Add wireless AP on one side of existing wireless bridge

RouterOS Beginner Basics
1

Hello forum,

I have two RB532 (RB_1 and RB_2), running for several years now with a wireless bridge, extending my cable network to another location. Works like a charm.
Looks like this:

RB_1					RB_2	
ether1: 192.168.1.1/24			ehter1: 192.168.1.2/24
wlan1					wlan1
bridge1 	<----WL bridge----> 	bridge1

RB_1 is running a DHCP server that serves IPs from that range to my cable clients behind a switch connected to RB_2
Now the need for an accesspoint to the ether1 net has risen on the side of RB_2.
I added another R52 mini PCI card, set the interface (wlan2) mode to “ap bridge” and added a security profile.
Guess I need to set a routing between the wlan2 interface and the bridge or something like that?

Can someone give me a hint on what to do, so that clients on the wlan2 AP get IPs via the bridge1 from RB_1?

Thanks alot!

2

Tried to use my brain and came up with this:
→ add a second bridge2 with ports to ether1 and wlan2

Is this correct, can I add a second bridge to ether1? I do not dare to experiment with the remote setup :smiley:

edit: I cannot add a second bridge to ether1. So there must be another solution… hmmm.

3

Are currently both ether1 and wlan1 members of same (only) bridge?

Best would be to post output of /export hide-sensitive from RB_2 so we can see what exactly is currently confiugred (and works).

4

Yes ether1 and wlan1 are in bridge1.

Will pull the config as soon as I am back!

5

I attached the config for RB_2 to this post.
RB_2.txt (17.1 KB)

6

First thing that struck me: your device is runing ancient version of ROS (5.21). You should probably upgrade to 6.48 but that won’t be a smooth ride due to large version difference.

Since all interfaces (ether1, ether2, ether3, wlan1) are members of bridge1, you should set IP address to interface bridge1 (instead of ether1).

Then you should add wlan2 interface to bridge1 ports … this will ultimately allow clients of wlan2 radio to join the network … after you enable wlan2 radio that is.

7

Upgraded to the last MIPSLE version, 6.32.4, which worked well.

I modified the config so ether2/ether3 are disabled and removed from the bridge, as the are not connected/needed.
Then I set the IP adress to bridge1 as mentioned.
Then I activated wlan2 and tried to add it to the bridge1 ports, but wlan2 is printed italic in the dialog, see attached screens.
pic1.jpg
I tried adding despite being italic, and it shows as disabled and cannot be enabled:
pic2.jpg

8

WLAN2 will enable as soon as a client connects to it.
No clients connected → WLAN interface is disabled.

9

Ahaaa, thanks! WIll try it as soon as I am at the remote location to see what happens :slight_smile:

10

Or you can set disable-running-check=yes on wlan2 interface …