Hi all,

This may be a really beginner question but how does one set up pools?

I have Groove A-52hpn and have successfully set up the Access Point with WPA Enterprise using Freeradius. Works ok, no problems.

Now would like to set up different pools for users using Framed-pool - attribute.

Though how does this work in practice? e.g. I have two pools created - pool1 and pool2. Pool1 has IP address range as following:

/ip pool add name=POOL1 ranges=10.0.0.10-10.0.0.110
/ip dhcp-server add interface=wlan1 address-pool=POOL1
/ip dhcp-server network add address=10.0.0.0/24 gateway=10.0.0.1 dns-server=8.8.8.8 comment="POOL1"
/ip firewall nat add chain=srcnat action=masquerade src-address=10.0.0.0/24 out-interface=ether1
/ip dhcp-server enable 0

WLAN1 has IP Address 10.0.0.1. So all good so far, all works ok until now, IP Address for the client is 10.0.0.110 and browsing works.

Now if I'd like to create Pool2 how do I do it? Should I just create pool accordingly e.g.:
/ip pool add name=POOL2 ranges=10.0.0.111-10.0.0.254

Though what next - I do not need another DHCP server in for the Pool2 right? Is this enough and IP Address should be allocated from IP Range of Pool2 (10.0.0.111-10.0.0.254) if I use attribute Framed-pool (value := "Pool2")?

Does not work obviously. Tried also Framed-IP-Address attribute with a IP address from Pool1 and Pool2 ranges but without success. On both cases IP address allocated is still same as initially (10.0.0.110).

What have I not understood?

A single subnet should only have 1 DHCP server.

If you want more IPs to be given out, change your POOL1 to give out 10.0.0.10=10.0.0.254. That's the common setup.

Or you can have POOL2 and then edit POOL1 and set Next Pool to POOL2. Then when all IPs are used up in POOL1, it'll start drawing from POOL2. This method is used when there is a gap of IPs you wish not to assign dynamically to devices.

Mikrotik remembers which mac addresses received what IP address. So when you clear your IP config from a device, and the device requests a new IP, the Mikrotik will give that client the same IP again. In IP > DHCP > Leases you can remove active leases, then re-request an IP from a device and it'll get a new IP.

If you edit your DHCP server, you can set the Lease Time. If you're offering a wifi network to guests, you should set your lease time to 15 minutes rather than several days.