I want to build a hybrid Wired/Wireless network at home (building has 3 floors). I was thinking about the following:
- Have one central router (RB2011iL-RM) in my rack
- install an AP/switch (RB951-2n) on each floor to deliver both wirless signall and wires into each room
- have the WLAN work like a cellular network - devices should seamlessly switch AP's and I want to have only one SSID and one WEP/WPA Key

The central router should serve as gateway / DHCP Server etc. The AP/switches should serve only as "1st/2nd floor" gateways. All DHCP leases, DNS services etc. should be provided by my main router in the rack.

Considering the wiring I was thinking that each AP/switch would have its own cable connecting it to the main router (WAN port in the AP/switch connecting it to an non-WAN port in the router). Think a classikar Star design.

So here are my questions:

1) Are my requirements reasonable or am I going for something impossible?
2) Is my hardware of choice OK for that?
3) How to implement all of this RouterOS-wise in both the main Router and my Access Points?

Considering (3), I really need an idiot's guide. I am wise enough to admit that I am no networking expert, but I am a quick learner and very opened for your suggestions.

I do this with a combination of a Mikrotik (RB450G) and UBNT Unifi's.

I don't have any experience with Mikrotik and wireless stuff but I guess it can be done as well.

It's easily reachable. Just think about using dual chain devices. Setting is simple: put all interfaces into bridge and set DHCP client for the bridge. Set each wifi to different channel with same ssid.

And what is now the question or the problem?
I was not seeing only one problem in your case!

1) Are my requirements reasonable or am I going for something impossible?

How many clients must be served or should be connected to this network?
How many and what kind of traffic is running through this network especially the WLAN part
of the network? VOIP, surfing, mailing, video, conferencing, downloads, dlna streaming,.........

2) Is my hardware of choice OK for that?

We have a similar network at a client of us but not really so flat like yours!
We where using a MikroTik CCR1036 and some Layer3 Netgear Switches as core switches
and then many more Netgear Layer3 PoE Switches in a switch stack to ad the WLAN APs
and the entire rest of the network.

3) How to implement all of this RouterOS-wise in both the main Router and my Access Points?

Likes you have done it! The RB2011 as the WAN routing point and the WLAN APs for connecting the
customer WLAN devices. But for better speed and better QoS options I would consider to take
between them some managed L2 switches and on top a L3 switch in a so called switch stack.

Considering (3), I really need an idiot's guide. I am wise enough to admit that I am no networking expert, but I am a quick learner and very opened for your suggestions.

See and read some lines above. But related to the entire number of the devices it would be
perhaps better to use more RBs as WLAN APs! Or in shorter words more APs that the APs
would be not slowing down so much.

I do this with a combination of a Mikrotik (RB450G) and UBNT Unifi's.

I don't have any experience with Mikrotik and wireless stuff but I guess it can be done as well.

Tell me about those UBNT Unifi's. Can you answer the following questions?
1) How easy is the management? How do I manage them? Web GUI?
2) How difficult it is to pair them with RouterOS? I am a networking layman, do keep in mind that... Will it work out of the box, or do I need to do a lot of configuring to pair Mikrotik with Unifi?
3) I am assuming that they are pure access points. No DHCP server, no DNS. Is that corrent?

And what is now the question or the problem?
I was not seeing only one problem in your case!

1) Are my requirements reasonable or am I going for something impossible?

How many clients must be served or should be connected to this network?
How many and what kind of traffic is running through this network especially the WLAN part
of the network? VOIP, surfing, mailing, video, conferencing, downloads, dlna streaming,.........

2) Is my hardware of choice OK for that?

We have a similar network at a client of us but not really so flat like yours!
We where using a MikroTik CCR1036 and some Layer3 Netgear Switches as core switches
and then many more Netgear Layer3 PoE Switches in a switch stack to ad the WLAN APs
and the entire rest of the network.

3) How to implement all of this RouterOS-wise in both the main Router and my Access Points?

Likes you have done it! The RB2011 as the WAN routing point and the WLAN APs for connecting the
customer WLAN devices. But for better speed and better QoS options I would consider to take
between them some managed L2 switches and on top a L3 switch in a so called switch stack.

Thanks for the reply.

My use case is very basic. We have 4 laptops, 2 mobile phones, 2 tablets, 1 NAS, 1 console, 1 TV all connected to the network either wireless or by cable. We do website surfing and mailing mostly, but we also have a lot of DLNA streaming from our NAS and we stream from Netflix/Amazon/Hulu a lot. We use our curent Mikrotik as an OpenVPN gateway so that we can use USA-only services (PS3's traffic always is routed via VPN on our RB951).

Since we will be moving from our apartment to a house, I want to design the network now the proper way. Current setup is:
- RB951-2HnD as the "brains" and sole WLAN Access Point
- two 10€-switches to provide more ethernet ports than our RB provides.

So crap, but it holds the traffic and nobody is complaining

Can you tell me why would I need Layer2/Layer3 switches? What is the benefit there? Did I understand your suggestion correctly? I would have:
1) Rourerboard as the "brains" in my rack
2) A Layer 3 switch connected to the "brains" in the rack
2) A Layer 2 switch on each floor in my house connected to my Layer 3 switch in the rack?
3) Ethernet sockets and access points connected to my respecive Layer 2 switches?

What would be the benefit of this architecture?
Would I have to "manage" the switches in any way or do they work like on PnP principle? I want to stress the fact that the RouterBoard Brains should be the only DHCP server at home.

It's easily reachable. Just think about using dual chain devices. Setting is simple: put all interfaces into bridge and set DHCP client for the bridge. Set each wifi to different channel with same ssid.

Hi jarda,

can you provide a guide for routeros-dummies? I was thinking about something in terms of:
1. In the main Routerboard go to option [NAME], select [NAME] and set it to [BLABLA].
2. In each Access point go to [NAME] and do [THINGS]

RouterOS script will also do fine for me. I just don't understand what you mean by saying "put all interfaces into bridge" ... Were you talking about ethernet and wlan interfaces in my access point? So many questions....

1) How easy is the management? How do I manage them? Web GUI?

Free controller software for central management (including ticket/voucher based access) is included. You can install this on any laptop (or even in the cloud) - it only needs to be running for configuration unless you need guest services. This is all done via a simple webinterface. Once you defined the setup, all you need to do when buying new AP's is plug them in, and click on adopt in the webinterface.

2) How difficult it is to pair them with RouterOS? I am a networking layman, do keep in mind that... Will it work out of the box, or do I need to do a lot of configuring to pair Mikrotik with Unifi?

AP's are transparent... so there's nothing to pair with RouterOS. You'll only need configuration in RouterOS if you define multiple SSID's on them like internal, guest, mobile devices, ... (as they probably need to go in different VLAN's).

3) I am assuming that they are pure access points. No DHCP server, no DNS. Is that corrent?

Indeed... but that's the way how I prefer it... use the correct tools for the right job.

It's easily reachable. Just think about using dual chain devices. Setting is simple: put all interfaces into bridge and set DHCP client for the bridge. Set each wifi to different channel with same ssid.

Hi jarda,

can you provide a guide for routeros-dummies? I was thinking about something in terms of:
1. In the main Routerboard go to option [NAME], select [NAME] and set it to [BLABLA].
2. In each Access point go to [NAME] and do [THINGS]

RouterOS script will also do fine for me. I just don't understand what you mean by saying "put all interfaces into bridge" ... Were you talking about ethernet and wlan interfaces in my access point? So many questions....

Hi,
I will try to give you some guidlines, but you have to think about what are you doing, so do not blindly follow without thinking about your environment...

I expect you are familiar with winbox and you can at least read the configuration from your contemporary RB2011.

So the approach suggested by me was to use your RB951s as bridges/aps when no additional configuration (maybe fixed mac-ip binding in DHCP server, if you would like to have aligned IPs somehow) would be necessary.

So the steps:
1) reset the RB951 without loading defaults. http://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Manual:Co ... tion_Reset
2) Log in via mac (as there will be no ip address assigned to device).
3) Create bridge with all ports (ether1 - ether5 and WLAN1) http://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Manual:Interface/Bridge
by pressing + in bridge menu, just check the ARP is enabled and hit OK. The bridge1 will be added. Then assign all the ports in the second tab "ports" of bridge window to the bridge.
4) Switch on the DHCP client on the bridge http://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Manual:IP/DHCP_Client
go to ip - dhcp client and press +. select interface bridge1, mark both ticks (DNS, NTP), add default route yes, distance 0 and hit OK.
5) Connect the RB951 by any port via wire to RB2011. It should get IP address.
6) Go to the RB2011 and read how the wifi AP is set and replicate the setting to the RB951, just use different non overlapping channel - If you use ch1 on RB2011, use ch6 on RB951 and for next RB951 use ch13 or ch14 (depends on your local law regulation).

Now you can roam between the APs - your mobile/notebook should select the best signal and connect to the closest AP). You can also connect whatever device to whatever port of RB2951 and it will behave like connected to RB2011 directly.

after the placing all the rb951s at their places you should walk around and check the signals. Maybe some power attenuation would be necessary to set in case you see too much signal of more APs at one place. But this is something that has to be done on place and cannot be forseen as it depends on your environment.

Good luck.

Thanks for all of your replies guys. I will keep you posted once I am done

Your plans seem smart to me.

I have a 2011 on DSL with many public IP's. Then I also have a 750GL on Cable. For wireless, I use a 951 as an access point to the 750GL. Also, I connect the 2011 and 750GL with a so called 'backbone' cable and enjoy one LAN. Don't have failover working because the DSL has public IP's and the cable is consumer grade.

I am trying to get streaming going from VPN provider HideMyAss.com.

But don't know how to get the OpenVPN configuration done. The PPTP config just does't work no matter how hard I try.

Your plans seem smart to me.

I have a 2011 on DSL with many public IP's. Then I also have a 750GL on Cable. For wireless, I use a 951 as an access point to the 750GL. Also, I connect the 2011 and 750GL with a so called 'backbone' cable and enjoy one LAN. Don't have failover working because the DSL has public IP's and the cable is consumer grade.

I am trying to get streaming going from VPN provider HideMyAss.com.

But don't know how to get the OpenVPN configuration done. The PPTP config just does't work no matter how hard I try.

Have you tried this instruction?

https://support.hidemyass.com/hc/en-us/ ... nVPN-setup

Thanks for that link. I will try it and post a progress report.