Connect to client Wi-Fi network
This page will explain how to connect your OpenWrt device to another Wi-Fi network by using its own radio. Due to technical limitations, your OpenWrt device will create its own subnet (in the example below it’s 192.168.2.x while the Wi-Fi router’s subnet is 192.168.1.x ) just as it would when connected to a modem, your OpenWrt device and devices connected to it will be able to reach the Internet, but won’t see devices connected to the other Wi-Fi/router).
If you want to actually set up a Wi-Fi repeater or keep devices connected to this device in the same subnet as the devices connected to the other router, you will need to follow this tutorial instead.
Web interface instructions
Refreshed with 21.02 LuCI images.
As said above, the LAN interface must be set in a different subnet than the Wi-Fi network you are connecting to. In our example the Wi-Fi network we are connecting to is using 192.168.1.x addresses, so we will need to change the IP address of the LAN interface first to 192.168.2.1
The LAN interface must be set in a different subnet than the Wi-Fi network you are connecting to.
We will now set up the client Wi-Fi network, the configuration needed to connect to another Wi-Fi network.
Once you are logged into the router,
Recommend to tick the ‘Replace wireless configuration’ to delete the wireless access point (Master) for the chosen radio.
If there is no *wan* firewall zone you need to create it, don’t save the Wi-Fi configuration. Go to bottom of this section describing how to create *wan* firewall zone.
Enter the Wi-Fi password, leave the “name of new network” as “wwan” and select wan firewall zone.
You will land in the client Wi-Fi settings page. Edit as required.
The most important settings are on the Operating Frequency line.
Set the Mode to Legacy if you are connecting to a Wi-Fi g network, or N if you are connecting to a Wi-Fi n (and so on).
Set the Width to the same value that you set on the Wi-Fi you are connecting to (to avoid bottlenecking the connection for no reason).
Press Save
Press Save & Apply.
Configuration is now complete.
This is the final result. Note how the client network has a ? instead of a IP address.
The wwan IP address is only visible in the Network Interfaces page.
This step should not be necessary if you had reset the router to OpenWrt defaults. If you have no “wan” firewall zone you must create it.
Click on Network and then on Firewall, then click on the Add button, and set up the new zone as you see in the following screenshot (which is a default wan firewall interface),
After you have done this, go back and repeat the other steps to add and save the Wi-Fi connection.
Command-line instructions
Before doing any actual configuration, the Wi-Fi interface must be enabled in order to be able to scan for networks in the vicinity:
uci set wireless.@wifi-device[0].disabled="0" uci commit wireless wifi
if you have more than one Wi-Fi radio in your device, then you can use the others in this tutorial instead by substituting their number. For example to enable the second Wi-Fi radio (usually a 5Ghz radio) you would need to uci set wireless.@wifi-device[1].disabled=0 and then use wlan1 instead of wlan0 in the command below.
Now we can list networks in range substituting your actual wireless interface for wlan0 :
# iw dev wlan0 scan BSS c8:d5:fe:c8:61:b0(on wlan0) -- associated TSF: 24324848870 usec (0d, 06:45:24) freq: 2412 beacon interval: 100 TUs capability: ESS (0x0411) signal: -72.00 dBm last seen: 140 ms ago Information elements from Probe Response frame: SSID: Violetta RSN: * Version: 1 * Group cipher: CCMP * Pairwise ciphers: CCMP * Authentication suites: PSK * Capabilities: 1-PTKSA-RC 1-GTKSA-RC (0x0000) BSS f8:35:dd:eb:20:f8(on wlan0) TSF: 24225790925 usec (0d, 06:43:45) freq: 2457 beacon interval: 100 TUs capability: ESS (0x0431) signal: -90.00 dBm last seen: 1450 ms ago Information elements from Probe Response frame: SSID: GOinternet_EB20FB HT capabilities: Capabilities: 0x11ee HT20/HT40 SM Power Save disabled RX HT20 SGI RX HT40 SGI TX STBC RX STBC 1-stream Max AMSDU length: 3839 bytes DSSS/CCK HT40 Maximum RX AMPDU length 65535 bytes (exponent: 0x003) Minimum RX AMPDU time spacing: 4 usec (0x05) HT RX MCS rate indexes supported: 0-15, 32 HT TX MCS rate indexes are undefined HT operation: * primary channel: 10 * secondary channel offset: below * STA channel width: any RSN: * Version: 1 * Group cipher: TKIP * Pairwise ciphers: TKIP CCMP * Authentication suites: PSK * Capabilities: 1-PTKSA-RC 1-GTKSA-RC (0x0000)
In the example, there are two networks, a Wi-Fi g one called Violetta and a Wi-Fi n one called GOinternet_EB20FB. The device was configured to connect to the one called Violetta.
These are the uci values that were added or changed by the configuration procedure.
For SSID, BSSID, and encryption you must use the info you got from the Wi-Fi scan above.
For an explanation of why these values were changed, please read the luci tutorial above.
network.lan.ipaddr='192.168.2.1' network.wwan=interface network.wwan.proto='dhcp' firewall.@zone[1]=zone firewall.@zone[1].name='wwan' firewall.@zone[1].input='REJECT' firewall.@zone[1].output='ACCEPT' firewall.@zone[1].forward='REJECT' firewall.@zone[1].masq='1' firewall.@zone[1].mtu_fix='1' firewall.@zone[1].network='wwan' wireless.@wifi-iface[1]=wifi-iface wireless.@wifi-iface[1].network='wwan' wireless.@wifi-iface[1].ssid='Violetta' wireless.@wifi-iface[1].encryption='psk2' wireless.@wifi-iface[1].device='radio0' wireless.@wifi-iface[1].mode='sta' wireless.@wifi-iface[1].bssid='C8:D5:FE:C8:61:B0' wireless.@wifi-iface[1].key='myWifiPasswordHere'
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Openwrt wifi client mode
For working with wifi in openWrt there is a script /sbin/wifi. The file /etc/config/wireless is responsible for wifi configuration.
The the configuration file can be created by default having run the following:
wifi detect > /etc/config/wireless
config wifi-device radio0 option type mac80211 option channel 11 option hwmode 11g option path 'pci0000:00/0000:00:1c.2/0000:05:00.0' # REMOVE THIS LINE TO ENABLE WIFI: option disabled 1 config wifi-iface option device radio0 option network lan option mode ap option ssid OpenWrt option encryption none
Let’s change it under our configuration.
The file /etc/config/wireless is for open network:
config wifi-device radio0 option type mac80211 option channel 'auto' option hwmode 11g option path 'pci0000:00/0000:00:1c.2/0000:05:00.0' option disabled 0 config wifi-iface option device radio0 option network wwan option mode sta option ssid testwifi option encryption none
The file /etc/config/wireless is for encrypted network:
config wifi-device 'radio0' option type 'mac80211' option channel '6' option hwmode '11ng' option path 'pci0000:00/0000:00:1c.2/0000:05:00.0' option disabled '0' config wifi-iface option device 'radio0' option network 'wwan' option mode 'sta' option ssid 'testwifi' option encryption 'psk2' option key '1234567890'
sta — is a client mode; ap — is an access point mode
For automatic receiving the address via dhcp it is necessary to create the interface in file/etc/config/network:
config interface wwan option proto 'dhcp'
Let’s run the following commands for applying of new settings:
At the stage of OpenWrt configuration wpa-supplicant is to be selected, in the different way wifi will not be linked up by the script openWrt /sbin/wifi:
The running of «wifi down» makes wifi disable and results in missing of interface wlan0.
The running of «wifi up» links up the interface wlan0 and the network is connected.
By successful completing of operation there will be approximately the following log on the screen:
wifi up Successfully initialized wpa_supplicant [ 10.975345] iwl3945 0000:05:00.0: loaded firmware version 15.32.2.9 [ 14.670591] wlan0: authenticate with bc:ae:c5:c3:ab:d5 [ 14.673644] wlan0: send auth to bc:ae:c5:c3:ab:d5 (try 1/3) [ 14.675760] wlan0: authenticated [ 14.676031] iwl3945 0000:05:00.0: wlan0: disabling HT as WMM/QoS is not supported by the AP [ 14.676335] iwl3945 0000:05:00.0: wlan0: disabling VHT as WMM/QoS is not supported by the AP [ 14.680246] wlan0: associate with bc:ae:c5:c3:ab:d5 (try 1/3) [ 14.682727] wlan0: RX AssocResp from bc:ae:c5:c3:ab:d5 (capab=0x401 status=0 aid=1) [ 14.684368] wlan0: associated
Error introducing is possible (if there is no wpa-supplicant) :
wifi up command failed: Device or resource busy (-16)
It is possible to be connected to the network in a manual mode by the following command:
iw dev wlan0 connect -w testwifi