I will have (once it arrives) a Mikroptik hAP AC router on the first floor with 4 connected ethernet ports. The first one will go to wAP on the second floor, the second will go to one of the PCs, the 3rd will go to a switch that separates Internet TV console and a laptop (done to minimize lag on the tv when someone's using internet) and the 4th one will go to my (main) PC on the second floor. My PC is connected to a shared printer and scanner via USB for now, but I plan to swap them for a WiFi printer+scanner solution sometime this year. Both the router on the first floow and wAP on the second floor will support 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz WiFi.
My aim is to have a single SSID WiFi network to which any device may connect through EITHER wAP OR hAP AC. That last one is the tricky part. Most devices these days can select to which physical WiFi antenna they connect based on signal strength, interference and so on, and those that can't will just connect to the first one they see, so that's not a problem. The problem is that the wAP must relay DHCP, DNS, etc. requests to hAP AC, but according to my experience with the current RB951Ui-2HnD, when those devices subsequently switch to the RB951 after having been connected to the wAP, the RB951 does not recognize them (even though it was the one that gave them the IP addresses in the first place), and does the whole DHCP leasing again, which makes it quickly run out of DHCP pool. Thats not the only problem - for some reason DNS lookup through the wAP is also horribly slow when connected to the 5Ghz antenna, even though both 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz are on the same bridge.
I am not completely new to networking (I have CCNA1 & 2 training), but I am still quite a noob, and I think I am doing something wrong with the bridging. Can someone advise me what are the steps needed to achieve what I want to do. Heres a recap or my requirements:
- Have a dual mode 2.4/5Ghz WiFi network with same SSID/password
- Have that network propagated by two devices: hAP AC and wAP(connected to hAP AC ethernet0)
- Have that wifi network bridged with the wired devices at hAP's ports eth1(switch + tv console + pc), eth2(pc) and eth3(pc). That is, they should all use the same DHCP pool.
- Allow client devices to seamlessly switch between hAP and wAP based on signal strength
UPDATE: I figured it out thanks to the suggestions below. Scroll down to see how.