RouterOS not forwarding MAC addresses?

RouterOS Wireless Networking
1

I work for a WISP in Oregon. We recently replaced our Tranzeo links with two RB600’s. However, we can’t do authentication because all IP’s report the same MAC address (The MAC address of the Ubiquiti SR5 installed on the mountaintop.)
The building radio is set for BRIDGE mode and the mountain radio is set for STATION PSEUDOBRIDGE. If someone could help us, it would be greatly appreciated.

2

In the mountain use ap bridge mode, AND you should enable the wds in dynamic in this rb. Ever use with the bridge mode ON between ethernet and wlan as ports over the same bridge.

In the other site you must use station wds mode.

And thats its all… your macs should traspass transparently in both ways.

3

Thanks. I’ll try it first thing in the morning after everyone has left for work.
If you have any other suggestions, they would be greatly appreciated.

4

Unfortunately this method did NOT work. We suffered a network blackout when the new settings were applied, which required a trip up the mountain to fix.

5

I´ve got several devices in that mode, without any problem.

In fact, I use mangle rules to block or allow customers taking her mac addresses…

Please copy here the configs.

6

The method does work - you just need to do it correctly.
Also, use Safe Mode to prevent most mistakes which require leaving the office.

7

Now we have another issue. The radios will communicate for a short amount of time (<30 minutes) then simply stop communicating. We can’t obtain any information from the logs on either radio, so everything falls back to our old Tranzeos.
Some input would be appreciated.

8

Station pseudobridge is not recommended for this mac address reason. Instead use wds. i.e. set a bridge, station-wds on the client, and set wds mode to dynamic.

Tom

PS Check the docs on this if you are having problems.

9

Another way to transfer MAC in PtP link is EoIP tunnel.

For example for base configuration:

RB1 --------------------------------------------- RB2
wlan client ap-bridge
wlan1 192.168.0.1 wlan1 192.168.0.2
ether1 10.0.0.1 ether1 10.0.0.2

You can create bridge1 and eoip1 interface on both sides. Then..

RB1 --------------------------------------------------- RB2
wlan client ap-bridge
eoip1 remote ip 192.168.0.2 eoip1 remote ip 192.168.0.1
bridge1(ether1,eoip1) 10.0.0.1 bridge1(ether1,eoip1) 10.0.0.2
wlan1 192.168.0.1 wlan1 192.168.0.2


Both devices can communicate on 192.168.0.0 so eoip tunnel can be established and so virtual ethernet bridge for 10.0.0.0 subnet can be created.
Both solutions wds bridge and eoip tunnel have their usage their pros and cons.

10

Could you please tell me what these are?

11

I am not expert so I can say only what I know or what I think I know…

WDS http://www.mikrotik.com/testdocs/ros/3.0/interface/wireless_content.php#.11:

  • allow transparent communication between multiple ap on same channel with same essid and so allow to extend signal coverage
  • needed to enter MAC address of opposite side wlan card on ap to new wds interface for each wds peer (ap-bridge, bridge, wds-slave, …)
  • it is decentralized or distributed, ap which cant see each other can communicate through ap between them
  • it is usable only on wireless interface

EoIP http://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/EoIP:

  • maybe packing ip packets have more overheads than wds communication (somebody can make exact measurement or calculation)
  • as tunnel it can be used between any ip address across Internet and over multiple hops
  • more instances can be create between same pair of address with different tunnel id.
  • tunnel is only Point-to-Point but more such links can be bridged together.
  • tunnel need to have different IP addresses (if used) than physical link so both sides of tunnel have to be reachable over another ip subnet (more complexity)

For both it is necessary to create some new virtual device wds or eoip1 and make bridge to some other physical interface.

I am using only WDS bridge right now but I useded eoip tunnel to access from home to all subnets on network. Thanks to ethernet tunnel my computer was connected directly to remote subnet and get ip address from local DHCP and i was able to connect to hosts which have restricted access only from local subnet.

Somebody has mentioned that WDS was working somehow bad with routeros 4.x beta on 802.11n link and suggested EoIP tunnel as another solution for MAC bridge on client-ap or ad-hoc link.

So it’s good to have two different methods to overcome wifi ap-client limitation.

12

I think we’ve solved our issues here. The radios remained linked, but WDS simply stops with the error “excessive data loss. sent deauth”. It retries a few times, then simply gives up.
We’re using 20dB-gain grids, but the adapters are a little rough thanks to improvisation. We have two dual-polarity dishes ready to go, just waiting for the hardware.

13

what’s your signal level?
did you try different frequencies?