Migrate from HAP-AC2 to HAP-AX3

Hardware MikroTik hardware general
1

Dear friends,

I bought a new HAP-AX3 device. I would like to replace my old HAP-AC2 that has been serving me for years. Primary reasons for the replacement are: faster Wifi, and much faster CPU speed (I would like to use CAKE in queue trees). I did not check on this recently, but I have heard that AX mode wifi is now available with CAPsMAN. Is that true?

The main question is this: if I make a full backup of my HAP-AC2 device, and try to restore it on HAP-AX3, then will that work? Or should I export all settings manually instead? (But in that case, also export and import certificates by hand, and possibly reconnect my CAPs…)

Thank you,

Laszlo

2

Backup and restore on device with completely different design is always a very bad idea.
So yes, export (make sure it is complete) and import again via terminal really paying attention to what is already there.
Quite some settings which used to be default are not so anymore and vice versa.
Also lots of new settings which otherwise might be left default with wrong results.

Typical wifi pitfall: on older wifi device wlan1 is 2.4Ghz and wlan2 is 5Ghz.
On AX device wifi1 is 5Ghz and wifi2 is 2.4Ghz.
Different name and different order. So even import of the script will not work here.

Capsman is available now on wifiwave2 devices (with still some minor glitches to be ironed out w.r.t. vlan handling for devices with hybrid function)
For pure cap devices, it works.

But just a minute … what cap devices are you referring to ? Legacy wifi as in non-AX devices ?
If so, you can not use AX3 as capsman controller since it has default wifiwave2 package and that’s incompatible with legacy wifi.
You would still need a separate device then acting as capsman controller for those devices.

Or do you mean something else ?

3

Two other CAP devices are also HAP AC2. I’m not sure if I can install wifiwave2 on them.

4

You can not.
Theoretically the chipset is capable (AC3 can handle wifiwave2 and it has the same chip) but memory is too low on AC2.
Unless they find a way to slim down the current wifiwave2 package, it’s a no-go for AC2, cap AC, cap XL AC, …

5

One of them have 256MB memory by accident. Can I at least install on that?

6

no, because the wifiwave2 is not supported for this model…

7

All right! It means that I have to replace those with HAP-AX3 or HAP-AX2 models. I use them both as switches and CAPs.

Just one more question. It hw acceleration supported for switching and vlans (at the same time) on HAP-AX3 and HAP-AX2?

8

No, because there actually two dependencies:

  1. RAM size >=256MB
  2. flash storage >=128MB

The second one is slightly “fuzzy” because latest ROS versions added support for RAM disk on devices which have > 16MB storage (those did not have it before), but it’s not entirely clear whether it helps with upgrades or not. On my Audience (with 128MB flash storage) I partitioned the storage to two 64MB partitions and it ran wifiwave2 just fine … until I tried to upgrade ROS at which point partition turned out to be around 4MB too small.

So the “normal” hAP ac2 devices are short in both aspects. The early hAP ac2 devices, which came with “manufacturing defect” (of having 256MB RAM), still fall short with regard to storage space. Big time.