# How do I wirelessly access another router through a router I have?



## shrips (Jan 30, 2009)

Below I've pasted a solution that I read on another post, but my problem is slightly different. I want to physically connect my desktop to my wireless router and use the router to pick up signal from another wirelss router. Essentially, the first router is the access point, the second router is wirelessly connecting to to it and then feeding information by ethernet cable to a desktop computer. I know its a lot easier to just get a wireless network card for a desktop, but I've had poor results with that in the past. Can any one help with this?




_Re: Wireless network with wireless router as an access point
If you connect the router using the following configuration to one of the wired jacks, it should work. Note that depending on the routers involved, you may need to use a crossover cable to make the connection.

Note that it's ALWAYS handy to have exact details of the configuration and hardware make/model numbers.



Connecting two (or more) SOHO broadband routers together.

Note: The "primary" router can be an actual router, a software gateway like Microsoft Internet Connection Sharing, or a server connection that has the capability to supply more than one IP address using DHCP server capability. No changes are made to the primary "router" configuration.

Configure the IP address of the secondary router(s) to be in the same subnet as the primary router, but out of the range of the DHCP server in the primary router. For instance DHCP server addresses 192.168.0.2 through 192.168.0.100, I'd assign the secondary router 192.168.0.254 as it's IP address, 192.168.0.253 for another router, etc.

Note: Do this first, as you will have to reboot the computer to connect to the router again for the remaining changes.

Disable the DHCP server in the secondary router.

Setup the wireless section just the way you would if it was the primary router, channels, encryption, etc.

Connect from the primary router's LAN port to one of the LAN ports on the secondary router. If there is no uplink port and neither of the routers have auto-sensing ports, use a cross-over cable. Leave the WAN port unconnected!

This procedure bypasses the routing function (NAT layer) and configures the router as a switch (or wireless access point for wireless routers).

For reference, here's a link to a Typical example config using a Netgear router
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## RockLee (Dec 16, 2008)

From my experience to do this you need identical routers and you need to bridge them by placing one in bridged mode and putting the MAC address of the other router into it. But I have never gotten this to work if the routers weren't the exact same routers, firmware version, etc.


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## johnwill (Sep 26, 2002)

Unless one of the routers you have offers a wireless bridge configuration, this isn't going to happen. Perhaps the exact make/model of the routers would be a good first step here?


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