Wireless X-Box 360

My only console - X-Box 360 - is a bit aged by any standard. I don't find that too bothersome except in one aspect - network connection. Being aged means it has only wired ethernet. Considering I "bought it" for actual cost of $0, paying $50 for wireless adapter would be a bit of a premium.

Fortunately, I had Mikrotik mAP Lite lying around. It's a small device with 2.4 GHz and a single 100 Mbps RJ-45 Ethernet connector. While not obviously designed to be a wireless client, its powerful software does allow for this.

The very first step is not only resetting Mikrotik mAP lite configuration but actually deleting it fully. Either using System, Reset Configuration, and selecting No Default Configuration or going via terminal is equally good:

/system
reset-configuration no-defaults=yes

Starting with the blank slate would be problematic for many devices, but not Mikrotik as one can always use WinBox and its neighbor search option to connect using MAC address.

On the empty device, the first step is creating the security profile and connecting to the wireless via the bridge. In my case I used WPA2 and with n-only wireless. While default of b/g/n (2.4ghz-b/g/n) does offer a bit more flexibility when it comes to compatibility with other devices, using n-only does help with network's speed (e.g. beacons are always transmitted at the slowest speed standard allows). Of course, you will also need to know the wireless SSID.

In the Mikrotik's language these steps can be expressed with the following commands:

/interface wireless security-profiles
add name=security-profile authentication-types=wpa2-psk mode=dynamic-keys \
    wpa2-pre-shared-key=KEY

/interface wireless
set [ find default-name=wlan1 ] disabled=no band=2ghz-onlyn frequency=auto \
    mode=station-pseudobridge security-profile=security-profile ssid=SSID

The only thing remaining is creating the bridge and putting all devices into it.

/interface bridge
add name=local-bridge

/interface bridge port
add bridge=local-bridge interface=wlan1
add bridge=local-bridge interface=ether1

Connecting Mikrotik's mAP to X-Box via RJ45 and USB cable (for power) will now dutifully transfer all the packets via the wireless interface.