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AP's with same SSID: How do I keep them from connecting?

Thu Dec 11, 2014 11:45 pm

The setup I need is for a bunch of AP's to have the same SSID, but NOT connect to each other. Even when I add each other's MAC address into the Access list and disable authenticate and forward, they are still connecting to each other.

I also tried to add a firewall rule to drop connections coming from the other radio's MAC, but that doesn't work either.

They connect to each other even on different frequencies.


I'm out of ideas.....
 
uldis
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Re: AP's with same SSID: How do I keep them from connecting?

Fri Dec 12, 2014 9:05 am

how exactly they are connecting to each other?
do they connect using WDS or something else?
 
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Re: AP's with same SSID: How do I keep them from connecting?

Fri Dec 12, 2014 3:26 pm

A wireless client will always connect to an SSID when the name (and keyphrase) are the same. There is no way to disable this behavior, but I can't think of a situation where you would want this anyway.

This way you can have multiple AP's with the same setting, connected to the same LAN in the back-end. This way a client can roam between access-points while walking over campus or in your building for instance and automatically reconnect to the strongest AP close to it and have little to no interruption to it's wireless signal and service.

(This is not interrupt-less wireless roaming some speak of, but often you only miss 1 ping or so and most applications won't even notice)

The key here is that the LAN in the back-end also needs to be the same. That way the client can keep it's IP (which it should get from a central DHCP server, not every AP desperately) and continue working.

Maybe explain better what you are trying to build and we can advise on how to configure that. :)
 
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Re: AP's with same SSID: How do I keep them from connecting?

Fri Dec 12, 2014 5:10 pm

A wireless client will always connect to an SSID when the name (and keyphrase) are the same. There is no way to disable this behavior, but I can't think of a situation where you would want this anyway.

This way you can have multiple AP's with the same setting, connected to the same LAN in the back-end. This way a client can roam between access-points while walking over campus or in your building for instance and automatically reconnect to the strongest AP close to it and have little to no interruption to it's wireless signal and service.

(This is not interrupt-less wireless roaming some speak of, but often you only miss 1 ping or so and most applications won't even notice)

The key here is that the LAN in the back-end also needs to be the same. That way the client can keep it's IP (which it should get from a central DHCP server, not every AP desperately) and continue working.

Maybe explain better what you are trying to build and we can advise on how to configure that. :)
Outdoor wireless network, large scale, miles between radios.

Each site has a wireless radio connected to another site (via AP and station mode), and we also have an AP radio at each site to use for people with laptops to connect to. The radio network is for data stream, and the AP's we want to use to connect to each site without having to plug in.

Since we already have sites connecting to each other with this network (all wireless), if the AP's connect to each other, it creates a loop and causes problems on our system.
 
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Re: AP's with same SSID: How do I keep them from connecting?

Tue Jan 06, 2015 5:04 pm

So no way to do this other than different frequencies?
 
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Re: AP's with same SSID: How do I keep them from connecting?

Tue Jan 06, 2015 5:19 pm

I would try to use connect list for that. You can distinguish the APs by bssid.
 
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Re: AP's with same SSID: How do I keep them from connecting?

Tue Jan 06, 2015 5:41 pm

Set ap mode for the interface to ap-bridge (instead of wds-slave which you probably have).
In ap-bridge mode, APs do NOT connect to each other.
 
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Re: AP's with same SSID: How do I keep them from connecting?

Tue Jan 06, 2015 5:53 pm

I would try to use connect list for that. You can distinguish the APs by bssid.
Agreed but you also could find that even through you have set min signal connection levels for each
AP SSID , the CPE could associate to the first AP on the connect list it picks up on a frequency scan and this may not be the
AP with the strongest signal but is within connection signal levels set.
 
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Re: AP's with same SSID: How do I keep them from connecting?

Wed Jan 07, 2015 1:28 am

... and put there only the ap you want to connect to in combination with default authentication off on wireless tab. Then it will not connect to any other ap.

It's in the manual...

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