WAN Port not used on Router, at AiMesh node instead - ASUS RT-AX88U x1 with ASUS ZenWiFi XD6S x4

[Brakahrr]

Hello!

I have a question and I hope that you can help me maybe:
Is it possible to use the WAN port at a AiMesh node to establish the internet / WAN connection instead of using the WAN port of the router itself?

I have the following situation / problem:

My internet modem / connection is based in the ground floor of the house. I want to spread the internet over the whole house.

At the moment the only way that I see to do so, is to connect the router (ASUS RT-AX88U x1) directly with the modem (via Ethernet). And place the four AiMesh nodes (ASUS ZenWiFi XD6S AX5400) at some other places / floors in the house. But the problem is: My living room / "central" is one floor above the ground floor. And there are several devices that should be directly connected to the router via Ethernet cable. Having it sitting down in the ground floor, with all it's features, is a completely waste for me 😕

So is there somehow a way to put one of the AiMesh nodes down in the ground floor, connect it with the modem and put the router in the living room one floor up and connect all devices directly with the router via Ethernet and still cover W-LAN with placing the other AiMesh nodes at some other places in the house?

I hope that my description is accurate enough. If not, just let me know and I try to explain it better or draw some schema about the situation.

Help would be greatly appreciated! 🙂

[jzchen]

The only way I see this as a dilemma is something I'm afraid you didn't spell out, which is how the router in the ground floor connects to the nodes.  I'll assume the ground floor and living room do not have Ethernet cable between them?  The nodes are connected via wireless backhaul?

Once you use a WAN port on the XD6 it becomes the primary "router" in an AiMesh.  Nodes use LAN ports to connect by definition.

Is it possible to have Ethernet run from the ground floor to the central living room, or the modem moved up?

[Brakahrr]

Hello Jzchen,

thank you for your reply! Yes, I fear that you are right: The problematic situation is that there is no ethernet connection available between the router and the nodes. They connect to each other wirelessly. It's a very old house with very high walls / floors and the rooms are at the opposite side of each other as well, so building up some ethernet infrastructure would be a very huge and costly project and is not an option I fear 😕

So when I understand it correctly, as soon as I want one XD6 to use it's WAN port for internet, it will become the router. There is no way around it, right...? And when doing so, this means I would lose all the extra functions / settings / features that the RT-AX88U comes with, because it will be turned into just a "simple node". Do I understand it correctly? Or do you maybe see any other scenario on how I could solve the situation?

When checking the different operation modus of the router, I found the "Media Bridge" option. Could this be an option, when I buy a second RT-AX88U? Is this a good way to look for? Are the other AiMesh Nodes still compatible with such a setting? Because the operation modus description does not say anything about AiMesh availability and it looks like I may lose it in such a case, when using the Media Bridge modus (and therefore can use only 2x RT-AX88U, but no other devices / no XD6 at all)...

Hmm, this is a really nasty situation and it looks like there is no "optimal solution" at all... 😕

What would you suggest to do in this situation?

[jzchen · Accepted solution]

Media bridge is something I did not mention.  It takes 2 routers and creates a WiFi bridge between the two.  Then the ethernet ports are used on both sides.  I don't know the layout of the house but that equals 2 routers that "lose" their WiFi to create the bridge.  I do not have personal experience with this type of connection to be honest, but I believe the other side would act as a wired router to the rest of your network...

You could try the XD5 as router and AX88U as node.  It may be close enough specification wise that the performance is satisfactory.  Nodes do not lose all their functionality, it's just harder to configure the node options.  I do not know if you have the time or patience to try your proposal of XD5 as router and AX88U as one of the nodes.  (Probably try this first, and then go from there.  Each time you rebuild if you aren't happy though).

ASUS does have a lot of products that seem tailored for this type of situation.  I also did not know that another RT-AX88U was an option, as this costs money.  You could bridge them or just use the 2nd one as a node, so a total of 5 nodes.  (I have 5 nodes in my ASUS network right now).

I hardly ever hear about media bridge mode being used, probably because that requires two routers to create the bridge.  Might as well do the next option which I'll try to explain.  ASUS makes tri-band and quad-band routers.  Some tri-band and some quad-band routers may have an extra 5 GHz channel, 5 GHz-2, which can be used specifically for wireless backhaul.  A couple of quad band routers have 2 6 GHz radios, 6 GHz-2 which can be used for the same purpose of wireless backhaul.  Two of these would work well in an AiMesh setup.  Optimal solution, but higher cost.  Are we reaching the cost of adding an ethernet line?  I'm afraid I do not know.

I'm sorry, but I do not know your time vs money equation, which you have more of to spend on the issue.

[Brakahrr]

Hello Jzchen,

again, thank you for your input and thoughts!

Yesterday I set up the XD6S as the router and all the other ones (including the RT-AX88U) as nodes. I did not find time to check every setting and configure the XD6S the same way like I did with the RT-AX88U before, but right now I guess that I am satisfied with this solution and that I continue to use it like this 🙂

I did not try out all of the things that I maybe want the RT-AX88U to do (like using an USB connected drive to be used as a NAS drive) and connecting several devices via Ethernet to the RT-AX88U and check the performance and some other things, but right now I guess that I will stay with it like this and like it. So thank you very much for your thoughts, advices and overall help, I greatly appreciate it! 🙂