Tue Mar 28, 2023 10:40 pm
Just wanted to post the solution I arrived at. I hope this helps someone.
So the solution to setting up an LHG XL 52 ac as a bridge towards an existing WiFi network (AP) was to:
1. Download WinBox
2. Download the latest arm version of RouterOS (version 7.8 in my case)
3. Connect the antenna to my computer via an ethernet cable (with the PoE injector)
4. Make it WinBox detect the antenna. If it doesn't, you can either (a) look in the "Neighbors" tab or (b) set your computer's ethernet port's ipv4 address to a static address such as 192.168.88.100 with a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0 so that it is on the same subnet as the device, and then try again
5. Under Files, upload the RouterOS npk file `routeros-7.8-arm.npk`. Wait for it to finish uploading.
6. Under System -> Reboot, reboot the device. It may take a while. After that, it should have the new version of RouterOS (7.8 in my case)
7. Under System -> RouterBOARD, flash the new firmware (it'll tell you you have a new version available. For me it said I had 7.8 while the current firmware was 6.4). Reboot again. It'll take another while.
8. Once rebooted, it'll probably ask you to change your admin password if it hasn't done that before. Do it and write down the password.
9. Under System -> Reset Configuration, reset the configuration, including users.
10. Once rebooted, it'll ask you to change your admin password again. Do it. You can use the same password as before in step 8.
11. Under Quick Set, select CPE
12. Go to Wireless. You are now in the "Wireless Tables" window. Click on the two different antennas (wlan1 and wlan2). Disable them both using the X button and only enable the one you want to use using the checkmark button next to the X button. In my case, I'm only using the 2.4 GHz one, that's wlan1.
13. Make sure the antenna is pointed at your AP.
14. Double click your selected wlan interface. Now you are in the properties of the interface. In the Wireless section, under Mode, set "station-pseudobridge". Click the Scan button. Click Start. It'll start scanning for APs. (note you can set it to "station bridge" if your AP is also MikroTik, but I haven't done that, so I don't know what else you'd need to configure for that to work; however, if you can, the docs say that's preferable).
15. Double-click (or was it single click?) on the AP of your choice. Select "connect". It might give you an error. Doesn't matter. In the wireless interface's properties, in the Wireless section, check that the SSID is entered correctly. If it isn't, enter it by hand.
16. Next up we need to tell the MikroTik device the PSK (Pre-Shared Key, aka the "wireless password" or "wifi password" or "wlan password"). At first I thought it was done under the NV2 section (easy mistake to make, especially in the web interface), but it's not! NV2 is something completely different and unrelated. What You really need to do is to enter the PSK in the Security Profile.
17. Check what security profile is selected. If you didn't mess around after resetting the configuration in step 9, then the profile will be called "default".
18. Go back to the Wireless Tables window (you can select Wireless on the left). Click the Security Profiles section. Double click on `default`.
19. Under General, set it like this: Mode - dynamic keys; Authentication types - check only WPA2-PSK (unless you know for a fact your AP only uses WPA-PSK and not WPA2-PSK, but that's ancient). Enter your PSK below where it says WPA2 Pre-Shared Key. Press OK.
20. Now you should see your wireless card try to connect to the AP. in the Wireless Tables window, scroll to the right to the Tx and Rx columns. You should be seeing some activity there.
Once that's done, you should be able to set your computer's ethernet port to use DHCP and acquire an IP address from your AP. That's all.
As an extra you can try to set up a DHCP client on your LHG XL 52 ac, so it gets an IP address from your AP, but I've tried that and it didn't work so *shrug* I just connect to it with WinBox via the mac address protocol.