I have a secondary Mikrotik Router which works now just as a Wireless client and some wired-only clients connected to this AP (unfortunately I don’t have wired access there and some devices only supports wired Ethernet connection - that’s why this is needed).
I want to enable WDS on this AP as well. This AP is rather old, RB751 so it only has 2.4GHz. However that’s not a problem for me, because 2.4GHz is only used by my IoT devices - so halved speed also won’t matter, but Wi-Fi chip in these IoT devices are not so great, so signal strength matters.
Can someone help me configure this correctly? I have some questions about this
Will wired devices still work on this AP while using it in WDS (as a range extender)?
I want to use a Virtual Wireless adapter on my main router to connect to. Is it possible to do this? So this wireless ap and network should be used by my secondary AP
Right now I use DHCP client on this AP can I still use this? Management is easier with static dhcp leases for me
Can someone point me to a tutorial which is similar to this scenario? Or maybe help me with a little tutorial on how to start?
Also I really don’t know which WDS type should be used here. I assume dynamic, but it will also allow for clients to connect to that AP? Or dynamic mesh what needs to be used here?
I could not find any documentation on this…
simple case for repeater:
main AP - create WDS: wds mode - dynamic, wlan1 mode - AP bridge
secondary AP (repeater) - wlan1 mode - wds slave with same SSID, security profile settings, channel (auto also work)
Yes this is what I thought, but I had no time to try it out (it is rather risky and I don’t have hours right now to mess with it that’s why I’m asking first).
But basically this will work as a client from the perspective that it will connect to the router ask for it’s DHCP address, etc…?
Yes and one thing which might complicate the things: When setting up WDS you have to specify a bridge. Right now I have a bridge with seperate VLANs there. On that bridge, VLAN filtering is set, but which SSID I will use works as an access port (untagged). I don’t know if this will cause trouble or it will work (it might, because when the untagged packet is arriving at the ingress interface - right now wifi - it will add the vlan tags to the packet so it might pass through that bridge. But I don’t know the sequence here…).
Also a more trivial question regarding WDS which I was unable to find answer for:
If I use the way you said, that means that these APs will create a kind of “mesh” network? Like clients will have the ability to automatically choose between the 2 available APs, right?
And the available bandwith will be halved on that interface right?
Thanks I have found these (forgot to mention), but if you have a look at my previous reply, you will see that I have a little bit more complex network right now.
Anyway thanks for your response and I will document my findings here, if I can proceed with this.
But basically this will work as a client from the perspective that it will connect to the router ask for it’s DHCP address, etc…?
you can setup static IP for second AP if this needed, if you talking about WiFi clients - it will work without any extra setup (DNS (but you can set it for receiving firmware updates on repeater), DHCP relay not required)
I don’t using LAN on repeater, but network should work as usual if it in bridge (maybe not out-of-the-box) I can’t answer about VLAN.
If I use the way you said, that means that these APs will create a kind of “mesh” network? Like clients will have the ability to automatically choose between the 2 available APs, right?
something like this, but it more based on client ( i don’t know is it real roaming via 802.11r/k/v)
this calling Roaming https://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Manual:Interface/Wireless#Roaming, mesh is network topology
also you can set Signal Strange Range and drop clients with low signal
And the available bandwith will be halved on that interface right?
be ready get low speed on repeater, like less then <10mbps (here is nothing better then wired connection :] )
i using hap mini as wds slave + hap ac, and speed usually 2-6mbps, and some time it freeze and required wlan1 restart or router rebooting, (“unicast key exchange timeout problem” and other). So it’s based on many factors like wifi signal strange, CCQ, nearby wifi devices etc.
Ok thanks, I will try!
I don’t mind that low speed, as I said, it will be only used by IoT devices, which does not generate that much traffic (a few bytes…) but signal strength matters here really as they have really low signal strength.
So I will try to set it up as you said and I just hope that it will work with these VLAN setup as well, we will see..