Using the La Fonera Router from Fon as a Wireless Bridge

Filed Under Gadgets & Hardware, Hacks and Mods on 2008-09-26, 18:43

(If you haven’t hacked DD-WRT onto your Fon router yet, you probably want to read this article: Hacking the La Fonera Fon Router with DD-WRT)

So you’ve got a Fon router with one ethernet port and wireless hardware, what do you do with it? Well you could use it for a number of things thanks to the flexibility of DD-WRT, but I’m going to tell you how to use it as a wireless bridge to connect a device with an ethernet port to your wireless network. This is assuming you’ve already flashed DD-WRT v24 RC7 onto your Fon router.

Plug the Fon router into your laptop/desktop using an ethernet cable. (You’ll probably want to disconnect your machine from any wireless or wired connections while working on this to avoid confusion)
On your computer, set your IP address to manual and set it as something like 192.168.1.166. Anything in the 192.168.1 subdomain will work though.
Open a web browser and connect to the Fonera web interface (http://192.168.1.100 Username: root Password: admin)

Under the Wireless tab, set the Wireless Mode to “Client Bridge”.
Set the Wireless Network Name (SSID) to match the SSID of the router you want to bridge.
Set the Wireless Network Mode to match the router too (probably just leave it at Mixed)

Under Wireless->Wireless Security, setup your security settings like WPA, keys, etc. These should match the router you’re bridging
Then you should check under Status->Wireless and you should see that you are connected to the SSID of the access point you specified.
Go to Setup->Basic Setup and under “WAN Connection Type” set Connection Type to Static IP and manually give your Fon an IP that matches the subnet of your network, i.e. 192.168.1.3.
Set the Gateway and Static DNS 1 to your main router’s ip (mine is 192.168.1.1).
Also change the Network Setup to match these settings.
Change the DHCP Type to “DHCP Forwarder” and the DHCP Server to your main router’s IP address. (This is all of course assuming you’re using DHCP on your router.)

Under Setup->Advanced Routing, change Operating Mode to RIP2 Router

Check under Status->Wireless and you should still be connected to your main router.

Reboot the Fon router (under Administration->Management, at the bottom), unplug and replug the ethernet cable, and reconnect to the web interface, this time using http://192.168.1.3 (or whatever IP you set the Fon router to be). Be patient as the Fon may take awhile to reboot.

Test your internet connection and connection to other local machines on your network, making sure you’re using the ethernet connection to the Fon router. If everything went well, you should be all set!

You should now be able to use the tiny Fon router to hook up one device via ethernet. This could be a Playstation 3, or an Xbox/Xbox 360, or maybe a single computer in a different room that you couldn’t run CAT5 cable to. It’s up to you!

Information via

Tagged: , , ,


Comments