CAPS / CAPsMAN over Powerline

RouterOS General
1

I purchased three powerline AP’s to play with and I am running into a problem. I can get the devices to connect over the power lines, but I cannot get them to be managed by CAPsMAN unless they are connected via ethernet to the main router. I should say that I have to connect them at least once, and they register and show up as remote caps. BUT as soon as I move them to the room where they need to live only the ethernet port works, they never register with caps.

I tried to do a config reset, which works to default the config, leaving the connection over the power line intact. But when you use quickset to select CAP it shows wireless controlled by CAPsMAN, but it never registers and does not work.

Is this expected? Do I have something wrong in the config? There doesn’t seem to be a great deal of info on what is supposed to work and what does not work.

Thanks!

2

Hello Preytell

I have Pwr-line units and was planning to make a video on capsman with them after the one where i was simply testing bandwidth between them. I took it as granted that Capsman should work. Your question makes me wonder.

I will test it today surely and let you know my outcome.

3

Hi Preytell

I tried CAPsMAN with 2 PWR-Line and a hEX as controller. It works fine. You can use the default config of the PWR-Line and just enable capsman on bridge interface of the PWR-Line.
I tried moving the PWR-Line in different rooms (same phase) and it connects fine to the CAPsMAN.

Config CAPsMAN on hEX down under

/caps-man configuration
add datapath=datapath1 name=cfg1 ssid=CAPSm
/caps-man datapath
add bridge=bridgeCAPS name=datapath1
/caps-man interface
add configuration=cfg1 disabled=yes l2mtu=1600 mac-address=B8:69:F4:E5:6B:5B \
    master-interface=none name=PWR-AP-01-1 radio-mac=B8:69:F4:E5:6B:5B \
    radio-name=B869F4E56B5B
add configuration=cfg1 disabled=no l2mtu=1600 mac-address=B8:69:F4:E5:6B:37 \
    master-interface=none name=PWR-AP-02-1 radio-mac=B8:69:F4:E5:6B:37 \
    radio-name=B869F4E56B37
/caps-man manager
set enabled=yes
/caps-man provisioning
add action=create-enabled master-configuration=cfg1 name-format=identity

This is layer 2 communication. I haven’t tried with IP but it should work.
capsman on hex.jpg

4

I wonder if that’s my problem. I have the manager setup to push a config to any caps devices that hits it. And that worked fine while the powerlines were connected to an ethernet port on the hap ac. I will check when I get home. Like I said ethernet works great, I move the device to another room, connect a tv, or computer, and it gets an IP address and works fine. But Wifi and caps just doesn’t connect.

I will let you know what I find.

Thanks!

Jerry

5

So changing the discovery interface from ethernet to bridge fixes the caps problem. Now I just have a bandwidth issue, some folks are getting ~1Mb max, others ~60Mb. I didn’t put much effort into troubleshooting it. But out of the box the powerline devices fail to join caps if you leave the default discovery interface.

Thanks for the help, so far I really like the devices, I have several out buildings on my property that are connected via power so these are perfect.

Jerry

6

Can one PWR-LINE AP also be used as Capsman controler to control other PWR-LINE AP?