This is fun! I wanted to do something similar but ended up buying two TP-Link AC routers with WDS for ~100$. Setup was simple and I get the full 400Mbps download speed from the paired router (the one that isn't connected to WAN).
Raspberry Pi WiFi to ethernet bridge
31–40 of 67 posts
Re: Raspberry Pi WiFi to ethernet bridge
#32I’m trying to understand why this is better than a usb WiFi dongle, and coming up empty. Anyone have an idea?
No driver, processing or configuration is required on the bridged machine. This is good for devices you can't install a driver on (smart TVs, networked printers, any other appliance). No configuration also means you don't have to risk your wifi password being stored/shared with third parties.
Re: Raspberry Pi WiFi to ethernet bridge
#33I’m trying to understand why this is better than a usb WiFi dongle, and coming up empty. Anyone have an idea?
n=1
I use an intel nuc i3-7100U as a wifi to ethernet bridge for a Windows 10 machine (HP Elitedesk 8300 Core i5-3470). The nuc also serves as a htpc running libreelec.
Why? I tried 4 different USB WiFi dongles with different chipsets spanning ~11 years and each one would end up being the cause of intermittent blue screen of death. The dump file backtrace repeatedly pointed to the usb-wifi stack.
Re: Raspberry Pi WiFi to ethernet bridge
#34This can also be set up graphically using OpenWRT (which is a lighter-weight OS if you just want to do some networking and not use the Pi for anything else. I should note that while the onboard WiFi is 802.11ac, I've never seen it get more than 60-70 Mbps in my own testing (in a variety of network environments), so if you want more speed, you might want to get an old n or ac router and flash it with OpenWRT instead.
What operating frequency did you use? I got the RPi4 mentioned in the article and I run OpenWrt on it as my home router. I got it configured to AC mode, 40 MHz width, and I easily hit 100Mbps.
I live in an apartment though, I wouldn't trust it to cover much of a house. Also it's struggling with keeping 10+ devices connected. But speed is not bad! I prefer it over the retail routers I got hooked up as access points.
Re: Raspberry Pi WiFi to ethernet bridge
#35Ah yes, network configuration by way of executing a random bash script from a blog. With tasty morsels like: ># I have to admit, I do not understand ARP and IP forwarding enough to explain exactly what is happening here.
Yes, I read it and found the overall approach a bit strange. I wondered why they weren't just using a normal bridge interface, like https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/363332/how-do-i-con...
Re: Raspberry Pi WiFi to ethernet bridge
#36Is this a "true" bridge (i.e. every Ethernet segment coming in on one end is transformed into an appropriate 802.11 frame and vice versa)? If not, is that possible using an RPi?
Not every IEEE 802.1 Ethernet frame can be converted to an IEEE 802.11 WiFi frame. To do that you would need some type of tunnel to the Ethernet fabric.
No tunnel is needed. Just use a bridge interface.
Re: Raspberry Pi WiFi to ethernet bridge
#37A couple of months ago, another setup for a wifi to ethernet bridge was posted here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26940521 I like Will Haley's setup better though, because it keeps everything in the same subnet. The slowdown from the bridge is negligible, in my experience. After running 10 trials, I found that: * median ping was 2.4% higher on the bridged pi * median download speed was 3.6% slower on the brid…
> * median ping was 2.4% higher on the bridged pi
Pings are best compared in absolute terms as the latency of the Pi would be additive, not multiplicative.
I looked at your results and the Pi appears to add 0.6ms, which is indeed very negligible!
Thanks for sharing detailed results
Re: Raspberry Pi WiFi to ethernet bridge
#38I've thought of doing something similar, but exposing it as a USB-Ethernet adapter instead. The Pi 4 (and Pi Zero W) support USB OTG. It looks simple enough with a single command with Linux USB gadget to create the network interface usb0. Then you can do power and data over the single USB port.
Re: Raspberry Pi WiFi to ethernet bridge
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not every IEEE 802.1 Ethernet frame can be converted to an IEEE 802.11 WiFi frame. To do that you would need some type of tunnel to the Ethernet fabric.
No tunnel is needed. Just use a bridge interface.
Since not all IEEE 802.1 Ethernet frames can be converted to IEEE 802.11 frames using the Linux bridging infrastructure isn't sufficient (even though it can do fancy things like bridge non-Ethernet and Ethernet interfaces; Like bridging PPP interfaces and IEEE 802.1 Interfaces). You genuinely need a tunnel if you want support all Ethernet functionality.
Re: Raspberry Pi WiFi to ethernet bridge
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
Make sure nothing is changing your DNS. You may need to set your router to push the pihole as your DNS and tell any programs to use system DNS.
I've checked that my router continues to point to the pihole (no fallbacks, though I've tried with fallbacks and no difference). I also setup the pihole with cloudflare. I'm just always confused because it seems like some people have absolutely no problem and there's others in my camp and the former just stop after "just follow the directions." I even remember the LTT video mentioned this specific problem.
Oh I didn't realise anyone had that work. I just assumed it wasn't possible (i.e. ads served from same domain as content) and uBO was able to do it by 'content blocking' (i.e. DOM manipulation) rather than XHR blocking.
So, you're not alone, me too.