CAPsMAN and VLAN between ax3, ax2 and ac2

RouterOS Wireless Networking
1

Hi,

i don’t know where to hit my head. i’ve tried everything, followed tutorials, nothing,

my CAPsMAN is i ax3 I followed what is described here:

https://help.mikrotik.com/docs/display/ROS/WiFi#WiFi-CAPsMAN-CAPVLANconfigurationexample:

The first CAP is i ax2 and it works correctly as described in the previous link, so far no problem.

The problems I have are as follows:

  • if I configure CAMsMAN also as a CAP, it does not work. Yes the communication between CAP and CAMsMAN seems to be active, I have referenced the local host address and enabled the necessary policies. But it just doesn’t create any interface.

  • the second problem is that ac2 does not support VLANs on the wlan1 and wlan2 interfaces. The only way I have found to make VLANs work locally is to create manually bridge ports, a configuration that cannot work in CAPsMAN with dynamic interfaces, however.
    Like:

/interface bridge port
add bridge=bridge interface=IOT-wifi1 pvid=9
add bridge=bridge interface=IOT-wifi2 pvid=9

If instead I do as in ax3, so I create the datapaths:

/interface wifi datapath
add bridge=bridge disabled=yes name=IOT vlan-id=9

If instead I do as in ax3, so I create the datapaths, I get the following error:

“vlan-id configured but interface does not support assigning vlans”

I’m very confused because the result on different platforms is different, it really smells like BUG to me.

Questions:

  • is there anyone who already makes ac2 work as a CAP by making use of VLANs on wlan interfaces?
  • is there anyone who has already made an ax3 work as a CAP of itself?

I am using 7.15.3 version everywhere, and I managed with great vicissitudes to install “wifi-qcom-ac” module even on ac2, mamma mia what a pain.

I really hope someone can help me, if not I really feel like leaving mikrotik with a platform that really centrally manages WIFI.

Regards
Stefano

2

https://help.mikrotik.com/docs/display/ROS/WiFi#WiFi-Lostfeatures

wifi-qcom-ac does not support vlan assignment from Capsman. This must be done locally on the CAP manually.

Reading ROS documentation would be a good start.

3

Additionally, CAPsMAN can not control local interface..

  • you shouldn’t pass VLAN in datapath to AC devices, that means, you have to have two provisioning rules or set the VLAN everywhere manually.

…basically, all your observations are correct :slight_smile:

4

Thank you for your answers:

Bottom line:

  • I replaced ac2 with an ax2 refurbish
  • i moved CAPsMAN to a non-WIFI switch

Everything works, but I find these ROS limitations stupid.

regards
Stefano

5

You already solved this, but for completeness sake …

While technically local wifi interfaces can not be provisioned by CAPsMAN, the integration is possible never the less:

  1. both local provisioning and CAPsMAN can share same configuration profiles (channel, datapath, security) so any change in those profiles will equally propagate to both locally provisioned interfaces and CAPs. One jzst has to avoid overrides with direct interface configuration.
  2. mobility features (ft, etc.) will work fine between local interfaces and CAPs since they are controlled by same wifi entity (the one running on CAPsMAN device)

The end effect is that local interfaces will behave as if they were provisioned by CAPsMAN.

6

Hi!

Does that mean that I cannot even assign VLAN ID to certain MAC address via WiFi/Access List ?

7

On a cap running wifi-qcom-ac, that is correct (at least according to my experience over the past couple days). The ax caps assign it just fine.

Still trying to figure out the least redundant way to integrate my one remaining AC cap into my setup because of this.