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.
- 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.
- Under Network -> WiFi -> Client mode connections, create a new entry named testclient. The name can be different if desired.
- 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.
- Set the Zone for the new interface to External.
- Set the Device for the new interface to WLAN Client: testclient
- Under IPv4, set the Interface type to DHCP address.
- NOTE: This will trigger the 63xx-series router to obtain a DHCP connection to the secondary wireless router's SSID network.
- 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.
- Click Save.