When I have an Ethernet connection to my ISP, use it.
If it’s not available, use WiFi-as-WAN (via an existing AP);
If that's not available, use USB tethering.
I’m new to RouterOS and I’m having a ball learning about it. But I can’t get to 100% on the above. I’ve got the basic WiFi (LAN) working great (3 SSID’s), and the upstream connection to my ISP via Ethernet works great, and I’ve got a USB-Tethered (lte1) connection working great.
But I’m struggling with Wifi-as-WAN.
Can someone point me to a tutorial or offer a representative configuration script that does what I described in the first paragraph? (Doesn’t have to be perfect; I can probably work thru any minor glitches, but a decent starting template would be deeply appreciated.)
You got your wifi configured as AP? in order to use it as WAN it must be in station mode… you must remove it from any bridge, set an IP, configure your routing table and more…
Yes; currently the routerboard is configured as an AP. I suppose the 2.4Ghz radio could be configured as a station, as a client to the internet WiFi. But then I lose the 2.4 band and have only the 5Ghz for an AP?
I thought that having the routerboard configured as both an internet WiFi client and a LAN AP would be trivial. Dozens of $30 “travel routers” on Amazon do this out of the box.
My broader question still refers to how I would configure the routerboard to use ethernet when available, fall back to WiFi if not, and LTE if all else fails. I’m sure I’m not the first to attempt something like this…
Yes. You either configure your 2.4 Ghz/5Ghz band as AP mode or station mode.
It cant be AP and Station at the same time!
My broader question still refers to how I would configure the routerboard to use ethernet when available, fall back to WiFi if not, and LTE if all else fails. I’m sure I’m not the first to attempt something like this…
By configuring your routing table and your distances accordingly…
VAP follows the configuration of your master interface.. so if your master inerface is an AP how exactly your slave virtual ap is going to be a Station?
Also as the name says, its a virtual access point, you can configure different ssids and passwords but you can not change its mode.
As far as i know and tested it is not possible.
Do you have an example/link of a working configuration?
Once I have the station (uplink) and the AP (lan) working I just need to understand how to monitor the three internet interfaces (ethernet, wifi, and lte) and choose the “best” one.
Virtual interface has to follow physical interface with regards to frequency channel used, channel width etc. So when one wants to use single radio for both uplink and own AP, then physical interface has to be station and virtual can be AP.
Virtual interface has to follow physical interface with regards to frequency channel used, channel width etc. So when one wants to use single radio for both uplink and own AP, then physical interface has to be station and virtual can be AP.
This is great! I’m learning SO much! Thanks to all!
So, yeah, I’ve confirmed that one can set the physical wlan to “station” mode, then layer a virtual wlan on top of it, in AP mode, and thereby use the physical interface as an ISP_WiFi “client” while using the virtual interface as a SSID-broadcast connection point to the LAN. I’ve got this working, and it works perfectly. (hAP ac2 running ROS 6.46.6)
With this milestone I’ve got both the 2 and 5 Ghz bands broadcasting my SSIDs; a WiFi connection to the internet; ether1 configured as a hardwire to the internet; and lte1 configured as a cell service to the internet.
But I still need help in figuring out how to “tier” the services to prefer the hardwire internet but, if not available, fall back to either WiFi internet or use the lte interface as a last resort.
Anyone done anything like this? Is this a routing challenge? Or a gateway metric challenge? Or simply a script that polls the respective interfaces and activates the preferred interface?
I’m a little stumped here, and would welcome some help.