download, and hopefully you have one of the simpler devices. I’m not going to go into specifics on version or steps because frankly, they are all different, and they’ll be more after this article is published. No need confusing this issue with the task at hand. Just get it working and back to the defaults and come back here.

Still here? Okay, fine. The following procedure has worked for me for all the versions of DD-WRT I have used, and is simple, and very repeatable.

  1. Connect to router with a computing device of your choice, via Ethernet (NOT WIRELESS)
  2. Log into router, change username and password as it may request.
  3. Go to Status -> Wireless, and at the bottom find Site Survey.
  4. Run the survey, and when you find your wireless network, hit Join
  5. Router should now have you at the Wireless -> Basic settings. If not already set, switch wireless mode to Client Bridge
  6. DO NOT PRESS “APPLY SETTINGS!!! Hit “Save Settings”
  7. Go to Wireless -> Wireless Security, and add WPA2 key, if necessary (and I hope you have made it necessary…)
  8. DO NOT PRESS “APPLY SETTINGS!!! Hit “Save Settings”
  9. Go to Setup -> Basic Settings, and set an IP address appropriate for your wireless network but NOT handed out via DHCP
  10. Set any other setting, like, the NTP server address so your router can have correct time
  11. DO NOT PRESS “APPLY SETTINGS!!! Hit “Save Settings”
  12. Go back to Administration -> Management, scroll to Remote Access, and turn on Web GUI. A box will open below that to allow you to change the port if you wish (and would be easier if you made it 80, instead of the 8080 default)
  13. Now, if you want to, you can hit “Apply Settings”. The router will reboot, and should join your network.

What you’ve done is joined your wireless network (and proven your router can see it), and then made it addressable and accessible to the rest of your network. By turning on “Remote management”, you haven’t opened the device to be managed from the Internet, but from inside your already present network (the wireless link is the “outside” interface on your bridge). With its address and port number, you can now get on any device with a browser on your network and pull up the settings for that router just as you would for the one running your network now.

If your computing device is still connected by wire to the bridge, you should eventually see an IP address handed out by your original router, and be able to connect to whatever you connect to on the Internet. The same will be true for any devices you plug into the 4 network ports (NOT the WAN port, unless you changed that to operate as part of your network inside the DD-WRT software). Plug in your formerly disconnected device, and enjoy.