Bridging 2 networks
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Well, one option would be to look at DD-WRT, which supports a wireless bridging setup as you describe. If you bought a pair of units with external antennas that you could replace with directional units, plus ones that supported higher powers (such as the Buffalo WHR-HP-G54) you should be able to do this.
Certainly, 300M line of sight is achievable with off the shelf hardware and a little time and effort.
The copper-fibre-copper approach would work too, with media converters costing about $150 (AT-MC101XL) new, but probably a lot less second hand.
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Fibre is one way to go. A good switch with optional fibre outputs can be found cheap at ebay. Search for an HP ProCurve 2524 or similar.
If you wanna go wireless, two LinkSys WRT54GL W-Lan Routers with DD-WRT firmware are an option. Take care NOT to boost output power above 100mW. Better use directional Yagi antennas on both units. If you are going with the LinkSys router watch out to get a WRT54GL. These have bigger flash memory and can be upgraded easily with third-party firmware.
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Unfortunately, I don't believe fiber is much of a choice here. From what i've been told, we would have to get a permit to bury the cable.
I've had experience with the 54G before, and had to return the piece of crap. I know the GL is much better, but is also more expensive. Right now ~$62 on newegg. I have several old celeron computers i've picked up off the street lying around, and might try using those with Airlink 4130's (Atheros Super G) which is what I"m using on my pfsense router now with no problems. Am I correct in the idea I can enable Access point on one, and Infrastructure on the other to bridge them?
maybe I can get one GL, use it as an access point, and use PFsense in infra mode. Funds are limited here
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You can connect 2 pfsense systems through a wireless link using accesspoint mode at one end and infrastructore on the other one, right. However you only can bridge another wired interface to a wireless one if the wireless one is in accesspoint mode. This is a driver limitation, not a pfsense limitation. In that case you have to use routing instead of bridging.
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yeah, not necessarily 'bridging', but routing one network through another for internet. I'm not sure if computers on the DSL network would be able to access local ones on the other side of the wireless connection. I'd imagine they would, even using netbeui. Not sure though, iv'e never done this before
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I have a setup like this. just make sure the wan interface always points to the direction with the internet gateway like in the following example:
internetgateway–--(lan site a)---wired-wan/pfsense1/wireless ) ) ) ( ( ( wireless-wan/pfsense2/lan--- (lan site b)
Make pfsense 1 an acesspoint an pfsense 2 use infrastructure mode. Then add some routes at site a to the lan at site b and you should be done as the default gateways always point to the internetgateway at site a. Of course internetgateway and pfsense1 could even be the same system ;)
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thank you for your replies, while I have you here, have another question (and I don't want to make a new thread)
right now on my home router, I'm bridging my wireless NIC with my LAN nic, this is working fine, but I don't want my wireless network to have access to my wired network. Is there any way I can have pfsense to NAT to my wireless nic in addition to my wired, instead of using bridging?
thank you
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Just put the wireless on a separate subnet. Then add an outbound NAT for the wireless subnet. You can put in firewall rules like DENY wireless net > lan net, then allow wireless net > any.
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Other option is to enable the filtering bridge at system>advanced. Then you can block access to your LAN subnet even in bridged mode.
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ok, i've been thinking about going fiber more and more. I did find this cheapo converter here:
http://www.keenzo.com/showproduct.asp?ID=1035537 - $55
now, if I we can get permission to bury it, all we need is fiber. the overestimated distance between the 2 buildings is about 1000 meters. I've been looking around ebay and I can't seem to find any cable that long. I need something cheap, these people don't' have much money
thanks
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I think you would need to run a spool of cable and terminate the ends. You may want to have a professional do it, as the equipment to crimp the ends is expensive, and it is not easy to get the strands polished and crimped properly.
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Yeah, if you're dealing with fibre then you won't want to be trying to cut corners on costs - it will come back and bite you later (from experience).
If you go wireless then you may want to look at a UK company http://www.solwise.co.uk/. They have a page all about kit for linking buildings and have a PDF document about setting it up.
