DHCP issues on a wireless bridge

RouterOS Wireless Networking
1

I maintain 2 sites and recently Site 2 requested wireless network in addition to the fixed network. This seemed easy enough but I consistently got 169.xxx.xxx.xxx meaning that DHCP could not assign an address from the range. To further clarify the issue:

Network topology:

Site 1:

LTE CPE - provides an Internet connection and services wireless clients via DHCP
3 Repeaters - repeat the signal of the wireless LTE CPE, get addresses via DHCP
Fixed network clients eg. Laptop - addresses via DHCP
Mobile clients - addresses via DHCP
Switch - connects to the LTE CPE and then provides DHCP and Internet to the wireless bridge
RB411 - wireless bridge to connect to Site 2

Site 2:

RB411 - wireless bridge to connect to Site 1
Wireless AP - extends internet from Site 1 to Site 2
Fixed network clients - get addresses via DHCP
Mobile clients - get a DHCP address depending if they’ve been on the wireless network at Site 1. This is even with a different SSID.

Bottom line:

Wireless network users from Site 1 cannot wireless roam Site 2 and vice versa. It’s as if once on the network at one of the sites, users are locked out because “they are already on the network”.

I therefore need to hide Site 1 from Site 2 and have the networks completely separate, while pointing Site 2 to the Site 1 gateway which provides Internet access.

Anyone with some ideas? :slight_smile:

2

Anyone? :frowning:

3

In case someone else has this issue, I resolved to just put all clients, fixed and wireless, at Site 2 on static IP’s. Sorted.

Roaming between Site 1 and 2 isn’t an issue any more it seems.

Edit: I noted periods where the network would hang for minutes at a time. So while static IP’s worked, I still had random slow throughput.

4

do you use WDS?

5
  1. Like tgid said WDS
  2. eoip
  3. bridge (stp/rstp)
  4. routing

You have many possibilities how to solve this.

6

Thanks guys, I’ll mess around with those in my free time. In terms of effort though, static IP’s is the easiest. Yes, there is a bit of admin giving new users static IP’s but it’s not a big site. I’ll have to do some homework before trying those solutions.

Edit: three words that solved all my problems: UniFi, Zero-Handoff technology.