Hi Guys
I know WDS between backhaul links is useful to help OSPF issues due to the unicast hello packets.
However, is there another reason why? Think I missed that boat somewhere 
Hi Headstrong
Interesting question, I cannot give you a specific answer as the reasons why will be beyond me, but if it helps.
around November last year I stupidly changed by WDS backhaul to Bridge and PseudoBridge.
I now cant even remember why!
But over the next 3 months my network got slower and slower, with more and more folk at the far end of the network complaining about pages slow to open.
I tried everything, the problem was that I had changed my network so much in 3 months that I had almost forgotten wht I had done that may have caused the problm
I ended up having huge rows with my telco, accusing them of manipulating or modifying the dns or port 53.
Eventually I ran wireshark from my PC and spotted that the gateway was continuing to ask “who has xxxxx please tell xxxxx”
Then I started studying the IP neighbours list in a client unit at one end of the network compared to the opposite end… I found around 40 IP addresses missing.
The AP at one end was totally unaware of what clients were connected to the AP at the far end.
I switched back to Bridge+station-wds… Instantly the Ap’s found the missing clients and pages opened immediately.
I have no idea why, but bridge to pseudobridge did not pass through ALL mac layer data.
Bridge to station-wds no problem.
Hope that helps, wouldnt want you to make the same mistake I did… Took me 3 months to find the problem!!
regards
Simon
I might be wrong but this is how I remember it being explained.
The 802.11 standards allow for only one MAC address to be transmitted over the wireless. So in order for it to act as a bridge, you need to encapsulate the packets, such that the wireless cards only see one MAC address. Enter EOIP, WDS, VPLS etc. Basically these protocols take the ethernet packet and encapsulate it before it hits the wireless card, then sends the encapsulated packet to the wireless card, the wireless card transmits this packet and the other wireless card receives it and sends it up the chain, the next part of the chain is the other side of the tunnel, which strips the encapsulation from the packet and then you have a normal Ethernet packet again. This way, multiple MAC addresses can be transmitted over the wireless. From what I can tell, WDS is the easiest one to set up, however VPLS and EOIP aren’t particularly difficult.
if they all pppoe at your highsite and then get routed to your breakout, then is WDS still needed?
I have been doing the above for yours but without WDS