RBcAPGi-5acD2nD-US and a RB4011Igs+RM

RouterOS Beginner Basics
1

Looking for guidance or an actual guide to add a RBcAPGi-5acD2nD-US cAP-AC to my newly purchased RB4011Igs+RM. I have the RB4011 working as expected (darn near the out of box configuration). And am looking for tutorial, guide, crayon drawings to explain what I need to do to add the cAP-AC as the wireless access point via eth10 using PoE.

My first attempt was to just plug the cAP-AC in to eth10 with
RB4011 nat and firewall defaults enabled. RB4011 as dhcp server assigning from block 192.168.1.201 - 192.168.1.254. Default bridge, all ports bridged together.
The cAP-AC I had nat and firewall defaults enabled and same SSID on 2ghz and 5ghz. DHCP enabled and assigning from block 192.168.1.101 - 192.168.1.200.

RB4011 receiving WAN IP via dhcp from cable modem and lan side setup as 192.168.1.1.
cAP-AC setup as receive WAN IP from RB4011 (the RB4011 was assigning it 192.168.1.254 from the DHCP block) and lan side was 192.168.1.2.

The wired connections to the RB4011 all still worked but even though my wireless devices could connect to the cAP-AC and received an ip from the DHCP (192.168.1.101-200) block but could not connect to the internet.

Second attempt I tried almost all the same settings except having the DHCP solely on the RB4011 and in that attempt the wireless devices would connect to the cAP-AC but would not be assigned an IP.

For my third attempt I decided maybe I should have did what the quick start guide said and checked for updates before doing anything and so in winbox I connected to the cAP-AC and did check for updates, it found the newest stable version, download and install, and now the cAP-AC is just showing the power and little person light. I can’t connect via IP or MAC, have tried resetting it until I couldn’t stand to push that little button again (is it 3, or 5, or 15 or 300 seconds eyeroll so many conflicting instructions there). I even tried to reinstall routerOS on the cAP-AC via netinstall and even though it appeared to install it the device just won’t connect via eth1 or eth2 and will not turn on either 2g or 5g radios.

Any help or guidance would be very greatly appreciated.

2

OK, everything is working as expected now. Just took another day of sticking with it. In case anyone ever is in my same situation and finds this thread I don’t want to be that post where you search and search for an answer only to find a single person from 1993 that had the same issue and only posts, “fixed it”.

Here are the key points of the solution:

  1. Don’t give up, keep trying netinstall to reset the access point.
  2. It really is 300 seconds for triggering netinstall mode just keep holding the reset button until the device shows in netinstaller.
  3. Once you have the device in netinstall, if you click the install button and it just says ready or OK it didn’t actually flash the package. Keep trying until you get the progress bar that all the other instructions mention. Completely start over each time don’t just keep clicking install.
  4. It really is mostly just out of the box config for the router and the access point like you thought it would be.
  5. Put the square cover on the access point because it makes holding the reset button over and over with one hand much easier.
3

Netinstall is not the most fun exercise.

As for MT router to MT capac(access point).
what I did very roughly.

Create a bridge on MT
Create a bridge on capac

Use vlans for all traffic,
create vlans on MT (dhcp the whole shebang)
attach vlans to bridge
setup bridge ports and bridge vlans for vlan bridge filtering

Use wisp mode on capac
Ensure capac gets lanip from your main home vlan
Setup wifi on capac
ensure vlans match router (identified vlan number and attach to bridge on capac)
setup bridge ports and bridge vlans for vlan bridge filtering