Technical Assistance: mANTBox 15s ax with LHG 5 GHz A/N CPE – Layer 2 Bridge Issue

RouterOS Wireless Networking
1

Dear MikroTik Support Team,

My name is Sunday, and I am writing from Equatorial Guinea. I work as a Field Engineer with Officetech, an Internet Service Provider (ISP) based in Malabo.

We currently use MikroTik equipment extensively for our wireless broadband distribution network. Our existing deployment consists mainly of the MikroTik mANTBox 19s as sector access points and MikroTik LHG 5 GHz A/N radios as customer premises equipment (CPEs). We currently have more than 200 mANTBox 19s sectors deployed across our base stations.

Recently, we purchased a new set of MikroTik mANTBox 15s ax sectors as part of our network upgrade. However, we have encountered a compatibility/configuration issue when attempting to connect our existing MikroTik LHG 5 GHz A/N CPEs to the new mANTBox 15s ax.

On our existing mANTBox 19s infrastructure, the LHG 5 GHz A/N CPEs connect successfully in AP Bridge mode, allowing us to maintain normal Layer 2 bridge communication between the base station and the client CPE.

However, with the new mANTBox 15s ax, we are unable to establish normal Layer 2 bridge communication when the sector is configured as an AP Bridge. During our testing, the LHG 5 GHz A/N CPE can connect when using Station or Station Pseudobridge mode, but this does not provide the Layer 2 bridge functionality required for our existing network architecture.

Our main concern is that the mANTBox 15s ax is advertised as having backward compatibility, but we have not been able to achieve the same Layer 2 AP Bridge functionality with our existing LHG 5 GHz A/N CPEs that we currently have with the mANTBox 19s.

Could you please provide technical guidance on the following:

  1. Is the mANTBox 15s ax fully compatible with the MikroTik LHG 5 GHz A/N in AP Bridge/Station Bridge mode for transparent Layer 2 communication?

  2. If yes, could you provide the recommended configuration settings for both the mANTBox 15s ax and LHG 5 GHz A/N?

  3. Are there any specific wireless protocol, frequency, channel width, security, data rate, or compatibility settings that must be enabled or disabled?

  4. Is there any limitation with using 802.11 A/N clients on the mANTBox 15s ax that could prevent transparent Layer 2 bridging?

  5. Does the mANTBox 15s ax require any specific RouterOS version or wireless package configuration to support this type of connection?

  6. If AP Bridge with the LHG 5 GHz A/N is not supported, could you please confirm whether this is a hardware limitation, RouterOS limitation, or a configuration issue?

We plan to gradually upgrade our existing client CPEs to ax-capable equipment in the future. However, for the current deployment, we need the new mANTBox 15s ax sectors to work with our existing LHG 5 GHz A/N CPEs without changing our current Layer 2 network architecture.

We would greatly appreciate your technical assistance and recommended configuration for achieving a transparent Layer 2 bridge connection between the mANTBox 15s ax sector and our existing LHG 5 GHz A/N CPEs.

We look forward to your technical guidance.

Thank you for your support.

Best Regards,

2

FYI, this is a public forum, not MikroTik (although they do peek here at times).

If you really need MikroTik support, go to mikrotik.com/support and set yourself up accordingly.

(Users here will do the best we can to help as well.)

3

I thought "ap bridge" is the regular access point mode. When you connect to another access point you use "station-bridge". So the issue description does not make sense to me. And when it comes to station-bridge: incompatible with "wifi" drivers. It is mentioned in the documentation.

4

To that end, I am using "station-bridge" at least with the wifi-qcom-ac drivers, and it seems to be working OK (although not fully tested yet . . . it configures and connects fine, while offering it's AP SSID from the same radio. (I'm having a go at convering my working hap-ac2 wireless bridge/ipsec config to the new driver set to see what/if changes.)

Update: This is posted via the above config, using station-bridge with wifi-qcom-ac . . .Seems to be solid. I recall testing the same config on a hap-ax2 with wifi-qcom and no issues there as well, I just did not use that unit for this use case. Oh, and under ROS 7.22.1-3 or 7.23.3) (This is the config I started the thread on RE: not setting the mode right using "provision" locally. That persists, but applying the config to the wifi device directly has never failed.)

Screenshot_20260808_160852_Brave
Screenshot_20260808_160852_Brave1752×2800 238 KB

5

As already mentioned: no, AP/station-bridge is not compatible between a pair of devices one running wireless and one running any of wifi-XYZ drivers (regardless which is AP and which is station). It never was and I don't think it ever will be.

Yes, station-bridge works on wifi-XYZ devices, but only with wifi-ABC link peer.

6

OK, I'm unclear. By "peer" are you meaning that both source and target need to be on wifi-??? or that the remote needs to be? I ask simply because I have never heard of a case where wireless and wifi could mix on an AP (IE you will never have that split . . . ) and I have never used a MikroTik device as a remote when doing this . . . I'm bridging a 3rd party network to my own via the MikroTik, not extending a MikroTik network. (Perhaps just station would work as well . . . started with wireless and station-bridge based on docs, and simply carried it forward to WiFi without issues or changes . . . ).

7

Table here:
Wifi 4-address mode (station bridge) between wifi-qcom and wifi-mediatek
Wifi 4-address mode (station bridge) between wifi-qcom and wifi-mediatek - #11 by jaclaz

8

By link peer I mean "the other end of wireless link" (without referencing wifi topological hierarchy as this doesn't matter in this case). I don't know how to state this without writing a novel.

I can understand your frustration[*], but it should not be excuse to try to twist our posts into something which would fit your case.

[*] Yes, this means that you have to replace all devices composing one star of your wireless network: both AP (the hub) and CPEs (the spokes). Preferrably at the same time, which is an RPITA. Or build another star in parallel and decomission the original one after all CPEs are upgraded ... which is another RPITA. Or abandon MT for wireless gear (another RPITA but according to some with much more pleasant aftermath).

9

All I know is that I have a hap ac2 and an hap ax2, both with flavors of wifi-qcom set to station-bridge, and neither connecting to a Mikrotik device, and it is connecting and working as I understand it . . . I'm simply trying to determine if I am misunderstanding this feature/setting . . .

No need to pile on the bash train! It wouldn't be the first time docs and equipment disagreed (if that is even the case). After all, the equipment can't read :slight_smile:

(And I wonder if "station-bridge" is essentially working as just "station" in my setup. With dissimilar devices, I guess I would have expected an error if the proprietary stuff failed to start . . . . )

10

Good day all,

So sorry for disturbing you all we my issue, just that the mikrotik mANTBox 15s ax is not fully compatible with my existing mikrotik LHG 5GHz A/N radio on a layer 2 bridge communication.

Whenever I set my mANTBox 15s ax sector to AP, station bridge mode on the LHG 5GHz A/N CPE do not connect but station mode and Station Pseudobridge connected but layer 2 bridge communication is not still working.

Please can someone help me with the right configuration

Thanks

11

you probably missed this reply: Technical Assistance: mANTBox 15s ax with LHG 5 GHz A/N CPE – Layer 2 Bridge Issue - #7 by jaclaz

12

To further simplify:

  1. if your settings are on BOTH devices under /wireless, the station-bridge will work
  2. if your settings are on BOTH devices under /wifi, the station-bridge will work
  3. if one of the devices have settings under /wireless and the other one has them under /wifi, the station-bridge will NOT work and you can at the most have station-pseudobridge working which is almost, but not quite, completely unlike L2 (some long time members of the forum call station-pseudobridge L2.5):
    bridge-mode parameter in Router OS v7 - #2 by bpwl
13

A quick update: I just tested my config with just "station", and no change. Apparently "station-bridge" falls back without any notice . . .

Sorry for the confusion.