Normally we set up our access points to have an address on the backbone network (for remote access), and then set up the router board with its own address pool of 32 or 64 addresses. We mark the packets in the firewall and use the queues to track usage as well as automatically turn down speeds if users excessively exceed their usage for the month. In order to save on equipment and set up, I thought I could expand this latest access point by one hop, and roll dhcp over to the original AP. we will call them AP and Repeater.
Originally I gave the repeater an external address - just like we do for normal AP’s - I could ping out to the closest routers, but not externally, and I could not ping the repeater from anywhere but the first hop (AP). I dropped this, and gave it an address from the 64 pool of the AP, and then could remote in. I checked a subscriber, and they did get an external IP from the AP dhcp. The traffic gets lost at the AP, though, and the subscriber cannot surf. I tried bridging the connections on the repeater side, and same results.
We also have a vpn set up with a 192.168.1.1 pool - where we can remote control the subscribers - I could not access the subscriber on the repeater this way.
The subscriber does show up in the DHCP server list of the AP (part of the 64 address pool) - so I believe they can be tracked via usage through the queue.
I am a novice, but had a contractor look at this, and after several hours, and trying to bridge/ use wds (which I was hoping to avoid) - we still had issues with passing traffic on the repeater side (the ap works).
using RB433AH’s and the latest firmware (5.20 I believe)
AP has a 5ghz backbone antenna/radio → 2.4 antenna radio ap - the repeater has a 2.4 receive fro signal, and 2.4 send. 2.4 ap to repeater is channel 10, the repeater is set to channel 3 for subscribers. Signal levels are all excellent (20-30+ db).
Any suggestions? questions?
Thanks!