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syadnom
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mesh behaving badly, ethernet stuck on outside

Sat Oct 19, 2019 1:47 am

I have a small mesh I'm testing on. 2 hAP AC2 and 1 hAP lite.
hAP AC2 'A'
hAP AC2 'B'
hAP lite 'C'

a single mesh identical and default settings on all, A set to mesh portal.

All 3 have Ap Bridge configured on 2.4Ghz with dynamic WDS and the mesh interface as the WDS target.
A & B have 5Ghz configured the same way.

A & B have an ethernet connected on ether5 which is not part of any bridge etc, but added to the mesh.

ether5 on both A & B basically refuses to work. It either doesn't show up in the FDB, or when it does it's stuck on 'outsider'

The cable is good, negotiates at 1G etc. Only if I disable the Wireless interfaces can I force traffic to go agree ether5.

ether5 has a cost of 10, the5Ghz wds interfaces all come in with 50 or 60.

traffic never automatically migrates to lower cost interfaces. Only disabling an interface will move the traffic. Seems to completely ignore cost.

I just don't get what isn't working right.
 
Zacharias
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Re: mesh behaving badly, ethernet stuck on outside

Sat Oct 19, 2019 5:52 pm

I was never satisfied with how mesh works...
Also because mesh involves repeating you have loss in bandwidth which is really bad...

I would suggest you use a non mesh configuration that does not involve repeating...

For example the new MikroTik Audience AP does mesh but without using any repeating...
 
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Re: mesh behaving badly, ethernet stuck on outside

Sat Oct 19, 2019 6:31 pm

I was never satisfied with how mesh works...
Also because mesh involves repeating you have loss in bandwidth which is really bad...
I would suggest you use a non mesh configuration that does not involve repeating...
For example the new MikroTik Audience AP does mesh but without using any repeating...
the classic way a MESH network works is that it sees every device on a network directly connected to every other device without the use of a central router or. Switch .... so each Mesh Capable Access Point must have the intelligence to work cooperatively and there is no rebroadcasting taking place so no loss in bandwidth ... in Mikrotik’s implementation I have no idea how THAT chain chain of gear looks like when a Router/Switch is used. the principle advantage of mesh networks is their resilience. Mesh networks do not have a single point of failure, meaning that there is no chance of an individual device failure bringing the whole network down. This contrasts with regular hub-type networks, where a failure in a central router or switch could cut large parts of the network off from each other. Repeaters, on the other hand, do not increase a network's resilience. If the router or access point broadcasting the original wireless signal goes down, all repeaters on the network will be affected.
IMO, MikroTik need to clearly define the MikroTik MESH topology ... in my opinion MikroTik have not done that with the Audience Mesh.
 
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Re: mesh behaving badly, ethernet stuck on outside

Sun Oct 20, 2019 4:38 pm

In the following MikroTik Wiki MESH is described as Interface/HWMPplus
What would be very helpful from my perceptive is for MikroTik to illustrate Audience Mesh utilizing HWMPplus as part as parcel of the illustrations offered.
 
syadnom
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Re: mesh behaving badly, ethernet stuck on outside

Sun Oct 20, 2019 5:47 pm

I believe that Audience is simply putting the 3rd WiFi interface in WDS dynamic mesh with WDS bridged to an HWMP+ mesh and letting it run.

What I found is that putting the ethernet port in as a WDS interface cures the problem of it not being part of the mesh.

The problem is that this implementation of HWMP+ lacks a LOT of what's needed to make a functional mesh.

For instance, there is no interface hopping, so effectively no point in a 2 radio mesh that alternates interfaces to avoid the 50% hop penalty. That's a big problem as routeros doesn't seem to have any mechanism to accomplish this with the mesh.

So this is really only useful as a WiFi repeater. The 'mesh' is just a fancy RSTP replacement for a very small network.

And judging by how little interest there is but mikrotik staff in the mesh questions in the forums, I double this will get changed anytime soon.

What would be best is to pull in batman-adv as an interface type and allow WDS to add to the batman interface. A key need here would be a bridge in a bridge though. Ie, bridge1 includes ether1 and batmanadv1, and batmanadv1 includes WDS*.
 
Zacharias
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Re: mesh behaving badly, ethernet stuck on outside

Sun Oct 20, 2019 5:49 pm

Audience does not use classic MESH with repeating...!
Its better than that...!
 
syadnom
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Re: mesh behaving badly, ethernet stuck on outside

Sun Oct 20, 2019 6:09 pm

Audience does not use classic MESH with repeating...!
Its better than that...!
ok... then export the config from audience and show me that it doesn't have that radio just shoved into the mesh interface.
 
Zacharias
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Re: mesh behaving badly, ethernet stuck on outside

Sun Oct 20, 2019 6:38 pm

Buy one and see by your self...

Or you can read here viewtopic.php?f=7&t=152628
 
syadnom
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Re: mesh behaving badly, ethernet stuck on outside

Sun Oct 20, 2019 6:52 pm

Buy one and see by your self...

Or you can read here viewtopic.php?f=7&t=152628
I'm looking directly at a config a friend of mine posted and it sure looks like the mesh is HWMP+ just like I stated above. I don't need one of these and I can't really find a place for an indoor mesh at the moment because everything is wired so I'm not going to purchase one just out of curiosity, they are a little spendy.
 
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Re: mesh behaving badly, ethernet stuck on outside

Sun Oct 20, 2019 9:35 pm

Audience does not use classic MESH with repeating...!
Its better than that...!
Classic Mesh does NOT use repeating period.
 
syadnom
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Re: mesh behaving badly, ethernet stuck on outside

Sun Oct 20, 2019 10:27 pm

Audience does not use classic MESH with repeating...!
Its better than that...!
Classic Mesh does NOT use repeating period.
be careful not to get into the weeds on a 'repeater'. HWMP+ mesh 'repeats' the ethernet frames through the HWMP+ forwarding mechanism, but it doesn't use 802.11 repeating where the frames stay in the wireless chip's buffers.

For the end user, no difference.

And audience as well as HWMP+ work just like a WiFi repeater would except that the signal repeating is done on a dedicated radio. That's better if it's a single hop (ie, there are just 2 audience nodes) but as soon as a client is on a third node it's a direct analog to a classic 802.11 repeater because the middle node is half duplex. ALL single (half duplex) radio meshes MUST operate this way.
 
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Re: mesh behaving badly, ethernet stuck on outside

Mon Oct 21, 2019 6:10 pm

This contrasts with regular hub-type networks, where a failure in a central router or switch could cut large parts of the network off from each other. Repeaters, on the other hand, do not increase a network's resilience. If the router or access point broadcasting the original wireless signal goes down, all repeaters on the network will be affected.
In a home, where there are 1-2 extra repeater/mesh nodes, that's effectively not true. The 'mesh' nodes don't have enough neighbors to self-heal so it's so similar to a repeater from a users perspective they should be called repeaters.
 
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mozerd
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Re: mesh behaving badly, ethernet stuck on outside

Mon Oct 21, 2019 8:18 pm

This contrasts with regular hub-type networks, where a failure in a central router or switch could cut large parts of the network off from each other. Repeaters, on the other hand, do not increase a network's resilience. If the router or access point broadcasting the original wireless signal goes down, all repeaters on the network will be affected.
In a home, where there are 1-2 extra repeater/mesh nodes, that's effectively not true. The 'mesh' nodes don't have enough neighbors to self-heal so it's so similar to a repeater from a users perspective they should be called repeaters.
I do not happen to agree with your POV. Anyone can define their understanding of mesh net .. I stand by how the industry has done .... Perhaps one day Mesh interoperability between vendors will become a reality but for now many run their own propriety systems and then bastardize the concept of classic mesh.

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