Best Practice -> Wireless Bridge and AP

RouterOS Beginner Basics
1

Dear all,

I am quite sure that this use-case was already discussed many times before, but unfortunately I wasn’t able to find a best practice solution for my use case.
I want to use my two mikrotik routers (HAP AC lite =AP_02 and HAP AC =AP_01) as wireless bridge on the 5GHz Channel and they should as act as normal AP on the 2,4Ghz Channel.
Both routers has two Atheros wifi cards with 5 and 2,4 GHz.
Below you’ll find a schematic of the network layout.

The configuration is already working, but i am not sure that this is the suitable solution for my use case.
Requierment:

  1. We have tablets (different OS) and smart phones (different OS) therefore a smooth roaming between AP_01 and AP_02 is important
  2. wifi range should be maximized
  3. Fileserver and DHCP-Server in the same physical network as AP_01, DHCP should distribute addresses also for devices connected to AP_02

Mikrotik OS enables many possible solutions (Wireless mode: ap station, station-pseudobridge, station WDS; WDS Mode: disabled, dynamic, static, …; Nstreme?), but which setup will be the best for my purpose.

Thanks in advance!

BR
Michael
network_layout.png

2

I do not know if this is the best, but it is reliable and simple wireless connection with Mikrotik on both ends:

On your Mikrotik AP_01:

/interface wireless
set mode=ap-bridge ssid=YOUR-SSID wds-default-bridge=bridge-local wds-mode=static-mesh
/interface wireless wds
add disabled=no master-interface=wlan1 wds-address=xx.xx.xx.xx.xx.xx (MAC of AP_02)

On your remote Mikrotik AP_02 adjust setup (especially disable DHCP, NAT, edit firewall and put all interfaces to bridge, set DHCP client on bridge) and add your security profile and change wifi mode:

/interface wireless
set frequency=auto mode=station-wds ssid=YOUR-SSID