Hi, I've RB4011 and hAP ac. I need to extend the wifi range in the house but before I'm able to get cabling done I need to get it extended at least using wifi. I've a RB4011 as the main router & AP and I would like to extend the range using a hAP ac.

I've tried multiple tutorials but I'm unable to get it working. Can anyone please suggest dead simple steps how to approach this problem?

I've generally tried to start the setup of the RB4011 as a dual band router/AP. I've enabled WDS - dynamic mesh on the 2ghz wlan and used the default bridge or a custom mesh-interface as the WDS bridge. What's actually the right interface to be used as the WDS bridge? Can I actually use 2ghz to bridge RB4011 and hAP ac? And does this band then need to be dedicated only for the AP to AP communication? Do I need to specify the frequency explicitly on both APs or can I leave in auto? Shall the frequency match or differ? How am I supposed to connect the hAP ac to the WDS?

Thank you very much.

Any ideas please? Is it possible get some quotes for professional support?

You want the simple setup. OK But don't be surprised ....

The RB4011 is set as your router with all the functions needed as if it was stand-alone. Both WLAN interfaces are set as "AP bridge", with frequency (channel) set for optimal working.
The hAP ac2 will be set up as a very simple switch (network terminology, layer 2 domain switching, no higher layer functionality.) extending the LAN side of the RB4011, and as such extending the range.

Forget WDS, forget mesh ... we don't need it here with RouterOS. The basic functionality we need is one WLAN on the hAP ac2 as "station bridge" to connect to the RB4011. To do that the interface must have the same SSID and the same security profile as the AP-bridge it connects to. Which WLAN you use for that connection depends on the speed and distance you have to cover. 2.4GHz traverses walls a bit better but is slower than 5 GHz. That "station bridge" is just another client to the AP-bridge. Other clients can connect to the RB4011 as before.

The hAp ac2 setup has the following components.
- one bridge , bridge all interfaces of the hAP ac2 to that bridge. (IF the default Home AP firewall is still there, the bridge must be part of the LAN "interface list". All ports on the hAP ac2 are LAN, never WAN. Or you can just delete all firewall rules and NAT rules.)
- the bridge can have a DHCP-client defined to get an IP address, route and DNS from the RB4011. That IP config is only used for managing the hAP ac2.
- No other services should be on the bridge or interfaces. Remove any DHCP-server on the hAP ac2. (It would conflict with the DHCP-server of the RB4011)
- Connect one WLAN to the RB4011 with setting as "station bridge". Entering the same SSID and the same security profile (eg.: WPA2/AES). The SSID will be scanned and the channel will be taken from the AP bridge. You can also do the scanning with the SCAN button, and select the SSID you want. Security profile must always be entered manually.
- Define the other WLAN of the hAP ac2 as AP-bridge for the clients. Normally you use the same or different SSID, but a different freq/channel here, than the one on the RB4011 to avoid interference.

That's it. The WLAN and ethernet ports of the hAP ac2 are a transparant extension of the RB4011.


- Optional EXTENSION: extra WLAN on hAP ac2: (If you have clients that need to use the first WLAN band for their connection, you could add a virtual WLAN on top of the station-bridge WLAN. Don't forget to also add that WLAN to the bridge. That extra WLAN will share the capacity with the first WLAN, on the same frequency. So this halves the throughput when used !)

How am I supposed to connect the hAP ac to the WDS?

Regarding hAP2, looks like you have nothing on it. It acts like an L3 switch.
If you have assembled all the interfaces in the bridge, this is not L3, but L2.

Yes hAP is L2 only here.

Excellent, that did the job. Thank you very much.