best way to link highsites?

RouterOS Wireless Networking
1

hi guys
at the moment i hav 1 highsight with 1 mini pci card im WDS ap-bridge conectd 2 my house which is also in WDS ap-bridge. the highsight has a pppoe server and dials out 2 adsl which is at my house.
im sure there are better ways 2 link highsites so what have u guys done? i thought about bridges bt i was worried about only1 mac address passing at a time,or hav i missd something? so whats the best method?
thanks

2

Is there a reason for using WDS other than saving on hardware?

I strongly suggest using dedicated backbone links and routing your network properly.If I’m missing your point, please explain your network in a bit more detail.

G

3

well originally i used 2 linksys and had 2 use wds so when i switched over to mikrotik i assumed 2 use same setup.
so u saying that i get an additional wireless card to use purely 2 link to my house?

4

Yes, it is by far better to use dedicated links.

For example:
BACKBONE to HIGHSITE: use 2x 5.8 grids pointing to each other
YOUR HOUSE to HIGHSITE: use a sector on the HS and a grid at your house
HIGHSITE to CLIENTS: use grids at clients and sector on HS

The routing is really not difficult once you know how to do it. There’s many people here willing to help you, but you could also post here if you get stuck!

5

thanks 4 that..im sure i cn handle the routing bt if nt you’ll here from me soon:) thanks

6

More than willing to help :slight_smile:

7

Hi Giepie

I have my first question :slight_smile:, I do not want to use WDS any more as my throughput is really slow

What modes would I use for the backbone router? Station or WDS Slave or bridge?
and the highsite router? AP-Bridge?

Thanks

8

Hi headstrong

I have a general “rule of thumb” way of setting up all highsites/relay sites.

Say we have the setup where we have one server room, one highsite, a smaller relay site and a client connected via PPPoE.

SERVER ROOM/MAIN SITE:
BANDWIDTH ROUTER(ADSL or whatever):
IP Address: 192.168.100.254/24
CORE ROUTER (Router connected between ADSL and ROOF MT):
ether1 IP (Ether connected to ADSL router): 192.168.100.1/24
ether2 IP (Ether connected to ROOF MT): 192.168.101.254/24
NAT Rules: src-nat action=masquerade (You could nat the entire 0.0.0.0/0 range OR individual ranges depending on how many other ranges on your network should be able to access the internet)
Default Gateway: Destination: 0.0.0.0/0 Gateway: 192.168.100.254
SERVER ROOM ROOF MT:
ether1 IP (Ether connected to CORE router): 192.168.101.1/24
NO MASQUERADING RULES
Default Gateway: Dst:0.0.0.0/0 Gateway: 192.168.101.254
wlan1 mode: AP Bridge (or you could use bridge on both ends. I prefer ap bridge)
wlan1 IP: 192.168.110.254/24
Wireless security: You could use WEP, WPA, MAC Filtering, I prefer MAC filtering for backbone links

HIGHSITE 1: (wlan1=uplink to server room, wlan2=distribution antenna1), wlan3=link to relay site
wlan1 IP: 192.168.110.1/24
wlan1 mode: station OR bridge (depending on other site)
security: depending on other site
Default Gateway: dst=0.0.0.0/0 GW:192.168.110.254
wlan2 IP: NONE
wlan2 mode: AP Bridge
wlan2 Security: MAC filtering
wlan2 connection method: PPPoE Server
PPPoE Server wlan2 details:
pppoe1 pool: 10.10.1.1-10.10.1.250
pppoe1 profile local address: 10.10.1.254/24
pppoe1 profile remote address: pppoe1 ip pool
wlan3 IP: 192.168.111.254/24
wlan3 MODE: ap bridge / bridge
wlan3 security: MAC filtering

RELAY SITE:
wlan1 (uplink to main highsite) IP: 192.168.111.1/24
wlan1 security: MAC
wlan1 MODE: station/bridge
wlan2 (distribution to clients) IP: NONE
wlan2 security: MAC filtering
wlan2 MODE: AP bridge
pppoe IP Pool: 10.10.2.10-10.10.2.250
pppoe profile local IP: 10.10.2.254/24
pppoe profile remote IP: pppoe1 ip pool
Default gateway: dest=0.0.0.0/0 gw=192.168.111.254

TYPICAL PPPoE CLIENT:
wlan1 MODE: station
wlan1 IP: NONE
ether1 IP: 192.168.0.254/24
DHCP Server: Pool: 192.168.0.10-192.168.0.250
PPPoE Client: Interface=wlan1
NAT Rule: src-nat action=masq


I hope you get the basic idea. I didn’t get into details, but this setup you could make much more advanced for instance using your CORE router as a DNS server where all clients’ MT’s use your CORE router as DNS server, and each client’s MT is used as the client’s local DNS server. This does save a little internet traffic, but makes regular visited sites’s DNS lookups a bit faster. You could also setup WEB Proxy, personally I don’t like them though. Then you could setup USERMANAGER to authenticate your clients from a central point etc. I suggest you first get your basic setup right before installing usermanager etc.

My rule of thumb is to allways make the site where something is connected to’s IP address something which ends in .254 eg x.x.x.254/24. Also, the interface with the x.x.x.254/24 address is always in AP-Bridge mode.

Hope this helps!

Good luck! G

9

Hi Giepie

Thanks for that reply…much appreciated

I am abit confused with regards to using bridge mode instead of station…I was under the impression that only 1 mac address can pass through the bridge and pppoe connections are authenticated with the client’s mac address…So how does it work for your setup?

10

If you wish to make a point to point link for your backbone links, you should use bridge to bridge. For clients you should use ap-bridge on the highsite and station at the clients.

bridge->bridge = point to point
ap-bridge->station = point to multipoint

Hope this helps

11

Hi

Great i’ve got it now

thanks