MikroTik

Hi Everyone,

I have a customer that purchased 2 SXTsq's to extend their LAN between two buildings approx 200m apart. There are 15 devices in total. I think both buildings can be on the same subnet. I've got a data communication background but no MikroTik experience.

Building 1 has an ISP supplied router which has an integrated 5port switch in it. Building 2 will have a Linksys WRT router which will preferably act solely as an access point.

Would you look and kindly recommend changes or additional steps to my plan below?

1) Connect SXT1 into one of the ISP router's LAN interfaces.
2) Give SXT1 a static IP which corresponds with the ISP router's LAN subnet
3) Connect SXT2 into WRT's LAN interface
4) Give SXT2 a static IP which corresponds with the ISP router's LAN subnet
5) Configure both SXT's as bridges (this is where I KNOW I'm going to need to do some learning)

If you agree bridging is the correct solution for their requirements I would really appreciate any tips that would help me get the SXT's configured while avoiding typical mistakes you've made in the past.

Thanks a lot, everyone.

Kelley

I've completed this tutorial and have bridging working.https://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Bridging ... s_with_SXT

The speed is sooooo slow though. Currently, both my SXT's are 3m apart and pointing at each other. I'm able to get internet from my wired client plugged into the remote SXT either1.

Host side of the bridge shows these speeds.
Interface bridge1 (tx)34kbps (rx)5kbps
Interface ether1 (tx)34kbps (rx)5kbps

The remote side of the bridge shows similar speeds.

I would have expected full 802.11 5Ghz performance from the bridged link. Can anyone help me troubleshoot my link speed?

Thanks a lot!

This is not link speed, you see the packet in idle mode, nothing else.

But first, this is the false device, 5ghz is mostly to crowed.
You’ll better buyed some 60Ghz stuff like wireless wire dish.

Post your Config for some more help.

Hi, I have this up and running for several months now. Did some tuning and learning. Overall extreme good performance now.
Only did some smaller tweaking, after learning all i could about wifi radio settings and performance.
This is an outdoor setup with 75 meter connections. To be extended to 20 PtMP connectons, surrounded by 100 non-optimised outdoor AP's from neighborgs.
In one direction it is SXTsq 5 ac pair. (only crossing the street) SXTsq13-SXTsq14
Other direction is SXT SA5 ac towards 3 SXTsq 5 ac devices.
Local devices are hAP ac2 indoor and wAP ac added only if outdoor client connection is needed over a larger outdoor distance
All is in ETSI regulatory domain (Europe) with the legal txpower setting (or less)
Central point is a non-Mikrotik router delivering DHCP on separate subnets (itself connected to 3 SXT LTE kit 4G uplinks in load-balance)
Monitoring hEX+DUDE is yet on another subnet
SXTsq and SXT SA5 setting
Used default configuration, with some adjustments. I know this is not the best setup, and can be further tuned (eliminating firewall and session tracking etc), but I like to have those things around.
Eliminated the firewall processing by adding wlan1 and ether1 to bridge, and adding bridge to "interface list" LAN. (wlan1 or ether1 in "interface list" WAN disabled for clarity)
Added DHCP client on bridge (for DNS, and route setting), and to allow someone to move the device on another subnet. (Route is important to find the hEX). My access is only through the hEX (sitting at 1200km from that installation). Using static DHCP entries for ease of management. The hEX is the SNTP and syslog server for the AP's.

Wifi setting:
SXTsq13-SXTsq14 : "bridge" and "station bridge" mode, with bridge enabled. (no WDS used)
SXTSA5-SXTsqxx : "AP bridge" and "station bridge" mode. with bridge enabled (no WDS used)

Without the endless list of details some settings that mattered.
- scan list in the AP's is chosen for an explicit list to get all 40 MHz widths and allowance for 27 dBm power. Those are DFS channels, but avoiding to use the weather radar frequencies (10 minute delay whith every change).
- AP mode Currently 802.11 , only AC.
- protocol on "station" SXTsq's is " nstreme nv2 802.11" (they will follow the setting of the AP SXT if that is changed for any reason)
- set shared secret for nv2 (just in case nv2 is used)
- antenna gain for SXT is 16 (or higher. SXTsq13 and 14 should be increased by 6 dBi as the received signal is too strong)
- "Station roaming" disabled on the "station" SXTsq's
- WPS disabled
- no further tweaking was needed, so left everyting on default (bridge STP, HW retries, ..... )

AP setting
hAP ac2 and wAP set up as AP (ethernet and WLAN on bridge , DHCP client on bridge, bridge on "interface list" LAN) Reduced power for 2.4 GHz and 40 MHz wide appropriate 5 GHz channel)
One SSID value per subnet. Roaming works fine. User authentication using 802.1X (Radius on non-Mikrotik router.)
Serving 100 clients with 14 AP's. (some still non Mikrotik)
1000+ devices seen with snooper, scan sees 60 AP's.

You both are very kind for the information.

I ran 10 youtube videos simultaneously on my laptop while doing a speedtest. I was passing 15Mbps down and 8Mbps up. The two SXT's are very close together for testing. My next test will be from required distance of 200m. That's when I'll start tweaking the radios.

Thanks again for the time spent replying. I'll follow up with my progress along the way.

Kelley

If you are running the units close together for testing and do not turn down the power, you will get garbage speed. Keep them at least on opposite sides of a normal room and turn the power down to absolute minimum until you deploy them outside. Even then, watch your power levels, keep the registration between -40 and -60dBm.

Will do!

So I'm onsite and not ready to test bridge link at distance because I'm unable to secure the bridge ssid. It looks like an "open" network to the public. I've got wireless set to advance and I've chosen an ssid but I just can't seem to lock it down. Ideally I'd like to hide the ssid once it's up (which is easy to see how).

Thanks! Can't wait to try these from afar.

To secure the bridge SSID, define a profile under /interface wireless security, and then enter that profile name in /interface wireless for that interface.

Be aware that if you hide the SSID you must "hardwire" that SSID in the main wireless settings on the station side; it will not work with a "connect list." Since you are running a PTP link, you would probably not be using a connect list anyway.

OK Just secure it as told. Security profile and set SSID hidden. Only use "WPA2 PSK/AES ccm" (no WPA no TKIP) for better performance.

Recommend you test at full distance without hidden ID; only hide it after everything else works. Been there.

Recommend you test at full distance without hidden ID; only hide it after everything else works. Been there.

Been there ... MeToo . Indeed setting hidden is only final step.

It's been working well. FYI.

Bought 4 more devices, setting up a couple other bridge connections from the host building.

I was unable to figure out how to pull the config so I could push (then edit) configs to my new devices. The GUI's interface seems pretty Chinese at times. I ended up deleting Flash/pub and Flash/skins folders by accident while trying to expand/inspect their contents. lol.

Am I going to be able to config these devices without those folders? What folder is the config in? On Cisco gear config is held in NVRAM and then Flash when saved.

To create a config file from your working config, use:

/export file=choose-your-flle-name.rsc

The /pub folder is a public folder for SMB file sharing, unless you specifically set that up (I don't know anybody who does), it would be empty. The /skins folder holds custom skins you created for Webfig (I think) -- again, it's usually empty. You can recreate them if you wish. (Sadly, the only way to create a folder in ROS is to FTP a file into one to create it, then delete the file.)