All-
We're rolling out a mesh here in Southern Arizona- We are planning to have a majority of our nodes Ubiquiti, however we have a large number of Linksys nodes that we will be relegating to "in the house" resourse management type work... As such, I've been trying to get DtD working without much luck.
I'm trying to tie the "In house" Linksys mesh to the Ubiquiti Southern AZ Mesh.
Ubiquiti Bullet into a Microtik RB260GSP
- Port 1 Internet
- Port 2 UBNT Bullet (K7BUM-QTH)
- Ports 3, 4, 5 for devices to be given DHCP addresses
Linksys WRT54GS + 3x WRT54G
- The SSIDs is different than the Ubiquiti Mesh (I don't want traffic over RF, plus it will go away when we switch to Channel -2)
I have enabled the DtD on the WRT54GS by following the procedure found:
http://bloodhound.aredn.org/products/AREDN/wiki/HowTo/Enable%20DTDLINK%2...
I have looked at the Ubiquiti example found at this link:
http://www.aredn.org/content/device-device-linking-dtdlink
Disabled DHCP on the WAN port of the LInksys (actually tried both On or Off- No difference)
I'm hooking Port 4 of the Microtik to the "Internet" port of the Linksys.
If I have DHCP turned on the WAN port, I do get a correct IP address from the Bullet.
Any help will certainly be appreciated... I'm an enterprise storage and data protection admin by trade... I'm OK at basic networking, but I'm learning the VLAN stuff...
Thanks-
Mike, K7BUM
I never got DtD working on my old WRT54GS V2.
Works out of the box on all my UBNT devices.
Mike,
I found better luck when configuring the linksys to have a specific port dedicated only to DtDlink. for example:
option vlan0 "1 2 3 5t"
option vlan2 "4t"
Port 4 is not part of vlan0, but is the only port part of vlan2. (Depending on linksys version, internal port 4 might not be physical port 4 on the back--check openwrt site to know for sure.)
However, I still found linksys hardware to be unpredictable/unstable and ultimately I have a 10-stack sitting in the corner. I tended to stress and do more complex things with them, so maybe your mileage will vary. We're all purchasing AirGateways for $20 now for an AP on the mesh.
Joe AE6XE
Joe-
Looks like we may end up going the AirGateway route... Which model do you recommend for the environment described?
Thanks-
Mike
Mike, put into perspective that these are low end APs and comparable pricing. Typical use would be field deployment without a lot of walls and other noise. There are 3 options: A) $20 internal antenna; B) $35 w/ external antenna; C) Pro model with 2.4/5Ghz internal antenna. These are all single antenna devices, consequently no diversity to handle the more challenging environments--from 18dBm to 23dBm xmit power and 1 dBi to 5 dBi antennas.
These AirGateway devices will work from the shack to your roof--and your existing home wifi performance will give an indication if this is a good fit.
In an EOC type deployment, particularly with multiple floors and walls to cut through, a higher end device or approach will be necessary (and thus $$). Not really a way around this. Our EOC is in a complex with public library and literally 50 APs, one every 50'. We've installed 3 x 8-port netgear GS108E devices--North Roof, South Roof, and Radio Room/EOC with cat5 cables in the building. Through the vlan setup we can have any device on any port at any location be logically connected to any other location and port, e.g. computer in EOC, can be directly on the LAN port of a Rocket M5 on the roof. An AP, of any cost, would not work well in this environment.
I just ordered the 'B' option and have it in my 'go-kit' now. But at the end of the day, if you are hosting critical incident services on computers, I'd recommend using the best AP or mesh node (RF path) available until you can string cat5 to the area coverage node on the roof. The best RF path you can get for the cost in these challenging environments, may be a Ubiquiti or TP-Link in AP mode or it could be in AREDN Mesh mode with a vlan switch to plug in the computers to.
Joe AE6XE
Hello Mike
I'm going to agree with above, using it as an AP rather than a 'mesh node' may be a better option.
With that said, what exactly is the issue your having? I'm a bit confused by the post, you talk about wan (unrelated to DTDLink) and DHCP.
You mention ports to get DHCP addresses, but nothing about where the Linksys is going to be plugged in (it needs ot be plugged into some port that passes VLAN 2 in a tagged format and the Linksys node needs to be configured as in the linked documents.
Can you better elaborate as to the issue your seeing or need to resolve?
Conrad-
My apologies for not being clearer- The diagram that describes the UBNT DtDLink setup had "DHCP OFF" for nodes 2 and 3... I assumed that you connect the Bullet to the port labelled "Internet", which I believe translates to "WAN" in the BBHN software.
What am I trying to accomplish? Connecting the Linksys to the Bullet via RF is spotty (I have a directional antenna on the bullet and stock antennas on the Linksys), Plus, we'll lose the ability to connect RF from the "Backbone" mesh when we make the jump tp Channel -2.
Simply put, I would like to tie my home mesh onto the main mesh... Here's a simple drawing of what I'm trying to so... I think the VLANing is the issue and which port on the Linksys to connect to... I will try the "port 4" idea that Joe suggests.
I appreciate the help!
Mike
To avoid any confusion, port 4 is not the physical WAN port on the back of a LS. There would not need to be be any other change to the default settings on any of the nodes, particularly with DHCP. Bullet is out-of-box defaults, LS only needs the dtdlink surgery, but the config file differences to only put DtDlink on internal port 4. You should be in business.
Apologies for double image.
i think that you will need to plug the Bullet into whichever port on the LS box that you define as VLAN2. (Port 4 as Joe suggests).