Setting Up MikroTik hAP ax S as a Wireless AP Bridge

[rumyantcev.m]

Hi!

I have 2 haP ax S routers and want to set up wireless bridge to cover my house with Wi-Fi network without additional cabling involved.

Setup is easy:

1st floor is ISP cable coming into 1st router, where several devices are connected and Wi-Fi is set up (2.4/5GHZ).

2nd floor no cabling available. Want to create (Wi-Fi bridge) connection to extend Wi-Fi network from 1st floor.

Could not find working solution to do this on these devices.

[jaclaz]

In theory it is very simple.

You setup one of the two devices in AP mode (all ethernet ports and wifi interfaces bridged together).

You setup the other one the same BUT set the wifi as station-bridge.

The DHCP server should be (like for normal AP setting) on a "main" router, the two devices should act as "wireless wire" at L2 level.

You should be able to connect to them via Winbox via MAC or (optionally) assign to them two static IP's in the same network (but outside the DHCP range).

You don't need any firewall or nat, and everything is LAN.

Then you should (IMHO) make a choice:

1. if the 5GHz connection is good enough, reserve that to the interconnection of the two devices and use the 2.4 GHz for "local wifi" (or not use it at all)
2. if not, do the reverse, use the 2.4 GHz for the connection and use the 5 GHz for "local wifi" (or not use it at all)

All this said, the hap Ax S has the new mediatek chips and drivers, and they have some issues, so you should try RoS 7.22 that has some fixes and keep an eye open on newer releases that may have something more related.

[rumyantcev.m]

Thank you,

I didn`t understood the part about “the two devices should act as "wireless wire" at L2 level”, is this somehow configurable separately? Have not seen any guide on setting up this option in WinBox.

Btw, did all mentioned steps, as you said - they do not connect with eachother. When scaning for networks on 5GHz interface I can see my network, but when connecting to it (pressing button), wifi interface switched to AP mode and connection does not happen.

Strange thing…

[jaclaz]

There are a few devices that are sold as "pre-configured pairs" with the catchy name of "wireless wire", the idea is that you have an ethernet wire connecting two devices, and you want to replace it with this "pair".

The "wireless wire" consists of two identical wi-fi devices, one set as AP and the other set as station-bridge, each with a static IP (for management) and all ports into a bridge, and nothing else.

They work at L2 level (i.e. like a switch, nothing involving their IP's or the IP's of the devices connected to them, that would be L3) and they are as transparent as possible (just like a wire would be).

Example:
https://mikrotik.com/product/wireless_wire

Post the configurations of both devices as you have them now for review, instructions here:

Forum rules

Hello and welcome to the Mikrotik forum For all new users that uses RouterOS for the first time and have some questions regarding their config here is short tutorial on how to access RouterOS configuration using "WinBox" and how to export their configuration and posting it properly in their topic. So after you unpack your new device and connect it to the power supply you need to connect it to the PC. Be careful when connecting because to access your new router you need to use one of…

likely it is a minor mis-configuration, but the devil is in the details.

[rumyantcev.m]

BINGO!

After export of configuration from both routers I`ve noticed, that bridge was not created on the second one.

Probably while creating one made mistake in Terminal and skipped that.

All working good now. Thank you for help!

[jaclaz]

Good.