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nurber3
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Range extender using MAC authentication config on Internet router ?

Wed Mar 22, 2023 5:56 am

Hi forum. I'm trying to use Mikrotik hAP ac3 as a range extender for an Internet hotspot that is using MAC authentication. I've tried several configurations using RouterOS 7.6 all mostly gleaned from "Range Extender" videos not using MAC authentication so feel my problem lies there. Are there any howtos or can somebody provide a configuration that should work for such a config ?
 
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mkx
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Re: Range extender using MAC authentication config on Internet router ?

Wed Mar 22, 2023 8:37 am

Range extending, a.k.a. wireless bridge, comes with huge bag of problems. It's due to lack of standardization, so it's not really vendor specific, but it means that problems are likely when using equipment from different vendors. You can read more about problems in wireless station modes manual page. A side note: wifiwave2 driver doesn't support 4-address-mode (yet), so there lies another possibility for things to fail.

In short: unless things align almost miraculously, the setup is not going to work.
 
nurber3
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Re: Range extender using MAC authentication config on Internet router ?

Thu Mar 23, 2023 5:11 pm

Thanks, helpful to know about these limits. Rather than bridging what about routing with NAT Masquerade while ensuring that source MAC is always that which is required for authentication by Internet AP that I'm looking to extend ?
 
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mkx
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Re: Range extender using MAC authentication config on Internet router ?

Thu Mar 23, 2023 7:40 pm

If you configure hAP ac3 as station, then you can set MAC address of wireless interface to something ISP's wireless router recognizes and allows.

If you otherwise keep default config of device, then there are only a few changes necessary:
  1. remove correct wireless interface from list of bridge ports
  2. configure it in station mode, set desired MAC address, correct SSID and PSK. Keep frequency set to auto.
  3. add DHCP client to wireless interface
  4. add wireless interface to WAN interface list
  5. remove ether1 from WAN interface lust
  6. remove DHCP client from ether1 interface
  7. add ether1 interface to list of bridge ports

Steps 5-7 are optional and convert ether1 to a normal LAN port. After step #4 your hAP ac3 will give internet access to clients connected via LAN ports (ether2-ether5 and the other wireless interface) by doing NAT ...

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