hAP ax^3 - AP-Bridge support

RouterOS Wireless Networking
1

Hello all,
I would like to ask if HAP AX3 - version 7.16 or simply recent ROS 7.x supports AP-Bridge mode.
I need to create transparent wireless L2 link between two mikrotik routers deployed indoors.
One HAP AX3 is currently deployed as a main router. I need to connect a second router placed in a different room where there isn’t any cable.
The wifi link between the two devices needs to be l2 transparent because of WoL and other stuff.
End points like computers and a printer are going to be connected to the second mikrotik to its lanports.

I thought combination of AP-Brige on the main router and station-bridge on the newly added router is needed. But unfortunately, I can’t find ap-bridge mode in the main’s router configuration which is currently on the stable ROS 7.16

Please, is AP-Bridge supported on hap ax3 / ROS7.x / wifi-qcom?
If you need any information from my side, please let me know.

Thank you very much
Lukas

2

I just found this post

http://forum.mikrotik.com/t/bridge-mode-parameter-in-router-os-v7/170718/1

So theoretically, it should work.

But because I am currently testing it between Mikrotik RB951 ( with older WIFI driver ) and the new HAP AX3 ( with wifi-qcom / wifiwave2 driver ) it doesn’t work. And I need to test it before I buy the new router to be sure all needed things work as expected.

Is there any way how to make this work between RB951 and HAP AX3 at least for test purposes? Because unfortunately don’t currently have any other HW with wifiwave2 driver.

Thx a lot
Lukas

3

No.

4

Try using AP mode on the HAP AX and station pseudobridge on the device without the new wifi driver.

5

Hi, station pseudobridge isn’t L2 transparent for other protocols. I think it does MAC translation for IP protocol, but Mikrotik doesn’t recommend to use it. But yeah, maybe it would work in case the WoL magic packets are encapsulated in UDP or ICMP.

Well, I don’t understand why Mikrotik doesn’t make the “bridge mode” fully compatible between various drivers/models. It would be much better and easier.

6

Thanks, but is it 100% that the transparent bridge over WIFI will work between two hAP AX3?

Thanks a lot.
L.

7

You might try using vxlan or eoip to make it L2 transparent.

8

Classic workaround for such cases is indeed eoip.

9

Yes.

100% transparent bridge mode works between same generation of WiFi drivers, e.g. between wireless-wireless pair of devices (legacy driver) or between wifi-wifi pair of devices (new wifi-qcom or wifi-qcom-ac drivers).

I don’t expect to see compatibility between legacy and new drivers, there are at least two functions where these don’t cooperate: bridge and capsman. And MT never mentioned any intention to make them compatible in any of the two functions. My guess is that if this was feasible, they’d already do it (the new wifiwave2 driver suite is “in the wild” since v7 is around so plenty of time to make it compatible).

10

Are we allowed to state that the adjective “graceful” cannot be used to describe the transition between old and new/wireless and wifi/capsman and capsman(2)? :confused:
:laughing:

11

Do you want capsman1,2 or 3 with that transition… yup, clear as dark molasses.

12

Btw does it cause any problems to have station bridge and station (a.k.a normal clients) on the same (mikrotik) AP?
Does it have any performance impact to use the station bridge mode? And also the coexistence between station bridge and stations on the same AP?

Thanks a lot
L.

13

Problems with station-pseudobridge are all on the station side, not on AP side. Here’s a link to a pretty good article which describes various station modes and their peculiarities (and problems): https://help.mikrotik.com/docs/spaces/ROS/pages/122388518/Wireless+Station+Modes

Mind that applicability matrix with ROS v7 became a bit more complex (wifi-qcom(-ac) supports neither nstreme nor nv2 … and is not compatible with legacy wireless when it comes to station-bridge mode).