I’ve just acquired two RB951-2ns and am starting to get my hands dirty with RouterOS. The first one was set up to replace a Linksys AP. This works well enough – I would not recommend it to an ordinary consumer, since there’s no consumer-type documentation, but I understand networking well enough myself. And it would be great for an ISP to install. It just took a little hunting around to find the right settings and then it worked. While my old Linksys was only set for WEP-40 bit (needed for backwards compatibility with some devices), the virtual-AP feature let me create a WPA2 SSID as well, so I can migrate things over one at a time. That is a great feature! Just amazing what this does for the price. The cable modem goes to Ethernet 1 and it does NAT and serves DHCP to a 192.168/24 subnet.
However, I bought two of them, and the second one is driving me nuts. I want to use this as a client side bridge, to replace an ancient D-Link 802.11b/WEP bridge that feeds the Ethernet port on a desktop machine. (I can then recycle the D-Link to feed an XBox, for which security is less of an issue.) This is a fairly unusual type of product, not even something sold in most stores, and the ones you can easily buy cost a lot more than the 951. Of course it’s functionally pretty close to what a CPE does.
There don’t seem to be any obvious instructions for how to configure this. What I’m looking to do is:
Connect to the SSID of the AP (router) using WPA2
Have DHCP pass through the 951 - bridge and get the IP address assigned by the 951 AP.
Operate transparently above the Ethernet layer, not as a router.
Have a static management IP address in the wireless network’s 192.168 subnet (not .88.1), outside of the DHCP range.
Allow me to remotely (on the WLAN, not Internet) or locally look at the connection quality.
BTW I thought that maybe the “CPE” setting would help, but the web interface doesn’t let me change it, and I am now guessing that it is only for ROS Level 3 devices; this is Level 4.
Pointers or quick instructions would be much appreciated. Thanks.
Configure the wireless in station-bridge mode, configure a security profile to match your WPA2 settings.
Set the SSID and the security profile on the wireless Interface Wireless tab.
Add a Bridge, Add the ethernet and the wireless interfaces as ports on the Bridge Ports tab.
This makes a simple transparent bridge.
You can set an IP address on the bridge interface to allow you to access this RB.
Look in Wireless registration and you should see it connected.
Yes, thanks. I think I am mostly there. It is now working as a bridge. The one thing that I seem to have screwed up is the IP address. Last time I tried to change it away from .88.1, things got all confused, as the computer I was connected to lost its own IP address (the Ethernet cord was providing it with an address, 192.168.88.254, via DHCP…), and when I tried to put the client bridge, via Ethernet, behind the AP-router, it didn’t show up. (I changed the router’s subnet to /17 because they were different 192.168.x blocks, with x below 127). The Ethernet ports do auto-direction (don’t need crossover cable), don’t they?
So now it’s running but I simply cannot connect to it for management purposes. It is still at the default .88.1, but not responding to that address itself. Oddly, when I had it behind the other MT, an tried to connect to .88.1, it got instantly redirected to the AP-router (192.168.123.1)! Nor could Winbox connect to it at .88.1. So I might just have to revirginate it yet again, this time resetting the IP address to where I want it (in the AP’s subnet), hoping for the best, and resetting the bridge.
Sadly, one problem I’m trying to solve, of the connection to the other end of the house (where the client bridge goes) being flaky, isn’t fixed by using two 951s, though the signal is somewhat better. I am suspecting interference near that room, maybe from a neighbor, or maybe a bluetooth device, or something. If I could log in and use its nice spectrum feature, it would help.