MikroTik

Hi I wonder if you can help. I have hAP-lite. My home DSL router provides one access point (not particularly stable) and I have several computers connected with ethernet cables too. One of them is a raspberry-PI that runs DNSMASQ - so provides DHCP and DNS for the local network. What I want is to have hAP-L as another wifi hotspot, but use the existing DHCP server - both for it's uplink port (eth1) and for it's wifi clients. Can this be done?

eth1 can get it's address assigned by DHCP alright. But I am unclear how to proceed with wifi. The usual model is to use hAP-L own DHCP server for its clients and to have a different address range on the wifi side and do masquerading for packets. Can I avoid this? Can I have hAP-L wifi clients, once they associate with hAP-L wifi, then get DHCP information from raspberry-PI DNSMASQ server?

Would it mean to put all interfaces on a bridge? Disable hAP-L dhcp server? I think the answer is probably simple, but I am a bit lost here. Thanks.

It is possible, you have to transform hAP lite from being "wireless router" to being "AP/switch". The easiest way of doing it will mean that ether1 will not be usable. These are steps to be done on your hAP lite:

• disable DHCP server bound to bridge
• bind DHCP client to bridge
• re-connect ethernet cable connecting hAP to existing router to one of ether2-ether5 ports
• tape-off ether1 port not to be used by mistake

Plenty of configuration will remain that is not necessary, but it won't hurt either (such as DHCP client on ether1, firewall between LAN and ether1, ...).
If you want to enable use of ether1 as well, then there are quite some more steps to perform. You can perform those after you learn about RouterOs.

Thanks very much, this just works and it is very simple. It is great to have an additional wifi station and have all hosts on the same network. In my opinion this is a very strong side for MikroTik - I now have a fully fledged router on my home network that I can learn and play with.

I thought myself that the way to go was to put all interfaces in a bridge (and I stopped when disconnected at starting to remove default bridge ports), because one port, I think, cannot be in two bridges at once. I did not think about the next bit - simply disabling dhcp server on bridge and binding dhcp client to the bridge; it is so simple, but not at hand when my knowledge about networks is more theoretical.

I suppose another way to go could be creating a configuration script which is different from default setup. To export the current config, edit the script removing what is not needed.

By the way - what are the best ways to learn about RouterOS?

I find the best way to learn ROS is to play with it, read manual in wiki and read posts in this forum (a few users are really an asset to community. I won't name any but anyone can quickly see who they are).