Currently I have two different ISPs in my apartment.
Is it possible to connect two separate routers to them, join them with WDS bridging, and somehow make the router A use router B's WAN connection, if router A has no access to internet?
Can I use WDS Bridging to make failover internet connection
networkingwdswireless-networking
Related Solutions
Yes this is possible. I have done this configuration with both the DD-WRT and Tomato firmwares on on a Linksys WRT54GL. In my particular configuration I had a WRT54G acting as the router connected to the internet and my WRT54GL was bridging the connection to a couple of devices that I had wired to the WRT54GL.
I am no longer using this configuration, but I did have it running for over a year so I know that it works. I don't know if any of the stock firmwares support it, so you may have to install a 3rd part firmware on the router in order to get this feature.
Here is the full solution that worked for me with a TP-Link router, for completeness - step 1 was already posted in the comments, but it may not be obvious to everyone that it can be fixed without a factory reset:
- Set the wireless channel for the wifi network you are using for the WDS, on the primary/internet-connected router, to a fixed channel - not auto-select.
- Because you don't have any DHCP on the secondary router, and the WDS is not up to relay the DHCP from the primary router, you can't connect to the secondary router in the normal way if you normally use DHCP (which most people do). The solution, if you have this problem, is to remember that its IP address is statically set to 192.168.1.1 with netmask 255.255.255.0 (at least, this is the case on my TP-Link router). So connect to the secondary router but with a temporary static IP address assignment to something on the same network but different, e.g. 192.168.1.64. If a wifi connection doesn't work, try connecting using an ethernet cable.
- Log in to the secondary router web admin page (again, this should be on 192.168.1.1 - because you don't have DHCP, you won't be able to use any DNS, unless you have it set in a hosts file on your client). Set the channel for the wifi network you are using to the same channel as the one you set in step 1.
- If you changed your IP address configuration in step 2, reconfigure your IP address for the secondary router connection to be automatically allocated using DHCP again, on the client.
- Disconnect and reconnect. Everything should now work - and it should work after a router reboot as well.
Note: this problem and solution is independent of which router you are using for the primary router - my primary router is not a TP-Link router.
Best Answer
WDS bridging is a solution for extending a wireless network over a larger area, improving coverage, and is perhaps not what you are asking for,
If you are looking for using two ISPs at once, so that performance is combined and fail-safe is automatic, your best bet is a Dual Wan router.
A load-balancing router, also called Dual-Wan or Multi-Wan, can connect directly to both ISPs or to both routers.
This would have the advantage of automatically distributing all the connections without you manually needing to specify any routes.
See one random article (more can be found):
Best Dual Wan Routers (Load Balancing Business Firewall Routers) For Multiple Internet Connections.