The repeater function in wireless-rep (http://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Manual:In … s#Repeater)
Should this repeater function work with WLAN’s (AP’s/wireless routers/master’s) that’s non-Mikrotik/RouterBoard?
(Specifically a Thompson WLAN router)
Also, since wireless-rep is the newest, should I now use it instead of wireless-cm2 in my Capsman installations?
(How’s that policy?)
Of course. The REP package actually works just like regular client and regular AP. It will connect to any AP, any brand.
Yes, REP contains all the features and will soon become the only package.
Normis: You sure about this?
I tried to get this to work some months ago, but could never get it to work with more than one client connected through the repeater. (The old D-link repeater I was replacing worked fine…until it died ofcourse 
)
If I remember correctly I made a thread about it on the forum, and the conclusion was that MT-repeater couldn’t connect to other APs with the mode needed to support more than one client.
The problem had to do with something about different client MAC addresses and DHCP addresses not going through.
I ended up using EoIP tunnel from the “repeater” through the non-MT AP to the main (MT-)router instead. this works fine!
Just for testing I tried setting up a wAP as repeater.
Extending a WLAN created by a mAP2n/RouterOS works nice. (It creates a station bridge.)
Extending a WLAN created by an Apple AP was a bit more troublesome:
It created a station pseudobridge (station bridge would not work), and I can connect to the created WLAN, but DHCP fails. I guess somehow the pseudobridge’s MAC address translation prevents DHCP from working.
If I set static IP on the client, everything works. (The dhcpd in question is a dnsmasq running on Ubuntu.)
In the dnsmasq log (syslog) I see repeated:
DHCPDISCOVER(br1) <connecting device’s mac address>
DHCPOFFER(br1) 172.16.0.19 <connecting device’s mac address>
@Normis I guess that means it depends on how picky the running DHCP server is. Some more documentation on station bridge vs station pseudobridge would be nice.
@quackyo: You were referring to this thread?
There can be other problem. Are you able to connect in some client bridge mode to that Ap correctly? Maybe the Ap doesn’t support the bridging on wifi at all. If so, you would need to route instead of to bridge if you want to keep using that Ap…
If I set static IP on the connecting device, everything seems to be working … Only station pseudobridge seems to be working, not station bridge or the pseudobridge clone …
That is the reason. The wifi is not like ethernet, does not provide L2 transparent bridge by its definition. There are some workarounds, like mikrotik proprietary bridging modes, or you need to assign an IP on the wlan interface and use it as routed interface instead the bridged. If boths sides were mikrotik, you would not have this issue…
Note that wireles repeater cannot provide you feature of which support is necessary to be at the AP also when it does not provide it (bridging mode).
I understand it does mac address translation … it could/should work if the dhcpd wasn’t picky, I would think …
station-bridge is obviously not a option with your Apple AP, but you probably can try with station-wds ..
http://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Manual:Interface/Wireless#Repeater
I’ll try that when I get back home, thanks! I should also read a bit more about how it works …
For this case I ended up selling and setting up two MT devices to my customer, so station bridge worked nicely.
I got around to test station-wds today. (This time on a RB912 5GHz device, with the 2.4GHz R11, in case that matters at all.)
It didn’t work. With the station pseudobrigde, the AP gets DHCP offers itself. (And also with just station.) But not if I set wlan1 to be wds station, station pseudobridge clone or any of the other choices …
(To be clear, I don’t really need this right now, just trying to learn more, test configurations etc.) 