How to Set Up a Wireless Ethernet Bridge on your Tomato Router

A Wireless Ethernet Bridge works in a similar way to the Wireless Client mode, but the configuration of the subnets is different. Like with client mode, the kind of router is irrelevant and having administrative rights to the router is not essential. However, it is advisable that you do have admin rights to the router if you want to use this option for an Ethernet bridge.

The most important difference is that the same subnetwork is used to bridge the router that acts as client to the router that works as the main access point. Due to this, the client router is situated in the same subnetwork and transfers DHCP addresses from the main router to the devices. The result is that the computers think that they are connected directly to the host router (the access point). Here you will find more about what you need to do to set up wireless Ethernet bridge on your router.

1. In order to be able to set up wireless Ethernet bridge,the first thing you need to do is to get some details about the host router including WiFi channel and SSID (network name). Administrative access to the primary host router is important for Ethernet Bridge mode. Any client computers connected to the host router or the client router, will be visible to other devices, no matter which router they are connected to.

If you have administrative access to the primary host router, it is likely that you already know its IP address. Otherwise, you can connect to the primary access point using a laptop and open the command prompt and type: “ipconfig / all“. You will see the IP address of the access point next to “Default Gateway“.

Now to configure your client router in Ethernet Bridge mode follow the below steps:

1. Go to Tools, then Wireless and select Survey.
2. Click Refresh to see the wireless access points available.
3. Find the access point you want to connect to. You will need to get the SSID. Here is where having administrative rights to the access point is required and if you don’t have it, getting the password will be necessary.
4. Login to the client router and go to Basic and then Network.
5. Since bridge mode is being used, what you choose to set the LAN IP address to is not relevant. However, it is important to consider that setting something outside the subnetwork of the host access point will prevent you from reaching the admin panel of the client router. This is why it is advisable to use an IP address that is within the primary router’s subnetwork. For instance, if the IP address of the access point router is 192.168.1.1, the client router’s IP address can be set to 192.168.1.2. Remember that devices connected to any of the routers will have visibility of other devices on the network.
6. Make sure that DHCP is disabled as it won’t be required since the host router will take care of dealing with DHCP requests for the whole network. When the Wireless Ethernet Bridge mode is selected, you will see that some options change or become unavailable, including the WAN port.
7. Enter the SSID, password and security details. Keep in mind that WEP is not supported by Tomato when bridge mode is in use so you will need to select WPA or WPA2 instead. The host router and the client router should be using the same security option. Once this is done, click Save.

Note: If the host router is using WPA2 but you can’t connect your client router to the host router, what you can do is to change the security type. You can choose WPA / WPA2 Personal. In order to establish a connection, you may need to restart the computer or renew its IP address, but this will depend on your IP configuration.