Turn your Router Into Repeater With DD-WRT
Actually, the title of this post was "Turn Your Router to Repeater", but I found a possibility to change "to" into "into". Then I did some research about their difference, and it turns out that "turn to" and "turn into" are similar, while "turn to" can have different meaning, such as to change direction (turn to the left), etc. But because "into" has a nice ring, I chose that word for my blog post title.
Okay, never mind it, as usual, for those who doesn't want to read my story just skip this part :D
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My brother who worked in Vietnam just moved back by his company to Indonesia, and it turns out that he got a girlfriend in Vietnam. So to communicate, my brother often uses Skype, and of course, to experience a good communication with Skype the connection must be stable and reliable. On the contrary, he often got lag spikes because his room quite far from the router, resulting in connection lost. So, my brother often mad and ended with some annoying behavior.
When small family reunion was held at my house, all of my family members who used the wireless connection from my router also got connection problem. That's when me, my brother, and my dad, decided to fix this connection problem. So firstly, we upgraded our connection bandwidth from 1.5Mbps to 6Mbps (which become 8Mbps this month because some bonuses bandwidth given by the Internet Service Provider). Then, we upgraded the router, from old DIR-300 D-Link router to new RT-12 ASUS router known for its wide wireless signal range.
By those treatments, our connection problem actually solved. But my brother insisted that every room in our house must have excellent signal. We needed for about two repeaters, and we already got one, so we just needed one more. We have two unused routers (old Linksys G router and DIR-300 that used before), so I wondered if those unused routers can be used as a repeater.
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Router, as an electronic device, has firmware. What is firmware? When we go to the router configuration page in browser by typing its Internet Protocol Address, we faced firmware, a program code with persistent memory and data (your configuration won't reset even if the device plugged out and in). You can do some research on the web for the complete explanation. For short explanation, firmware is an OS for electronic devices.
Even if the router has repeater capability, if the firmware doesn't handle the repeater behavior, then you can't use that router as a repeater. Supposed you have a PC with awesome VGA that could play a game with high settings, but you installed Linux on your PC. Of course you can't play that game if the game isn't available in Linux.
What is DD-WRT? DD-WRT is an open firmware with repeater capability. So, the first things you need to do is check your router current firmware. You should read the documentation, and search for repeater capability. If your router can do repeater functionality, then no need to use DD-WRT so you can close this blog XD.
If your router firmware doesn't have any repeater capability, go to http://dd-wrt.com/site/support/router-database to check whether your router is supported by DD-WRT or not by typing your router type in the given space. If your router supported (indicated by the search result), proceed by clicking the link given. Then, you can download all the things you need to use DD-WRT on your router. Now you need to do two things, which is install DD-WRT firmware, and do some repeater configuration.
The method to install DD-WRT firmware in your router is varied and depends on your router. Usually you can find the firmware setting in setting tab on your router, but once again, it's entirely depends on your router. You can find the method in http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/. For simple explanation you just need to hard restart your router, set your IP to static, upload the firmware to your router, and access your router IP (DD-WRT use 192.168.1.1).
When your router firmware has become DD-WRT, go to Wireless tab and set Wireless Mode there. For the explanation of each mode, you can access http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Linking_Routers. The most common mode is repeater bridge, where the router repeat the signal of existing SSID and don't make a new SSID. If you choose this mode, you just need to insert the existing SSID to the space given. Before you apply the setting, don't forget to set your repeater IP Address, so the IP Address don't conflict with the main router while still in the same network. For example, your main router address is 192.168.0.1, change the DD-WRT IP Address to 192.168.0.xxx with xxx not equal 1.
Hope it helps :v
If your router firmware doesn't have any repeater capability, go to http://dd-wrt.com/site/support/router-database to check whether your router is supported by DD-WRT or not by typing your router type in the given space. If your router supported (indicated by the search result), proceed by clicking the link given. Then, you can download all the things you need to use DD-WRT on your router. Now you need to do two things, which is install DD-WRT firmware, and do some repeater configuration.
The method to install DD-WRT firmware in your router is varied and depends on your router. Usually you can find the firmware setting in setting tab on your router, but once again, it's entirely depends on your router. You can find the method in http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/. For simple explanation you just need to hard restart your router, set your IP to static, upload the firmware to your router, and access your router IP (DD-WRT use 192.168.1.1).
When your router firmware has become DD-WRT, go to Wireless tab and set Wireless Mode there. For the explanation of each mode, you can access http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Linking_Routers. The most common mode is repeater bridge, where the router repeat the signal of existing SSID and don't make a new SSID. If you choose this mode, you just need to insert the existing SSID to the space given. Before you apply the setting, don't forget to set your repeater IP Address, so the IP Address don't conflict with the main router while still in the same network. For example, your main router address is 192.168.0.1, change the DD-WRT IP Address to 192.168.0.xxx with xxx not equal 1.
Hope it helps :v
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