From the title you would notice that I’m a novice when it comes to networking, and with that said, I would greatly appreciate any assistance in building my first Mikrotik Network. Reason for choosing Mikrotik, is because of existing equipment already being used on site.
1 x Mikrotik LAP ac2 Router
4 x Mikrotik AP’s with PoE injectors (RbcAPGi-5acD2nD)
1 x ISP ONT Modem.
1 x D-Link 24 port Gigabit Unmanaged Switch
I would need to build a network that will do away with the 8 port switches. There is a open plan office where 16users are located. This open plan area (the top 8 x port switches) is about 20m away from the Server cabinet that hosts the Mikrotik LAP ac2 Router and ISP modem that connects to the internet. I was thinking of getting a 24 port switch with a SFP module for this open plan, to remove the 4 x 8 port switches and connect it to the main Router. I would like to replace the Mikrotik LAP ac2 router as well with an existing RB3011UIAS-RM I have as a spare.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Drawing.pdf (57 KB)
So I would leave hAP ac2 because is 2 times faster than RB3011 in routing so it’s better choice. Then instead of plain D-Link switch you can buy, if your budget allows it, CRS328-24P-4S+RM, 24 port gigabit PoE switch and eliminate the need for PoE injectors. Also you have 4 SFP+ ports for future use if needed and possibility to implement VLANs into your network if needed.
For basic network you draw in your diagram I think default configuration of your hAP ac2 is enough.
RB3011 can be used as a learning device for eg. so you don’t learn on your production network.
Personally I’d avoid using any of ARM devices with 16MB flash space as “core” router … because 16MB is tight specially when running ROS v7 (and eventually we all will run it). I know that with recent ROS version one can completely remove any of wireless drivers (which makes space requirements much more comfortable), but OTOH on core router one may want to add some of other optional packages for some other functionality.
I agree though about not using RB3011, it’s a fairly old device (it was a good device when it was conceived …). If budget permits, I’d go for a new device for “core” router, from performance point of view it may be a hAP ax2 (it’s got 128MB flash storage so it can have wireless drivers installed as well).
Agree, RB5009 would be my choice here because OP mentioned that he want’s to connect router with a switch via SFP but maybe there is no budget for that so for now if OP must work with what he have ac2 is not such a bad device (minus limited flash storage…).
ax2 is also a great device (personally my favourite wireless router ) but if budget permits maybe just go big and futureproof your network with RB5009
Thank you so much for this valuabel input! I really do appreciate you sharing your knowledge and taking the time to help me out
I would never have guessed that the RB3011 was a slow device for routing. I figured, that because it looked bigger, it was “better”
I’ve been an IT Tech most of my life and only recently started to get my hand dirty in networking. Recently I mean, 1 week ago.
This network also has issues which relates to WiFi being slow or especially websites feeling “sluggish” to open, but I guess that is for a different forum.
I’ve attached a new layout that I would like to create, your thoughts on this perhaps? I thought it best to remove all the 8 ports switches as they are daisy chained. One of the devices that was connected only got 100mbps up and download speeds. The Fibre speed is at 500bmps.
Budget is always a thing unfortunately , because the business is small, but I might get away with around $800 - $900 USD, but then the network needs to show improvement. Otherwise I’ll have a business questioning my reasons for replacing hardware when there is not real improvement shown.
So by all means. feel free to modify my built. as I’m by now means a network engineer, and thanks again for your valued input! New Network.pdf (70.7 KB)
If you have $900 then switch i mentioned and rb5009 fits the budget.
What improvement do you expect from the router and the switch ? Speeds wont get faster if that you think, but network will be futureproof and efficient.
I guess not, because there is nothing that will actually benefit from it. There is no VOIP solution in place. Perhaps in future they might use Microsoft Teams for that. Is there a big difference in price from as POE switch compared to a normal switch?
Nice, so the switch you mentioned as the core switch and the router to replace the existing hAP ac2. I’m just hoping that it would solve my WiFi issue as well. I’m been looking quite extensively to what the config needs to be on the hAP ac2 as well as the Mikrotik AP’s.
I was hoping that the speeds would be better. As I tested yesterday that one of the laptops that were connected to the 2nd linked 8 port switch, to have speeds tested at <100mbps. I thought that it would have atleast have to be around 450 - 500mbps. As this is the speed of the Internet Line. Which I thought that the switches connected via daisy chain to be at fault for the low speeds.
I actually found out that there aren’t 2x 8 port swtiches connected via daisy chain as I previously stated, there is actually 3 - 4 of them connected in daisy chain. I guess this can lead to issues? This is why I thought that perhaps getting a 24port switch for team orange and team green would be better. Team blue will be connected to the core router via Cat5e cables that I would pull through to the patch panel.
Again, thank you so much for taking the time and energy to assist me. I really do appreciate it!
Plain CRS326 is about 200 USD so a lot cheaper. Regarding wireless, well max theoretical speed of cAP ac you have is around 866 mbps, so in real world you should expect around half of that.
And if you have a lot of clients connected, all of them take some bandwidth so you will almost never see full speed on your devices…
You have 4 APs, are you using CAPsMAN ? Did you installed wifiwave2 drivers on them ?
Hi gigabyte091, thank you for continuing to respond to my post. I really do appreaciate it
wow okay. I will then look into that for a 2nd switch.
Makes sence that the bandwidth would take a knock, as there are about 40 or so users on site, everyone is connected to a ethernet cable, but their mobile phones are connected to the 2.4Ghz frequency. When doing a speed test then, the speed is really bad. When connected to the 5Ghz, the speed is really better, however, I did found that some sites tend to load slow or when I’m connected to a remote server, it would take some time to respond. You’ll just get a feeling that the internet feels slow in general. When connecting via the ethernet, I would not experience such an issue.
No, I read on one of forums here that CAPsMAN shouldn’t be configured? Not sure if that is a thing. I’m not too sure how to check if these drivers have been loaded. But I haven’t installed any drivers on the AP’s
Again, THANK YOU SOOO MUCH for the advice and input given. You’ve helped me immensely!
2.4 GHz is probably overcrowded, you alone have 4 AP’s with who knows what configuration in them.
You probably have another businesses around you that also broadcast 2.4 GHz wireless.
Channels overlaps so this is another source of interference.
You should scan the area with some app just so you can see how many networks are there, which channels are used the least and make your configuration accordingly, but in todays world 2.4 GHz is highly congested and because you are not using CAPsMAN, you don’t have roaming enabled so your clients will probably stick to one AP and hold onto it. That could result in poor perfomance on your clients.
My advice, redo whole network, look into CAPsMAN, but if possible, test all of your settings on some spare devices, learn how to configure them. Don’t learn on your clients network. When you make a mistake it’s easier to reset everything to default configuration on your table and nobody care.
I’ve scanned the networks around me. I’ve attached them to look at. The company is called Pepla. The Pepla1…4 is the AP’s
Thats for that bit of advice. I’ll will look into the CAPsMAN option on the Mikrotik Router. Can I also then go ahead in google how to install the wifi2 drivers that you mentioned in your previous post? I do have a test AP of the exact model as the AP’s being used. I’ll most deffinately play around on that device then to test performance.
There are about 40 users on site. and most of their mobile phones connect to the 2.4Ghz network. When I got here, the 5Ghz was turned off. That was one of the 1st things I turned on again.
2.4 GHz is crowded as usual, you can try to narrow channel width to 20 MHz, looks like it’s set to 40 MHz. That way you decrease speed but you can avoid overlapping channels.
5GHz looks good for now.
Wifiwave2 drivers are in extra packages when downloading ROS from Mikrotik website. Just download extra packages for correct architecture and version and extract wifiwave2 i think and put it into files. Reboot device and thats it.
Checked one of my customers (randomly picked) RB3011 to have a real life example.
Within the last 31 days about 80% of the packets on the WAN interface had a size of 1024-1518 bytes with routing speed (up to 25 filter rules) 1306.7 Mbps according to the ethernet test results sheet.
But still, if OP can get a budget of 800-900 bucks for network upgrade then RB5009 is no brainer here.
For that money he can get router, poe and non poe switch, sfp modules and dac cable to connect rb5009 with core switch.
Maybe RB3011 is good enough now, but with 40 clients already and maybe even more it’s just a matter of time when they will upgrade their internet connection to 1 Gbps or even more.
Maybe OP will use VPN to connect two sites if there is another site for eg. On RB5009 you can run containers so some services like network wide adblocker or dns server can be run here
And then he will have to upgrade. My advice, invest in core equipment now (switches, routers, etc) and you are ready for the next few years. Later you upgrade AP’s to something better.
@Njumaen
AFAIK size of packets is unrelated.
The opinion on the forum is that the data from tests Mikrotik publishes are largely inaccurate in the sense that they represent some peculiar lab/test conditions.
What has been observed is that coincidentally the value for routing, 25 firewall rules, 512 byte sized packet is usually a good approximation of the max speeds reachable in normal conditions on the field.
Have you ever bought socks?
An usual way to check the size of socks without taking your shoes off is to see if they exactly wrap around your closed fist.
Hi all, thanks for all the advice! Can’t explain how much I appreciate the input received and the commitment to assist me in my network endeavour
I’ve tried setting the hAP ac2 as the CapsMan controller, and tested it with one AP, but the AP is not showing in the CAPsMAN interface. I’m not sure what the reason for this is. I can ping the AP, but is does not show in the CapsMan interface.
Firmware on hAP ac2 is 6.48.17
Firmware on AP is 6.49.17
@gigabyte091, I found that there is no longer a wifiwave2 package. All teh WiFi Packages was “packed” into the wireless package.
I found a topic that spoke about Access List, would this be a good idea to implement for the AP’s? As I’ve found that some devices would keep connectivity to a certain AP, even thought there is a better signal coming from a closer AP. Not too sure how far apart the AP’s needs to be to implement this?
