14 inches, lots of steel reinforcement, dense concrete, covered with 5--6mm ceramic tile. A real bitch to make a hole in!

Victor was the job foreman when the house was built, and he is very familiar with its construction.

tanstaafl.

Mark? Would this have anything to do with the issue we discussed re: the Sonos?

In the unlikely chance that anyone else is interested... with the present "double wireless" setup (wireless from my router to the one below which rebroadcasts the signal on a separate SSID) SWMBO's Sonos won't work unless connected by Ethernet. Sonos' tech support suggested that the second router was the cause of the problem, and indeed, unplugging that router allowed the Sonos to work properly.

tanstaafl.

If it were me, I'd do the following to the second router:

1- assign it an IP address outside DHCP of the primary router

2- disable DHCP

3- as you said, give it its own SSID on a different channel (or set both routers to auto for the channel and they'll figure it out)

4- run the ethernet cable from a LAN port of the primary router to a LAN port of the secondary router.

Step 3 is why I suggest Unifi equipment. Use two of those and they'll work out everything else and give you actual roaming capabilities. I believe DD-WRT might have added some seamless handoff stuff recently, but the Unifi equipment is so much easier to install and maintain, and is designed for the kind of mounting that's required here.

Speaking from my usual position of invincible ignorance... wouldn't it be logical to run the Ethernet cable from the LAN port of the primary route to the "Internet" port of the secondary? Wouldn't the secondary router then be just as happy with the incoming signal as it would be if the signal were coming from its own cable modem?

No doubt there are reasons why my simplistic assumptions are wrong, but I suspect they are beyond my pay grade.

tanstaafl.

Mark has the specific details of your setup, this is more a general response to help your understanding in general of home routers.

Your cable modem has one internet IP, and your router via it's internet port handles sharing that one address to your multiple devices. All your multiple devices lack an "internet" IP, and instead use IP addresses reserved for private use only.

It's like an apartment building. 123 Broadway St is the cable modem. The postmaster drives from the post office to 123 Broadway St via a road (ISP network). Then enters the building to go to the mail room (the router), and divides up all the mail into little mailboxes private to the building. A bill for apartment 221, some junk mail for apartment 312, and a legal letter to apartment 640 (Incoming traffic). In the outgoing box is a request for a Sears catalog from apartment 518 (outgoing request for Amazon.com). Each apartment is one of your devices attached to the router wirelessly or on the LAN ports. Each apartment shares the same street address and the mail room is the equivalent of NAT, a protocol the router uses to share the Internet IP/street address. Outsiders to the building have no idea how many mailboxes are inside that mail room.

By hooking into the internet port of the second router, internet traffic has to be delivered not through one mail room, instead now two. Lets say this is apartment 221. For some reason the apartment has a mail room inside it as well once inside the front door, and multiple locked rooms labeled A, B, and C. Mail now goes to a street address first (123 Broadway), then to the first mailbox for apartment 221, then to a second mailbox inside 221 labeled for 221-B.

Plugging into the LAN port bypasses the router portion of the secondary and treats any device connected to it the same as your upstairs router.

You may or may not want to have one shared private network between you and your neighbor. Which is independent of the choice to have one or two wireless networks.

No worries. It does seem illogical. This page has some explanation a little ways down.

Tomato and DD-WRT also have ways to turn the WAN port into an additional LAN port, but that's not really necessary.

Not to beat a dead horse, but let me put in one more endorsement for Unifi, with a pro/con list

Pro:

- seamless roaming between access points, which could be important now that you're going to have an AP in the lower floor that really could deliver signal to the first

- POE means you don't have to run power through that hole

- a real, included mounting bracket will make the result look great, like just another smoke detector (you'll see no wires)

- you don't have to worry about all this configuration confusion (don't have to deal with DHCP or flashing firmware, and there's only one place to plug any of the cables into

Cons:

- more expensive, requiring two APs and a router (you'd disable the wifi in the router). The base Unifi AP costs about $70. The longer range version, which might not be necessary in your configuration, is about $83. Lastly, they have a brand new 802.11ac dual band version that's about 40% of the previous cost at $99.

- the management software can be a little annoying at times, but they've really improved it in recent months with a big visual refresh


In the end, I totally understand going the less expensive route, though.

You could actually just use an AP and configure it to work with the existing router leaving wireless enabled. No reason to buy two unless you feel the need to control the entire network through UniFi Controller.

That is a good article. I actually understood a lot of it, and with a few more re-readings I might even have a limited grasp on routers and networking.

Thank you.

tanstaafl.

No, I was just aiming for the simplest possible way to set it up, from YOUR point of view. After all, you are the one who has to enter all of the settings, and DD-WRT is anything but "straightforward".

The idea is to factory-reset the WRT54GL, and then just set it up as a straightforward DHCP router, with the WAN port connected to any one of the LAN ports of the upstairs router. Double-NAT, yes, but very easy setup, and slightly better internal security than configuring it as an AP.

I find the DD-WRT interface immensely confusing. Sure, I can navigate it, but.. wow.

A new TP-Link WR720N would be easier to set up than this DD-WRT box, and look nicer too. $20 well spent.

By that, do you mean reflash the router with the standard Linksys firmware, so it is no longer DD-WRT?

tanstaafl.

I had kinda imagined leaving DDWRT on it.
But now that you mention it, it would be much better to reflash it. With Tomato, though, not the factory gunk.

I only had DDWRT on it for the "repeater" capability, which is missing from the GUI on Tomato.

Version 28-Standard?

Should I put Tomato on both routers?

tanstaafl.

No problem, though I like Tom's explanation and I'm going to start using that metaphor to explain this in the future.

My reason would be that you don't get any advantage from seamless handoff between the access points. The prime advantage with Unifi is that the APs talk to each other and hand off devices for best performance. In the setup you mention, the two APs don't talk to each other at all. I often get clients with setups like this who complain that they're standing next to one AP but their phone is connected to another AP with 1 bar of signal.

If you do, then you'll have an easier time maintaining both of them.

Not sure about versions -- haven't hunted for Tomato for a WRT54GL for a while, but I suppose the "official" v1.28 is a good enough starting point here. There are other derivatives out there that are much more up-to-date, but difficult to find. Eg. the "Toastman" variant.

For the router that already has DD-WRT installed, updating to Tomato is as simple as using the firmware-upgrade menu item.

For a stock Linksys WRT54GL, installing Tomato over the factory firmware probably involves a little extra effort -- I vaguely recall a multi-step process was required. Mr.Google can probably find the info.

Actually, I was wrong about that. Turns out the floor/ceiling was 21" (53 cm) thick. The hole is now in place. It turns out that a 5/8" hole is just right for an RJ45 connector, but only because Victor's 21.5" long drill bit (yes, we just made it!) was so out of true that the hole is probably closer to 3/4" than it is 5/8".

Now, next question in a row.

Have any of you ever taken apart a WRT54GL router? It would simplify my installation somewhat if I could drill through the mounting feet of the router and just run the screws directly into the ceiling, but I don't want to go stirring up bits of electronics with my drill bit. The mounting feet are indented at the top and project out the bottom, so that multiple routers can be stacked on on top of another, but are not hollow all the way through.

What are the chances that I could fun a 1/8" or 3/16" drill bit through them?

tanstaafl.

From this image, I'd guess no:




Three out of the four would hit circuit board. You know, the UniFi AP's come with a real nice mounting kit...

A long time ago, though it was a WRT54G (same case design). Linksys was going through multiple iterations of the electronics inside, at times with no indication in the model number that anything changed. It's best to check your unit yourself to be certain.

iFixit has some community guides on repairing/opening various Linksys units here: https://www.ifixit.com/Device/Linksys_Router

Basically that blue plastic piece is snapped into the black plastic piece. Refer to the pictures in these two teardowns for help on where to squeeze to open the case:

https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Linksys+WRT54GS+v2+Rear+Case+Replacement/7126
https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Linksys+WRT54G+Motherboard+Replacement/7017

Yes, you can drill there, but only in the outmost edge of each of the four pod/feet things. The rubbery bits can be pried out with a knife/screwdriver first, and then it is safe to drill only outside of the "curved" edges of the router body.

If you want better access, open it up. Scary the first time, but here's how:

The blue/purple front detaches from the dark main body of the router. There are no screws (unless yours is old enough to have them under those rubber pads you removed above). Instead, just firmly grab one of the two back "feet" in one hand, the corresponding front "foot" from the same side of the router in the other hand, and pull hard/quickly. The front will snap apart from the main body, revealing the innards.

It helps to slice through the "do not tamper" sticker beforehand.

Looks like about 1/4" max space for drilling, on my v1.1 WRT54GL.

Cheers
Mark

Doug,

Is it supposed to be upside down, on the ceiling, or vertically mounted, on a wall?

If on a wall, what I did with my old WRT54G is:

- Mark on the wall where the feet would end up
- Remove the rubber parts from the feet - they should slide out of them.
- Nail/screw the rubber parts on the wall, from the inside - they are hollow.
- Slide the router feet back on them.

It stayed up for years. Hopefully the design has not changed and what I did is still doable. Also, I hope my English made sense. if not, feel free to ask.

Too bad I do not have a WRT54 here to take some pictures.

FCC IDs are about the only way to keep account of the various Linksys iterations.

The primary router is mounted on the side of my computer hutch, exactly as you described in your post.

The secondary router will be mounted upside down on the ceiling, right over the doorway between the bedroom and the kitchen/dining room, so hopefully the signal will propagate through both rooms.

Now what I need to do is find the proper inverter software to turn the data right side up because it will be coming out upside-down from the router mounted on the ceiling. Haven't been able to find it by Googling...

tanstaafl.

No! You just peel the stickers off and put them on the other way.

What!? And risk voiding the warranty? There must be a better way!

tanstaafl.

Warranties are always auto-inverting.

If you use your laptop upside down, that'll do.

Why not just use some Z-clips?

edit: maybe "offset clip" is a better name than Z-clip.

I have a thin strip of aluminum that can be easily cut and shaped. I'll take 3" long pieces, bend them into an "L" shape, pop-rivet them to the hollow portion of the router's mounting feet, then screw the whole mess into the ceiling with anchor bolts.

Oughta work. Maybe. Presently I'm waiting for the downstairs neighbor to leave town later this week so I can make the changeover without interrupting her internet service.

Let's see... I've got the router, the aluminum strip, the anchor bolts, the ladder, the cordless drill and a 1/4" masonry bit. Hmmm, I need a 3-meter Ethernet cable, and about four feet of two-conductor wire to extend the power supply connector. Some goggles would be useful for when I'm drilling into the cement ceiling above my head.

I'm probably over-thinking this whole thing. Reminds me of when I was having some carpentry work done in my basement in Alaska, bare drywall, no finish work had been done. I wanted to reposition a light switch, so I took careful measurements, made up drawings, put marks on the walls, and started to explain to the carpenter in great detail what needed to be done. While listening to me explain, the carpenter whipped out his cordless sabre saw, cut around the light switch, took his hammer and knocked the switch box off the stud, cut a similar sized hole next to the stud at the new location, knocked the nail which was still dangling on the light switch box into the new stud, stuck the original piece of drywall around the light switch, put the second piece into the hole left from the original location, and said he'd sand and tape the two spots later.

What would have been a weekend project for me he did and finished before I could finish explaining what I wanted done. A bit humbling. The plumber I had working to install the new furnace told me: The difference between an apprentice and a journeyman is, the journeyman knows how to fix his mistakes.

tanstaafl.

Overthinking: "drilling into the cement ceiling above my head"

Aren't you upstairs? Don't you have a floor?

-jk

Aluminum is easy to form, but it is metal. If you have a suitable non-metallic material that would provide less possibility of messing with the WiFi radio propagation patterns.

Some plastics can be shaped and formed with mild localized heat such as a heat gun. Or find something plastic with a useable shape and cut pieces from it.