In message <10k06pm$3qvn9$25@dont-email.me>
The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
Situation: I have one ethernet port in a room near the TV and would like
to make the smart TV not a TV so to speak, and instead drive it from a Pi >> 5 as a HDMI screen and use the Pi for any or all smart capabilities.
But I also need wifi access to the network in that room as well, and the
pi 5 comes with wifi,
But I have never seen it configured as a *bridge* to the network and DHCP >> server via the Ethernet.
Does anyone have a link to a magic spell book for this configuration?
If I've understood correctly, turning the RPi into an access point would
do half of what you want.
I installed OpenWRT on an RPi4 a few weeks ago,
and it was very successful as an AP, although the need for it didn't last long (my son installed a new mesh network, which gave whole house
coverage). Note that the RPi4 only does one wifi band; I don't know the RPi5.
I'm not an expert on OpenWRT, so you'll need to web search for information.
As for the other half of what you want, there might be enough processing power left over. You haven't given us any detail of what you want to do
in that regard.
David
Situation: I have one ethernet port in a room near the TV and would like
to make the smart TV not a TV so to speak, and instead drive it from a Pi
5 as a HDMI screen and use the Pi for any or all smart capabilities.
But I also need wifi access to the network in that room as well, and the
pi 5 comes with wifi,
But I have never seen it configured as a *bridge* to the network and DHCP server via the Ethernet.
Does anyone have a link to a magic spell book for this configuration?
Situation: I have one ethernet port in a room near the TV and would like
to make the smart TV not a TV so to speak, and instead drive it from a
Pi 5 as a HDMI screen and use the Pi for any or all smart capabilities.
But I also need wifi access to the network in that room as well, and the
pi 5 comes with wifi,
But I have never seen it configured as a *bridge* to the network and
DHCP server via the Ethernet.
Does anyone have a link to a magic spell book for this configuration?
TIA TNP
Situation: I have one ethernet port in a room near the TV and would
like to make the smart TV not a TV so to speak, and instead drive it
from a Pi 5 as a HDMI screen and use the Pi for any or all smart >capabilities.
But I also need wifi access to the network in that room as well, and
the pi 5 comes with wifi,
But I have never seen it configured as a *bridge* to the network and
DHCP server via the Ethernet.
Does anyone have a link to a magic spell book for this configuration?
On 11/01/2026 12:58, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Situation: I have one ethernet port in a room near the TV and would
like to make the˙ smart TV not a TV so to speak, and instead drive it
from a Pi 5 as a HDMI screen and use the Pi for any or all smart
capabilities.
But I also need wifi access to the network in that room as well, and
the pi 5 comes with wifi,
But I have never seen it configured as a *bridge* to the network and
DHCP server via the Ethernet.
Does anyone have a link to a magic spell book for this configuration?
TIA
TNP
Start with a recipe for a wireless access point?
that will have a built-in bridge that the wireless clients will appear
on, DHCP etc, and will connect to the pi's physical NIC
Then you'll need to add a virtual NIC to this, for your TV software and connect that also to the bridge, via some local firewall rules.
https://linuxconfig.org/configuring-virtual-network-interfaces-in-linux
Or perhaps switch-like something hanging both the bridge i/o and a
virtual NIC on the original physical NIC, using VLAN IDs to segregate traffic to each?
(theoretically handwaving here, I've done the above in the OS of a
carboot sale cheepie 50p speedtouch router, not linux)
On 11/01/2026 14:13, Adrian wrote:
I started looking at doing something similar to this a couple of years
ago (using the Pi as a WiFi access point in a location beyond the
range of my router's WiFi).˙ I didn't complete the task for various
reasons, but one thing that was clear, was that if I were to do it
again, I would do the initial configuration of the Pi locally
(keyboard etc. plugged in) rather than across the network (ssh
session) as at each step of the way, it seemed that the Pi was
inaccessible for something like 20-30 minutes whilst it sorted out
what to do with each configuration change (of which there were several
needed).
Many thanks for good advice. I have a 4B available to test all this on
with a scream and keybored, and I have been through all this myself with headless servers and IP changes. :-)
Situation: I have one ethernet port in a room near the TV and would like
to make the˙ smart TV not a TV so to speak, and instead drive it from a
Pi 5 as a HDMI screen and use the Pi for any or all smart capabilities.
But I also need wifi access to the network in that room as well, and the
pi 5 comes with wifi,
But I have never seen it configured as a *bridge* to the network and
DHCP server via the Ethernet.
Does anyone have a link to a magic spell book for this configuration?
TIA
TNP
I started looking at doing something similar to this a couple of years
ago (using the Pi as a WiFi access point in a location beyond the range
of my router's WiFi).˙ I didn't complete the task for various reasons,
but one thing that was clear, was that if I were to do it again, I would
do the initial configuration of the Pi locally (keyboard etc. plugged
in) rather than across the network (ssh session) as at each step of the
way, it seemed that the Pi was inaccessible for something like 20-30
minutes whilst it sorted out what to do with each configuration change
(of which there were several needed).
On Sun, 11 Jan 2026 12:58:30 +0000, The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
Situation: I have one ethernet port in a room near the TV and would like
to make the smart TV not a TV so to speak, and instead drive it from a
Pi 5 as a HDMI screen and use the Pi for any or all smart capabilities.
But I also need wifi access to the network in that room as well, and the
pi 5 comes with wifi,
But I have never seen it configured as a *bridge* to the network and
DHCP server via the Ethernet.
Does anyone have a link to a magic spell book for this configuration?
TIA TNP
How about one of these?
<https://insberr.github.io/pi-internet-bridge/>
<https://pimylifeup.com/raspberry-pi-wifi-bridge/> - may be back-arse-
wards but may still work
<https://www.willhaley.com/blog/raspberry-pi-wifi-ethernet-bridge/>
No I've not actually tried them, I've been fitting ZigBee without 'smart- life' /tuya cloud & bulbs that won't pair.
Have fun
Avpx
On 11/01/2026 14:40, David Higton wrote:
I installed OpenWRT on an RPi4 a few weeks ago,I dont want to go that far and replace existing DHCP allocation etc.
and it was very successful as an AP, although the need for it didn't last
long (my son installed a new mesh network, which gave whole house
coverage). Note that the RPi4 only does one wifi band; I don't know the
RPi5.
In message <10k0tjd$4hee$5@dont-email.me>
The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
On 11/01/2026 14:40, David Higton wrote:
I installed OpenWRT on an RPi4 a few weeks ago,I dont want to go that far and replace existing DHCP allocation etc.
and it was very successful as an AP, although the need for it didn't last >>> long (my son installed a new mesh network, which gave whole house
coverage). Note that the RPi4 only does one wifi band; I don't know the >>> RPi5.
You would set it up as an access point, not as a router. It would not
need to have DHCP running. DCHP traffic would go to and from your
existing router; the RasPi AP would just pass it through in both
directions.
David
On 11/01/2026 14:40, David Higton wrote:
Note that the RPi4 only does one wifi band; I don't know the RPi5.
The Raspberry Pi 3B+, 4 and 5 have both 2.4GHz and 5GHz Wifi bands, the
Zero W, Zero 2W and older Pi's only have 2.4GHz
In message <10k2bri$272ps$1@druck.eternal-september.org>
druck <news@druck.org.uk> wrote:
On 11/01/2026 14:40, David Higton wrote:
Note that the RPi4 only does one wifi band; I don't know the RPi5.
The Raspberry Pi 3B+, 4 and 5 have both 2.4GHz and 5GHz Wifi bands, the
Zero W, Zero 2W and older Pi's only have 2.4GHz
Sorry, I should have been clearer. It only does one band at once.
There is only one radio.
David
On 11/01/2026 12:58, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
But I have never seen it configured as a *bridge* to the network and
DHCP server via the Ethernet.
I may be wrong and sometimes am but I thought all you needed to add was
edit /etc/sysctl.conf and ensure it contains "net.ipv4.ip_forward = 1",
save and reboot. Mine came with the line in there but commented out.
You need to allocate IP for ethernet and the TV manually and maybe play
with routing.
I have it running on a PI somewhere, I'll dig it out.
But I have never seen it configured as a *bridge* to the network and
DHCP server via the Ethernet.
On 12/01/2026 20:16, David Higton wrote:
In message <10k2bri$272ps$1@druck.eternal-september.org>
˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙ druck <news@druck.org.uk> wrote:
On 11/01/2026 14:40, David Higton wrote:
Note that the RPi4 only does one wifi band; I don't know the RPi5.
The Raspberry Pi 3B+, 4 and 5 have both 2.4GHz and 5GHz Wifi bands, the
Zero W, Zero 2W and older Pi's only have 2.4GHz
Sorry, I should have been clearer.˙ It only does one band at once.
There is only one radio.
You can always add another USB WiFi dongle if you want to act as an
access point on both bands simultaneously.
---druck
I may be wrong and sometimes am but I thought all you needed to add
was edit /etc/sysctl.conf and ensure it contains
"net.ipv4.ip_forward = 1", save and reboot.
I may be wrong and sometimes am but I thought all you needed to add was
edit /etc/sysctl.conf and ensure it contains "net.ipv4.ip_forward = 1",
save and reboot. Mine came with the line in there but commented out.
Sorry, I should have been clearer. It only does one band at once.
There is only one radio.
David
Does that preclude 2 band operation?
On 2026-01-13, mm0fmf <none@invalid.com> wrote:
I may be wrong and sometimes am but I thought all you needed to add was
edit /etc/sysctl.conf and ensure it contains "net.ipv4.ip_forward = 1",
save and reboot. Mine came with the line in there but commented out.
That is for IP routing, using seperate IP networks on the ethernet and wifi side. You can do that, but it may make the setup more complicated and cause problems with prototols that rely on broadcast/multicast packets, as these are not routed. Also, if your WIFI clients require internet access, you need to setup routes on your internet router so it can forward packages back to the WIFI gateway. You need to decide if routing or bridging best suits your needs.
"normal" WIFI access points usually operate in bridging mode.
For bridging, you need to set up a bridge device, with both the ethernet and wifi devices slaved to the bridge. In that scenario, the slave devices do
not get IP addresses assigned - the bridge device is the one with the IP address.
Looking at a running example (on custom hardware, not a raspberry),
with a single of the 3 wifi modules active, it looks like this (eth1 is the ethernet interface, phy0-ap0 is wifi):
root@lx6500-dev:~# brctl show
bridge name bridge id STP enabled interfaces
br-lan 7fff.00a057802bee no eth1
phy0-ap0
root@lx6500-dev:~# ip l
4: eth1: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc mq master br-lan state UP mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000
link/ether 00:a0:57:80:2b:ee brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
5: br-lan: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc noqueue state UP mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000
link/ether 00:a0:57:80:2b:ee brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
6: phy0-ap0: <NO-CARRIER,BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP> mtu 1500 qdisc noqueue master br-lan state DOWN mode DEFAULT group def0
link/ether 04:f0:21:bf:45:cc brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
root@lx6500-dev:~# ip a
4: eth1: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc mq master br-lan state UP group default qlen 1000
link/ether 00:a0:57:80:2b:ee brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
5: br-lan: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc noqueue state UP group default qlen 1000
link/ether 00:a0:57:80:2b:ee brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
inet 192.168.1.1/24 brd 192.168.1.255 scope global br-lan
valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
inet6 fe80::2a0:57ff:fe80:2bee/64 scope link proto kernel_ll
valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
6: phy0-ap0: <NO-CARRIER,BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP> mtu 1500 qdisc noqueue master br-lan state DOWN group default qlen 1000
link/ether 04:f0:21:bf:45:cc brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
Using that configuration, WIFI clients get addresses from the existing DHCP server on the LAN, and are in the same IP network as the LAN devices.
cu
Michael
4: nm-bridge: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 9000 qdisc noqueue
state UP mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000
link/ether d8:3a:dd:85:22:b1 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> writes:
4: nm-bridge: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 9000 qdisc noqueue
state UP mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000
link/ether d8:3a:dd:85:22:b1 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
Hmm, mtu 9000 on the bridge? That means jumbo frames and your
performance issue might be because something chokes on them. Your router
or whatever is in the other end. So try setting it to 1500 in your
chosen config tool.
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