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I'm setting up a network for my church's new building. The building is quite large but will have at the most no more than 10 active computers at any one time. I'm looking at using about 4 Linksys WRT54GLs for the network there.

It looks to me like I follow these directions for each client: http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Wireless_Access_Point#LAN_Uplink_Through_WAN_Port and just change the router's local IP on each.

I'm pretty sure that I leave the main router in "gateway" mode and switch the other three routers to "router" mode, but I'm not sure.

I'm also not sure on how to actually wire the network. As far as I can tell, you can wire it these ways (correct me if I'm wrong):

Gateway (Office) --- Workgroup Switch --- Router a (Hallway) --- Router b (Hallway)
                                      |-- Router c (Gym)

or

Gateway --- Workgroup Switch --- Router a 
                             |-- Router b
                             |-- Router c

I would most likely use the first configuration. The switch is a Linksys EZXS88W.

Finally, what kind of cat5e cable should I use with this, and what kinds of connectors would be best? Frankly, I've never actually cut my own wires. These will be running over celing tiles. How long can each run of cable be?

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I may be way off here but wouldn't it be best to have one router in a central location somewhere and the others set up in WDS mode? dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/WDS_Linked_router_network Also, the 'maximum' length of cat5/e/6 is around 100meters. You could probably go further but your mileage may vary :) – emtunc Aug 16 '10 at 6:25
Notice it says that WDS isn't officially standard. We figure it would be best to just run physical wires to each AP. – Travis Olbrich Aug 16 '10 at 6:41
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2 Answers

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What you could do is have one router in a central location where the other routers can "see" it, and set the others as repeaters. You may even be able to chain repeaters, but i am not certain on that being supported however. This would limit the cabling to the just the AP set to AP mode, and the repeaters would only need power.

Repeater mode is part of the 802.11(b/g) standard so it should be supported, especially by dd-wrt.

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The sad fact of how this works though is the AP has to be in a far corner of the building, so just cabling sounds best at this point. – Travis Olbrich Aug 16 '10 at 17:36
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up vote -1 down vote

The maximum distance for ethernet cable is 100 meters.

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With good planning and good quality cable and switches, you can expand further than 100 metres. – MikeT505 Mar 29 '11 at 10:41
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