WDS for distributed network delivery

Q: Hi,

Could you please advise on how I can set up 2 RB-751u’s as access points, i.e:

-          First devices receives the connection from the network and acting as a switch port ( distributes the connection from the Network to all the other ports 2,3,4)

-          Second device would be in air-bridge mode ( Wireless bridge modem to the first) i.e. will connect to the same SSID on the first one and supply internet access to the computers connected to it via wireless or directly

If you could please suggest the best way to deploy the devices in this scenario


A: To make ports into ‘switch’ port, just set ‘master port’ property of the relevant ethernet port to bind it to the relevant master.


Alternatively, create a bridge interface, then use ‘bridge ports’ to add each ethernet (and wireless) interface into the bridge group.

 

I am not certain what you mean by ‘air bridge’, but I suspect that you may be thinking about ‘WDS’ mode.  With WDS, the second wireless AP acts like a ‘repeater’ for the master AP.  You can also bridge the ethernet ports on the wds repeater to the same broadcast domain:

 

On master AP:

1.       click ‘bridge’, click ‘+’ (add) click ‘OK’

2.       select ‘ports’ tab, click ‘+’ select ‘bridge1’ for bridge, ‘wlan1’ for interface

3.       still on ‘ports’ tab add all other ethernet interfaces to the bridge group

4.       click wireless, double-click wlan1.  

5.       Select ‘wireless’ tab, then select “ap-bridge” mode, set SSID and select channel

6.       Select ‘WDS’ tab, select ‘dynamic wds’ then select ‘bridge1’ as wds default bridge.

 

On slave AP:

1.       click ‘bridge’, click ‘+’ (add) click ‘OK’

2.       select ‘ports’ tab, click ‘+’ select ‘bridge1’ for bridge, ‘wlan1’ for interface

3.       still on ‘ports’ tab add all other ethernet interfaces to the bridge group

4.       click wireless, double-click wlan1.  

5.       Select ‘wireless’ tab, then select “wds-slave” mode, set SSID and select channel

6.       Select ‘WDS’ tab, select ‘dynamic wds’ then select ‘bridge1’ as wds default bridge.

 

Note: DO NOT connect both APs to the same physical network using this configuration – you will end up with a bridge forwarding loop and probably crash your network! ;-)

 

If you do need to connect both APs to the same wired LAN, you will need to do it a slightly different way - contact us for more details!