What steps do I need to take to set up a bridging connection between WiFi and wired Ethernet on a PremiereWave EN?

Note: This article was written for the PremiereWave EN embedded WiFi device server, but it also applies to the PremiereWave XN external WiFi device server.

First, configure either the Wired or WiFi network interface so you can log in and configure the bridge.  

Since only one of them can be enabled at a time you can configure them identically.  

In this example we will start with the Eth0 i/f enabled and Wlan0 disabled.

Create and enable a WLAN Profile for the ad hoc connection and disable or delete the default profiles.  

Ad Hoc connections can be tricky, so we'll set up a profile to connect to our Tech Support Infrastructure network with WPA2 security. Your settings may vary.

At this point it's a good idea to check that you can connect to the PW EN via the WiFi network.  Disable Eth0 and enable Wlan0, then reboot the PW EN and check that you can still open it's web manager. If you can't, use the CLI commands at the end of this article to disable Wlan0 and re-enable Eth0.

Assuming you have a good WiFi connection, it's time to connect the wired Ethernet device to the PremierWave.

For this example we connected a UDS1100 with the IP address 172.18.11.190 to the wired E'net port on the PremierWave using an Ethernet Crossover cable.

Then we navigated into Bridge 1:Configuration and chose Enable.  

After rebooting the PW EN from the System menu the PremierWave "disappeared" from the network because it was now bridging it's WiFi connection to the attached UDS1100.  

This means you can no longer log into it's web manager via WiFi, but you *can* open the web configuration pages of the UDS1100.  

You can also telnet to port 10001 on the UDS1100 and send data out of it's serial port.  We connected a loopback jumper so the data is sent right back to the telnet session:

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H:\>telnet 172.18.11.190 10001

This is data echoed back from the UDS1100's serial port...
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It is very helpful to have a serial console connection on the first serial port of the PW EN so we could disable wlan0 and re-enable eth0 for troubleshooting, and disable the bridge when we were finished testing.

You can make one of the serial ports a console port on the Line n:Command Mode page:

To switch from one Ethernet interface to the other, use commands similar to the ones below.  These disable WiFi and enable the wired E'net connection:

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Gary-PW-EN>>ena
Gary-PW-EN(enable)#config
Gary-PW-EN(config)#if wlan0
Gary-PW-EN(config-if:wlan0)#state disable
   Change in wlan0 operational State will take effect on the next reboot after a write command.
   WARNING: No Network Interface is Enabled.
Gary-PW-EN(config-if:wlan0)#write
Gary-PW-EN(config-if:wlan0)#if eth0
Gary-PW-EN(config-if:eth0)#state enable
   Change in eth0 operational State will take effect on the next reboot after a write command.
Gary-PW-EN(config-if:eth0)#write
Gary-PW-EN(config-if:eth0)#ex
Gary-PW-EN(config)#ex
Gary-PW-EN(enable)#reload
Are you sure (yes/no)? yes

Rebooting...
waiting for reboot ...
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To disable the bridge use these commands:

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Gary-PW-EN>ena
Gary-PW-EN(enable)#config
Gary-PW-EN(config)#bridge 1
Gary-PW-EN(config-bridge:br0)#state disable
   Change in br0 operational State will take effect on the next reboot after a write command.
Gary-PW-EN(config-bridge:br0)#write
Gary-PW-EN(config-bridge:br0)#ex
Gary-PW-EN(config)#ex
Gary-PW-EN(enable)#reload
Are you sure (yes/no)? yes

Rebooting...
waiting for reboot ...
==========

If you are planning on configuring lots of PW ENs for the same network, it would be a good idea to write or generate an XCR (XML Configuration Record) file you can load into multiple units.  There is an example XCR file attached to this article that you can download and edit.  

For more information see "Configuration Using XML" starting on page 14 of the PW EN Command Reference:
http://www.lantronix.com/pdf/PremierWave-EN_CR.pdf

File Attachment :

[Originally Published On: 10/26/2012 11:56 AM]