WiFi as WAN

Difficulty level:  Intermediate

Goal

To use a separate wireless router's SSID network as a WAN internet connection on the 63xx-series router.

Setup

This article assumes the LAN ports are operating under default settings, which provide DHCP connectivity to devices connected to the 63xx-series router's LAN ports.  For more details on the default settings of the 63xx-series router, see the Default Settings section of the User Manual.


You will need to establish the following details before configuring the 63xx-series router.

  • The SSID you want the 63xx-series router to connect to, including the wireless channel the SSID is broadcasted on.
  • The authentication credentials for the SSID.
    • Supported encryption types for WiFi as WAN are open (unencrypted), WPA, and WPA2 PSK
  • The priority of the WiFi as WAN interface (i.e. should it take precedence over the WAN Ethernet port).

Sample

The following diagram shows a sample setup of a 63xx-series router establishing a client connection to a separate wireless router's SSID (Accelerated Guests), and then using that interface for a WiFi as WAN connection.  A laptop is shown connected to one of the LAN Ethernet ports of the 63xx-series router as an example end-user device utilizing the WiFi as WAN connection.

Sample Configuration

Open the configuration profile for the 63xx-series router and make the following changes.

  1. Under Network -> WiFi -> Channel, select the channel used by the secondary wireless router's SSID.   Note that if you only are establishing one WiFi as WAN connection, and disable any AP-mode SSIDs under the Accelerated device's Network -> WiFi -> Access points config options, you do not need to specify a specific wireless channel, and can instead leave this Channel option set to Automatic.
  2. Under Network -> WiFi -> Client mode connections, create a new entry named testclient.  The name can be different if desired.
  3. Under the new client mode connection entry, enter in the SSID and authentication credentials for the SSID of the secondary wireless router.

Next, under Network -> Interfaces, create a new entry named WiFiasWAN.

  1. Set the Zone for the new interface to External.
  2. Set the Device for the new interface to WLAN Client: testclient
  3. Under IPv4, set the Interface type to DHCP address. 
    1. NOTE:  This will trigger the 63xx-series router to obtain a DHCP connection to the secondary wireless router's SSID network.
  4. Optional:  Set the Metric to 0 to make this the primary WAN interface.  Doing so will make both the WAN Ethernet and cellular modem (if used) backup WAN connections.
  5. Click Save.