I guess I'd say try switch mode, but I think a 2011 has two different
switch groups so you'd still need to bridge the two switches together if
I recall correctly (but maybe I don't). Maybe you could do that and
tell him to only use the gigabit ports.
I wonder if a packet capture could confirm the duplicate traffic
theory. Sounds plausible though.
On 10/22/2015 12:00 PM, Ken Hohhof wrote:
My takeway from this post is tell the customer to only join one
network with each device, add more at their own peril.
Thinking you can dictate to customers what they buy at Best Buy and
install in their house is unrealistic. Unless you want to be the
Seinfeld Soup Nazi.
In this case, we followed our standard policy which is we only support
routers you lease from us, which will be a managed Mikrotik. In this
case the customer wanted 2 wireless access points in the house despite
our advice that it was overkill, and wanted to own those not lease
from us. So they bought from the store and were informed the demarc is
the Mikrotik.
The problem of course is that all problems are Internet problems.
Until proven otherwise. Everything from the server to the eyeball is
our problem, at least until we can point the finger elsewhere.
And in this case, since I am responsible for the Mikrotik, I want to
make sure that a bridge ageing timeout of 5 minutes isn’t part of the
problem, when clients can roam between bridge ports.
The last thing I want to do is install a Unifi system for this
customer, then I would be complicit in his nightmare network and
obliged to make it work.
*From:* Eric Kuhnke <mailto:[email protected]>
*Sent:* Thursday, October 22, 2015 9:56 AM
*To:* [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
*Subject:* Re: [AFMUG] 2 wireless APs on bridged Mikrotik ports
I don't understand why anyone would voluntarily take responsibility
for managing netgear crap... If you're going to have a residential
customer you can take two approaches:
1) "Here is the demarc. Plug you 100BaseTX or 1000BaseT thing in here
and you will get a DHCP address. Your router and your home LAN is
entirely your responsibility"
or
2) Full managed network where you control the SOHO router.
On Thu, Oct 22, 2015 at 7:22 AM, Jason Pond <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Ken,
If you are going to manage the network then manage the whole
network. As Steve said you do need to be using the right
product. The problem is between the netgear devices and the
Customer WiFi devices. Having them have ALL 4 SSID's in their
device and it being able to see them all at the same time is
causing the problem. We see this frequently from netgear dual
band routers when the client connects to both 2G ang 5G networks.
Unifi is one of the better solution that is affordable on the
market today. I use it in my house (which does require 2 ap's for
coverage) and it works great. I can stream music or watch video
through the whole house and not miss a beat when my device
switches AP's and it is all the same SSID so less confusion on the
customer side of things.
This problem is getting worse and worse with dual band routers and
I see it a lot with Netgear products.
Sincerely,
Jason Pond
On Thu, Oct 22, 2015 at 8:12 AM, Ken Hohhof <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
What we have here is a failure to communicate? I’m not
understanding Josh’s suggestion, you mean do 4 SSIDs?
Currently WAP1 has SSIDs Office and Office-5G. WAP2 has SSIDs
TVRoom and TVRoom-5G. So there are already 4 SSIDs.
But each WAP is fed from an Ethernet port on the Mikrotik. And
when a wireless client moves between WAPs, it is moving
between Mikrotik ports. I believe the 5 minute ageing time on
the Mikrotik bridge means that MAC address persists on the
original port for 5 minutes after it has appeared on another
port. Maybe I’m wrong about this, but that’s what appears to
be happening. The Bridge table shows the MAC address only on
one port, but the traffic makes me believe it is actually
being flooded to both ports. This doesn’t really seem right
to me. On a switch, I would expect a MAC address to move
pretty quickly to the new port, or if it isn’t in the table at
all, to be flooded to all ports.
And yes I don’t think the customer needs 2 WAPs to cover his
house, but the customer is always right. And the Mikrotik is
leased/managed, the Netgears he owns. But I get sucked into
it because ... well, do I really have to explain?
*From:* Paul McCall <mailto:[email protected]>
*Sent:* Thursday, October 22, 2015 8:37 AM
*To:* [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
*Subject:* Re: [AFMUG] 2 wireless APs on bridged Mikrotik ports
+1 on Josh’s suggestions
*From:*Af [mailto:[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>] *On Behalf Of *Josh Luthman
*Sent:* Thursday, October 22, 2015 9:27 AM
*To:* [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
*Subject:* Re: [AFMUG] 2 wireless APs on bridged Mikrotik ports
Nope, you already have my suggestion.
Can you try your idea of a 10s timeout?
Josh Luthman
Office: 937-552-2340 <tel:937-552-2340>
Direct: 937-552-2343 <tel:937-552-2343>
1100 Wayne St
Suite 1337
Troy, OH 45373
On Oct 22, 2015 12:28 AM, "Ken Hohhof" <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
There are 4 SSIDs. But customer has each device “join” each
SSID. I expected the devices to pick one SSID and stay with
it down to 1 bar, but they seem very fickle.
Or are you saying make all the SSIDs the same? I don’t think
it matters, there are 4 wireless networks, even if they are
all named the same.
*From:*Josh Luthman <mailto:[email protected]>
*Sent:*Wednesday, October 21, 2015 11:03 PM
*To:*[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
*Subject:*Re: [AFMUG] 2 wireless APs on bridged Mikrotik ports
Why not do 4 SSIDs? Add the profiles once and then done.
I think your issue is probably the APs, not the bridge/switch
part but it doesn't really help.
Josh Luthman
Office: 937-552-2340 <tel:937-552-2340>
Direct: 937-552-2343 <tel:937-552-2343>
1100 Wayne St
Suite 1337
Troy, OH 45373
On Oct 21, 2015 11:59 PM, "Ken Hohhof" <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
I have a customer who insisted he needed 2 dual band wireless
APs 25 feet apart in his ranch house. So we have a managed
non-WiFi Mikrotik RB2011 in his basement, feeding two Netgear
routers in wireless AP mode. I have the LAN ports bridged
rather than using the switch chips, since there's plenty of
CPU power and it gives more visibility into the traffic.
So counting 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz, the customer has 4 SSIDs and I
think his devices like iPads are jumping back and forth
between networks. And I think bad things are happening
because the bridging table can't keep track of which port the
clients are on. I see weird things like the same amount of
traffic going out the ports to both wireless APs. I never see
a MAC address on both bridge ports, but it is acting like the
Mikrotik is flooding traffic to both ports.
Should I be tweaking parameters like reducing the ageing time
below the default 5 minutes? Should I be using the switch
chips and not bridging?
Is this a typical problem when devices can choose between
multiple APs close together on the same bridged LAN?
