Problem 1)
Both seem to have been flashed successfully. I flashed both independently plugged direct into my laptop.
I have a MicroTik hAP lite designated as "KF7BWS-Shack" and connected to port 4 is a Ubiquiti Litebeam M5 designated as "KF7BWS-QTH-Tower". Plugged into port 2 of KF7BWS-Shack is my laptop.
On KF7BWS-QTH-Tower I have Changed the LAN port to NAT manually put in an address from the DHCP pool address and SUB Net Mask of KF7BWS-Shack and turned off DHCP. My laptop gets its IP using DHCP from KF7BWS-Shack. I can access both from my Laptop, a good thing. Whatever I tried I could not get KF7BWS-QTH-Tower to get its IP from KF7BWS-Shack using DHCP. Neither show up in the others Neighbors List.
Question 1) Is this the proper configuration?
Question 2) If not, what should I do to make it right?
Question 3) If I have set it up correctly, How do I get the MAC address of KF7BWS-QTH-Tower to put into the DHCP address reservations of KF7BWS-Shack?
Problem 2)
The Ubiquiti Litebeam M5 "KF7BWS-QTH-Tower" light for the RF radio never turns on. When I do a scan nothing ever shows up. I am concerned that the radio is not working. Before flashing I tested the unit and I could scan and get hundreds of nodes in my area.
Question 1) How do I test that the radio is working?
Question 2) If the radio is not working what do I do to fix it.
Both seem to have been flashed successfully. I flashed both independently plugged direct into my laptop.
I have a MicroTik hAP lite designated as "KF7BWS-Shack" and connected to port 4 is a Ubiquiti Litebeam M5 designated as "KF7BWS-QTH-Tower". Plugged into port 2 of KF7BWS-Shack is my laptop.
On KF7BWS-QTH-Tower I have Changed the LAN port to NAT manually put in an address from the DHCP pool address and SUB Net Mask of KF7BWS-Shack and turned off DHCP. My laptop gets its IP using DHCP from KF7BWS-Shack. I can access both from my Laptop, a good thing. Whatever I tried I could not get KF7BWS-QTH-Tower to get its IP from KF7BWS-Shack using DHCP. Neither show up in the others Neighbors List.
Question 1) Is this the proper configuration?
Question 2) If not, what should I do to make it right?
Question 3) If I have set it up correctly, How do I get the MAC address of KF7BWS-QTH-Tower to put into the DHCP address reservations of KF7BWS-Shack?
Problem 2)
The Ubiquiti Litebeam M5 "KF7BWS-QTH-Tower" light for the RF radio never turns on. When I do a scan nothing ever shows up. I am concerned that the radio is not working. Before flashing I tested the unit and I could scan and get hundreds of nodes in my area.
Question 1) How do I test that the radio is working?
Question 2) If the radio is not working what do I do to fix it.
All AREDN devices are routers which by design have a unique address derived from the MAC number. This allows the devices to join and coexist in any adhoc setting. Further, each AREDN device by default is designed to act as a DHCP host for LAN devices connected to it. This subnet and LAN addresses based on the original host device address are also unique.
Each mesh device then creates an IP table which is shared with the rest of the network. When OLSR updates all of the IP tables are propagated through the network.
This is different from the stock firmware which depends on a configuration and assigment of addresses from a central host controller. In that case an IT professional sets up all the unique addresses in advance-using either DHCP or static addresses. You will always run into trouble if addresses are not unique or if more than one DNS is active on the same network.
OLSR uses a VLAN system to separate the DNS hosts so they don't fight for assigning addresses. Your hAP ac lite WAN port 1 gets a DHCP address using VLAN1 from your home router DNS. (Sometimes this is best reserved and set as manual, especially if you want to act as a tunnel server.) The mesh radios on VLAN1 using DHCP route the traffic to their LAN devices. The hAP assigns unique LAN addresses by DHCP to devices on ports 2,3,4.
You use VLAN2 to connect two AREDN radios physically DtD. Port 5 has VLAN2 enabled, as well as a 24v PoE passthrough set in the advanced setup menu. This is very convenient as a single cable connects the power and joins the two mesh radios-but they will still have unique address spaces. Port 5 doesn't give LAN addresses to ports 2,3,4-that is the job of the hAP. In fact, The LiteBeam really won't have a way to add devices to it's own LAN in this configuration. A Nanostation M5 has a secondary port on it. In that case, a device could be added to the LAN on that port.
Now, knowing the OLSR design idea, it wouldn't make sense to put an AREDN node with DHCP host enabled on the same LAN as another node.
Let each node function independently and utilize VLAN2 when joined directly, and there will be no address conflicts.
It is possible for two mesh devices to be connected together by joining their LAN ports directly, or via a switch, but you should turn off the DHCP host on one of the radios. This was probably part of your problem. Also the LAN ports don't supply power to the nodes.
Using NAT and port forwarding, you can do some unique setups to deal with device specific server needs, but when starting out, just go with the standard interoperable DHCP design and make sure everything is working first. There is a great danger of duplicating addresses if you assign your own static IPs. This will either slow or break the system as DNS lookups fail.
To test your Litebeam M5, use the wall wart on a DC/AC inverter in a portable setup to make a network connection using the standard direct host 5, plugging your PC into its LAN port. Drive to a known 5GHz access point, do a wifi scan on 10 Mhz, change to the correct channel, and join the mesh network. (I can help you with this, as you live in Oregon near me.) Or have someone drive over and connect to you.
73, and see you on the mesh,
Brett, KG7GDB