Linux Networking Cookbook

4.12. Using Routing Instead of Bridging

Problem

You would rather use routing between your two LAN segments instead of bridging because it gives better performance and more control. For example, you might set up a separate link just to give Internet access to visitors and easily keep them out of your network. Or, you want some separation and different sets of LAN services for each network segment. You know it's a bit more work to set up, but that doesn't bother you, you just want to know how to make it go.

Solution

The example access point in this chapter has three Ethernet interfaces: ath0, eth0, and eth1. Instead of bridging ath0 and eth0 to create the br0 LAN interface, ath0 and eth0 are going to be two separate LAN interfaces, and eth1 will still be the WAN interface. iptables will forward traffic between eth0 and eth0, and dnsmasq.conf will need some additional lines to handle the extra subnet.

This recipe assumes you are using either WPA-PSK or WPA-Enterprise with a separate RADIUS server. (See the previous recipes in this chapter to learn how to configure encryption and authentication.) You may create an open access point for testing by commenting out the two lines that control hostapd:

 ##/etc/network/interfaces auto lo iface lo inet loopback auto ath0 iface ath0 inet static address 192.168.2.50 network 192.168.2.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 192.168.2.255 post-down wlanconfig ath0 destroy pre-up wlanconfig ath0 create wlandev wifi0 wlanmode ap pre-up iwconfig ath0 essid "alrac-net" ...