Roaming with two APs-- ft-over-ds? CAPsMAN?

RouterOS Wireless Networking
1

I have a hAP ax3 configured as a router and ap and a wAP ax, connected via ethernet, using different SSIDs. I want to use the same SSIDs on both devices and set up roaming. Also, I want to use 160MHz on the wAP as it works reliably for me. (hAP ax3 does only 80 MHz.) I will have two SSIDs on 5 GHz and one on 2.5 GHz. Each will be assigned to a VLAN.

What is the easiest way to do this? Will ft-over-ds (fast transition over distributed system) work? Is CAPsMAN preferred?

2

ft-over-ds will only work via capsman if you want to span multiple APs.
Otherwise it only works within the same AP (making you "roam" from 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz if both should have the same SSID).

Capsman on itself is not preferred as in "must-be-used-or-otherwise-bad-things-will-happen".
But from my point of view it makes things a bit more practical once you get the setup right.

Attention:
Since you probably want to use that AX3 as capsman controller, make sure its radios are defined as local managed (but it will be otherwise using the exact same settings as for capsman APs).
Otherwise it will not work.
Pay close attention to that part, it's mentioned in the documentation.

CAPsMAN cannot manage it's own wifi interfaces using configuration.manager=capsman , it is enough to just set the same configuration profile on local interfaces manually as you would with provisioning rules, and the end result will be the same as if they were CAPs.

3

So, use WiFi configurations on the hAP but do not enable CAP?

4

Correct.
Yet roaming will work since it will be the same ROS instance controlling caps and local radios.

5

But will it work as fast as FT?

When I have the 2 wAP AX set in caps-man with ft set up... roaming is better (sooner) than when I have standalone APs.

6

The recipe by @holvoetn works for:

  1. single AP with multiple radios, configured locally with same SSID (and possibly some other security parameters)
    ROS configuration automatically places such wifi interfaces into same neighbor-group (as listed under /interface/wifi/steering/neighbor-group
  2. CAPsMAN installation, controlling multiple remote radios on one or more CAPs, provisioned with same SSID (and possibly some other security parameters)
  3. combination of CAPsMAN controlled radios and local radios (that's local to device running CAPsMAN)
    Where local radios are not technically CAPsMAN-provisioned (because with wifi CAPsMAN this doesn't really work), they are rather locally configured ... but if configured properly (i.e. by using same profiles as used by CAPsMAN configuration), they will work in same steering group as the remote radios

When it comes to how fast FT works ... obviously it's up to station but as long as AP radios are in same steering group it doesn't matter how they are provisioned (locally v.s. CAPsMAN).