[Earl_CG]

'lo folks.

Moving to London into a seven room houseshare which has a wi-fi network provided by the Landlord. My main PC is a desktop and to date has connected directly to the router at the current address via ethernet cable (an old cable was running the length of the house as a legacy of time before wi-fi) and so it has no facility for attaching to a wireless network currently.

Personally, I've had iffy experiences with using USB wi-fi receivers in the past (my previous Desktop PC while at Uni) and also have my doubts about the effectiveness of adding in a . Additionally, I also have a Network Attached Storage (NAS) rig which I'd like to be able to stick on the network as well so it can be used for sharing files with my housemates - it doesn't have a wireless connection itself and I doubt I'll be able to get access to attach it directly to the router, so I need to be able to connect to the network wirelessly..

Therefore, what I believe I need is a wireless bridge - a device that can connect to the exisiting wireless network and then interface with my desktop and NAS by ethernet. Ideally this would have at least two Ethernet ports so that I can attach both my desktop PC & my NAS, but I believe that if I just connected a standard Ethernet hub/switch to the wireless bridge and then connected the devices to the hub/switch this would suffice (although having the whole thing in one box would obviously be a lot better).

So basically I have two questions:
a) Is what I've put above all technically correct or am I missing some hazards?
b) Anybody got any recommendations or links to suitable devices? I notice some wireless routers have bridge or relay modes, but my understanding is that they're designed to establish a new wireless network and are unablele to connect to the existing wireless network.

[JohnWill]

You need a true wireless bridge, you don't want "relay mode", which is really a range extender.

I use the ZyXel P330W as a wireless bridge here, it's one of the few inexpensive routers that has true bridging capability. You can connect four wired devices to the router.

[Soundy]

You can also look at the range of routers supported by the third-party DD-WRT firmware (www.dd-wrt.com). DD-WRT adds bridging capability to most routers (among other functions) - I'm using it right now on a D-Link DIR-615 version C2 (do pay attention to hardware revisions, some aren't supported), for exactly this purpose.

IDEALLY, the "host" router should also support WDS (Wireless Distribution System); if so, look for another one that supports WDS as well, and setting up the bridge should be a lot more painless.

[JohnWill]

I can attest to that, I have the DIR-615 version A, and it's not supported. I have a TP-Link here running DD-WRT.