Can't access wrt54g after setting up Tomato WDS

[msmit]

I am at a complete loss. I picked up a WRT54G 3.1, installed Tomato 1.28, and went through the instructions here to setup WDS: http://www.polarcloud.com/tomatofaq#how_do_i_use_wds

As soon as I hit SAVE, I can no longer access the router, wired, wirelessly, or any other way shape or form. I'm sure i didn't change the IP address on the router (thus changing the admin local URL), I've tried going with HTTPS but was pretty certain that wasn't the issue anyway.

Right now, I've got a chunk of blue and grey plastic on my desk, and no extended network.

My plan was to use this to extend the Time Capsule network so I can plug my XBOX into the WRT54G in another room. In any event, if it were only network config I was dealing with, I'm sure I could figure it out, but how in the heck can I connect to the Tomato admin on the WRT54G now?

Any ideas certainly appreciated.

 

[Emerald]

would DD-WRT do what you need to do?

http://www.dd-wrt.com/site/support/router-database

 

[eibgrad]

If the issue is only a bad configuration, you should always be able to recover to the defaults w/ a 30-30-30 reset.

Btw, using WDS is generally a bad idea unless the other wireless AP is also using the same firmware (in this case, tomato). Compatibility issues abound whenever mixing WDS implementations across firmware. I strongly recommend you stick w/ tomato "wireless ethernet bridge", or if you need repeating as well, install dd-wrt and use "repeater bridge" (tomato doesn’t support repeating, except via WDS, which as I said, is problematic).

 

[msmit]

Very helpful. The 30s reset did get me he access back, but as you point out, lots of compatibility issues via wds. I'll give dd-wrt a go. Funny, I was going to use that, and then I hit a bunch of sites that wholeheartedly recommended tomato as the modern evolution of dd-wrt. Thanks, will post back if I have success.

 

[msmit]

Best answer selected by msmit.

 

[msmit]

If the issue is only a bad configuration, you should always be able to recover to the defaults w/ a 30-30-30 reset.

Btw, using WDS is generally a bad idea unless the other wireless AP is also using the same firmware (in this case, tomato). Compatibility issues abound whenever mixing WDS implementations across firmware. I strongly recommend you stick w/ tomato "wireless ethernet bridge", or if you need repeating as well, install dd-wrt and use "repeater bridge" (tomato doesn’t support repeating, except via WDS, which as I said, is problematic).

UPDATE: Installed dd-wrt and went with the wireless bridge. Simple setup, flawless execution. Should have gone with this in the very beginning. Thanks again! Oh - a related question, now that I have the network working: My main router - Time Capsule - is wireless N. Considering I just added a bridge (so the Linksys now provides wired and wireless access to the same LAN as the TC), will devices access the wireless network as N or G? i.e. Will this setup, which works great for the wired xbox in the basement, compromise my speed for wireless device connections?

 

[eibgrad]

UPDATE: Installed dd-wrt and went with the wireless bridge. Simple setup, flawless execution. Should have gone with this in the very beginning. Thanks again! Oh - a related question, now that I have the network working: My main router - Time Capsule - is wireless N. Considering I just added a bridge (so the Linksys now provides wired and wireless access to the same LAN as the TC), will devices access the wireless network as N or G? i.e. Will this setup, which works great for the wired xbox in the basement, compromise my speed for wireless device connections?

Mixing wireless G and N always introduces a certain amount of inefficiency to your wireless N network. Some older, less efficient routers may slow ALL your devices to wireless G, while more modern wireless N routers typically only slow to wireless G while those devices are active. Either way, you do lose some of your total throughput when mixing the two.

It's easy enough to find out the effects, just take some measurements using NetCPS, Iperf, Qcheck, etc., with wireless N only, wireless N+G, and with active and inactive wireless G clients.