Hello everyone,
I'm playing with WiFi settings and implementation of a small coverage area using 3*hAP AC2.
I have done all configs and enabled CAPsMAN from RB4011 to control those 3 ApPs.
However it's not yet clear to me whether all wireless parameters are managed only through CAPsMAN OR there are other parameters that needs to be managed from local AP.

Like for example I don't see all those settings that you can find in Advanced tab for wireless interface (noise floor setting, etc).
Are those settings supposed to be done prior to add the AP into CAPsMAN, locally stored and then used inside CAPsMAN environment OR simply all of those are lost when using CAPsMAN and you get only a subset of all possible settings ?

Thanks in advance for any clarification.
Armando.

Good question and as far as I know only CAPsMAN settings are used for the CAP's. Meaning there are some settings missing...

Thanks for this piece of info.
So basically if I want the full granularity control over the AP settings I should give up on CAPsMAN and go the traditional way of setting each AP individually, I suppose.

I had that impression, but I was not 100% sure about it.

If the radio is "controlled by caps-man"... That's the only control of the radio and create enabled seems to give you the most control of APs.

If the radio is "controlled by caps-man"... That's the only control of the radio and create enabled seems to give you the most control of APs.

Actually I'm not sure that CAPsMAN gives you the most control.
At least not in term of available options.
For example on the channel selection, in direct mode the AP (on wireless tab) allows to set "Frequency mode" where you can choose super channel to find a better spot on 5GHz, which is not available in CAPsMAN.
Also in advanced tab you can find "Adaptive noise immunity" which is not available on CAPsMAN either.
If the mechanism was that, whatever is not managed by CAPsMAN can be set directly on AP, it would have been fine to supplement additional missing parameters... but it does not seem so.
When using CAPsMAN everything is managed through it, so I don't think all those missing parameters can be set and they most likely take their default values.

Anyway I'm still using CAPsMAN for most of it, but one AP I set it directly because I needed to use a 5GHz channel away from a radar signal and also a nearby AP which is on DFS Ch.100.

Anyway I'm still using CAPsMAN for most of it, but one AP I set it directly because I needed to use a 5GHz channel away from a radar signal and also a nearby AP which is on DFS Ch.100.

Why don't you set frequency from CAPsMAN?

Why don't you set frequency from CAPsMAN?

Yes, I do. I have set all my data including frequencies from CAPsMAN.
The only problem was that it didn't allow for certain channels so far.
But I have played little bit more with the AP in direct config and I have found a combination which allowed me to select one channel outside radar band.
Now I have tried the same combination of parameters with CAPsMAN and it allowed me to select the same channel that I wanted.
From AP settings it's nice that you see all frequencies already being defined like in channels, while in CAPsMAN you have to enter the value.
I guess what I will do I will prepare a table for my reference to associate frequency and channel, so it will be easy in CAPsMAP to select the frequency that is supported.
But still certain parameters are not available in CAPsMAN and I guess I have to live with it.

Armando

Compared to other caps man setting that won't even let you set the channels.

Why don't you set frequency from CAPsMAN?

Yes, I do. I have set all my data including frequencies from CAPsMAN.
The only problem was that it didn't allow for certain channels so far.
But I have played little bit more with the AP in direct config and I have found a combination which allowed me to select one channel outside radar band.
Now I have tried the same combination of parameters with CAPsMAN and it allowed me to select the same channel that I wanted.

Hmm, I have kinda similar problem. I vannot make CAP run on lower four 5Ghz channels via CAPsMAN, but when I ruin it outside CAPsMAnand set it manually it works fine.

From AP settings it's nice that you see all frequencies already being defined like in channels, while in CAPsMAN you have to enter the value.
I guess what I will do I will prepare a table for my reference to associate frequency and channel, so it will be easy in CAPsMAP to select the frequency that is supported.

That's right. I also had to type in channels. CAPsMAN does not offer channel frequencies list as in manual WiFi settings.

I'm currently using the following 5GHz channels: Ch.36, Ch.52 and Ch.149.
The problematic one was Ch.149 that initially was not accepted, but then playing with outdoor/indoor and few other settings, I'm now able to have all those 3 channels active and managed through CAPsMAN.

I have found that it's a waste of my time to trouble shoot caps on the router running caps-man.

Much better results by only controlling external radios.

Much better results by only controlling external radios.

Yes I can see your point and it was the main reason why I have written this post, to understand whether there was any limitation from CAPsMAN vs direct config of each individual AP.
For me, in order to find out the settings needed to achieve the radio setting that I wanted, I had to play directly with the radio, where you can fine tune all parameters.
After that, it was also good to see how easy and scalable CAPsMAN was to define all sub-section with channels and several other parameters.
In term of easy organisation and single point to check the entire setup, CAPsMAN is good as you can provision easily your config.
I had added a 4th AP, only 2GHz and I removed from one dual-band the 2GHz channel to be assigned to this new 2G only AP. I did it with CAPsMAN, by just changing the MAC address of the provisioned AP and all the settings have been transferred to the new AP.
This is good and I guess invaluable for large networks (mine it's just 4 APs, so equally simple to maintain as manual config of each AP) where the centralised provisioning can make a big difference.
However as all centrally managed solution, if you loose the CAPsMAN router, all of your WiFi managed network collapse and you either restore CAPsMAN or reconfigure each AP manually.
I can see the value for CAPsMAN, I can see its limitation and the needs for wise implementation on large scale if you don't want to face issues later on.
But as usual it's good to have several options, learn from them and then decide what's best for you.

Armando

"Caps-man would be awesome... If it controlled better radios."

No way I would do a large or high density install with Caps-Man.

I would route it Mikrotik... But when it comes to wireless... Mikrotik radios are years behind. I just can't justify that when the 2.4 radio stops working.

I was told the problems with my installs were specific to my environment. Problem is... Most of my jobs are in crowded noisy environments.

This limits my Mikrotik wireless jobs to low density low speed installs. As soon as the client has a incoming speed above about 250... Gotta change out the wireless. If they have 2.4 only devices like URC remotes... Connection issues will pop up.

But that wireless wire is awesome! That's Tik to Tik.

I don't have much experience with WiFi using MikroTik gears, so I was not able to see all problems.
My installation is quite simple and "safe", meaning that I was able to define 3 5GHz channels in an indoor location where I don't have much users on 5GHz, so all my APs are sitting alone.
I have only 1 channel active on 2.4GHz as I still have one device 2G only, but I added to a spot where I don't have much overlap with others.
So far everything is working fine, also transitioning from one AP to the others is rather fast and I tried also some live audio call and no disruption happened.
But again I'm in a simple and easy situation, so things are ok for the moment.
But I was reading several other posts about WiFi limitations or missing features with these gears, so we'll see whether MikroTik will add features to it.