Bridging 101 - failed again.

RouterOS Beginner Basics
1

Bridging always gets me like one of those M. C. Escher prints- seems obvious until you look at it closely.

Here’s a straightforward situation:

C----------------Wan1[R]Wan2----------------G

Customer C is connected wirelessly to AP on Wan1 and is routed by R out of Wan2 wirelessly to AP at Gateway G.

Bridging Wan1 and Wan2, then putting C, bridge R and G on the same network with a default gateway at G, would seem obvious but I cannot make it work.

The Mikrotik manual in its usual opaque and unhelpful way states that you can’t bridge over 802.11, but not why. Here the bridge is internal to the router and in fact I can’t see what else a bridge could be,.

So will the above situation with a bridge at R never work or am I just overlooking some obvious step to make it work such as invoking a proxy ARP on the first interface on the left on the first full moon of every month with an ‘r’ in it?

2

You can’t bridge station and ap due to 802.11 limitations. Set up WDS for such purposes.

3

Thanks.

WLAN1 is an AP. WLAN2 could as R<>G is a point-to-point backhaul.

So I can bridge two wireless interfaces in AP mode?

Ok, for clarification: if I set the bridge up with an IP address do I need to specify a default gateway? If so how? (ie, I suppose I’m asking if ARP still works at WLAN interface level or bridge level.)

4

Yes, APs can be bridged.
You need default gateway on a router only if it is used for L3 forwarding.

5

Thank you.

When I get to grips with WDS and discover what L3 is I’m sure I’ll be a long way towards mastering bridging.