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| Setting up an access point with OpenWRT | 2026-04-12T06:10:10+02:00 | false | uploads/openwrt.png |
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My parents complained about the WiFi in their house. They had a router in the basement, an access point in the first floor and a mesh-repeater in the ground floor. However, the WiFi performance in the ground floor was abysmal. So they asked me to do something.
Devices
I had two old devices around, a FritzBox 4040 and a TP-Link TL-WR1043ND v2. The latter was already set up with OpenWRT. The Fritzbox however was bricked by past me. After reading the Debricking Guide I nearly lost hope, but then I found AVM provides a recovery tool (Windows only). Without any sarcasm: Fritzboxes are a pleasure to work with.
So after finding a usable windows laptop I first flashed the stock firmware and then used fritz-tools to flash OpenWRT. Fritz-Tools works, even if the page only mentions Gluon.
Planning
My parents for some reason decided to rent a router from the ISP. While this is obviously not ideal I decided to just work with it. So WAN connectivity and DHCP will be handled by the ISP's router in the basement. I'll only add two dumb access points, connected to the ISP's router by LAN.
Configuring internet access
I mostly followed OneMarkFifty's great video on how to do this. The OpenWRT docs article is not tht easy to follow and assumes using a static IP for the access points. However, I wanted the AP's to get their IP via DHCP.
The first step is to connect the AP the local LAN and your computer. Make sure that both cables are connected to LAN, do not use the WAN jack. You can then access the AP's configuration page at 192.168.1.1 Got to Network -> Interfaces and remove all interfaces except LAN, you don't need them.
For LAN you set the following settings
Also set
- DHCP Server -> General Setup -> Ignore Interface to True: This stops the AP from assigning IP addresses for IPv4
- DHCP Server -> IPv6 Settings -> RA Service to Disabled
- DHCP Server -> IPv6 Settings -> DHCPv6-Service to Disabled
In combination this now tells the AP to get a IP Address from DHCP and completely deactivates assigning IP addresses to clients. Instead, clients will get an IP from the main router.
Important When applying this setting, your connection to the IP will be lost as it gets a new IP. You then have 90 seconds to visit the configuration page again, otherwise the configuration will be reset. This is an important security feature, so don't turn this off! The best way to re-access the AP is to look up the newly assigned IP in the main router and then input that in the browser.
You should now be able to browse the internet via this AP alone.
Configuring WiFi
Go to Network -> Wireless and click on "Edit" for the station you want to set up. Put in the ESSID (WiFi name), the
Network (lan) and set Wireless Security. If you have multiple APs, go to WLAN roaming and set 802.11r Fast Transition
to True and add a Mobility Domain.
Then apply the settings. It can take up to a minute for the Access point to be enabled on slower hardware.
Setting up additional APs
You should be able to do the same procedure for every AP you want to add. Use the same ESSID, Wireless Security and mobility domain for each AP.
Conclusion
My parents can now finally watch TV in their kitchen, powered by two previous unused devices. I'm really impressed how well it works once set up. I appreciate a lot that OpenWRT enables me to connect two devices of different manufacturers without issues. If you give it a try, let me know how it goes!