Wireless bridge [solved with WDS]

Pea · Tue Jan 26, 2016 12:42 am

I need your help and advice for probably very simple setup:

1) I have configured router RB951G-2HnD doing the entire job (PPPoE to VDSL, NAT, DHCP, DNS, firewall, ipv6, wireless AP 802.11n, etc.).
2) Now I want to connect new RB941-2nD-TC (hAP lite) to my wireless AP and share this connection to its 4 LAN ports.

Just that simple

But no idea how to do that

All the services should be still managed by RB951G-2HnD.
And the RB941-2nD-TC should act as dumb switch connected as wireless client to AP. But should not create second AP, no second NAT, no different subnet, etc.

How to change factory default setup on hAP lite for this?

Tue Jan 26, 2016 7:09 am

Remove config. Create bridge. Put all ports wlan including to the bridge. Set dhcp client on the bridge. Set wlan in station bridge mode and connect it to Ap. That's all.

Pea · Sat Jan 30, 2016 4:45 pm

Thank you for pointing me to direction to find solution. I had time today to play and test.
However I didn't get "station bridge" working. I got permanent log for 4-way handshake timeout (15) and no connection at all.

And I started to search what can be the cause of this problem. As far as I understand there was problem using WPA2 dynamic keys or whatever.
But I want to use WPA2-AES only on my AP.
Anyway my searching ended with different solution config using WDS.

My solution:

1) updated settings on RB951G-2HnD router (only the changes I add to my working config)

/interface wireless
set [ find default-name=wlan1 ] distance=indoors mode=ap-bridge wds-default-bridge=bridge-local wds-mode=static-mesh

/interface wireless wds
add disabled=no master-interface=wlan1 name=wds wds-address=AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF

AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF => WLAN MAC address from hAP
The wds-mode=static-mesh was recommended on forum instead of just wds-mode=static.

2) settings on RB941-2nD-TC (hAP)
Basically remove all the default config (DHCP server, NAT, firewall, DNS) keeping just wireless, bridge and DHCP client on bridge-local
And modify this settings:

/interface wireless
set [ find default-name=wlan1 ] distance=indoors frequency=auto mode=station-wds

/interface wireless security-profiles
set [ find default=yes ] authentication-types=wpa2-psk eap-methods="" mode=dynamic-keys wpa2-pre-shared-key="hereAPpassword"

/system ntp client
set enabled=yes

And it is working very well, at least so far

Everything connected to hAP LAN ports act same way as directly connected to the router.
I hope this settings makes sense and is somehow correct and secure

Sat Jan 30, 2016 5:51 pm

Good job getting it rolling. I'd think that you could also use wds-mode=dynamic and remove the static WDS interface.
It would end up doing the same thing, but allow you to add more client bridges without needing to provision them in the AP.

Just a thought.

Pea · Sat Jan 30, 2016 11:09 pm

I had originally wds-mode=dynamic, it was working fine.
But I failed many times to get right config, even once I must netinstall hAP

And after each restart or disconnect there was created interface wds2, wds3, ...wds28....
I just do not like this much, so I switched to static

My plan is to have only one permanently connected device so if there is nothing really wrong with my config I will keep it for now.

scampbell · Tue Feb 02, 2016 11:52 am

Ap-bridge mode to station-bridge is definitely the best way to do a transparent bridge over wireless.

WDS has throughout issues on Wireless N. It works but not as well as station-bridge.

Pea · Wed Feb 03, 2016 1:13 am

As I described the "station-bridge" was not working for me. The reason stays unknown to me, there was no connection which always show in log as 4-way handshake timeout (15).

The WDS connection works from beginning excellently, perfectly suits my needs to share LAN ports connected wireless to my AP
(signal runs through few rooms and one floor, luckily my wifi is the only one in area

):