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Schedule MikroTik RouterOS Training Advanced Wireless MTCWE

Mashad , IRAN 13-15 Dey 91
[Link] 1

09:00 10:30 Morning Session I

10:30 11:00 Morning Break

11:00 12:30 Morning Session II

12:30 13:30 Lunch Break

13:30 15:00 Afternoon Session I

15:00 15:30 Afternoon Break

15:30 17:00 (18.00) Afternoon Session II

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Instructors

Housekeeping
Course materials Routers, cables Break times and lunch Restrooms and smoking area locations

Working with MikroTik OS for More than 8 years Implementation and experience in DSL & Wimax Network Expert in VOIP Work as Network Engineer in Laser (Nation Wide Company) for 4 years

TNS Network Administrator

Technical Manager and Consultant of some other company

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Course Objective
Provide thorough knowledge and hands-on training for MikroTik RouterOS advanced wireless capabilities for small and medium size networks Introduce the 802.11n wireless networking Upon completion of the course you will be able to plan, implement, adjust and debug wireless MikroTik RouterOS network configurations
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Topics Overview
Wireless Standard overview Wireless tools Troubleshooting wireless clients Wireless Advanced settings
DFS and country regulation Data Rates and TX-power Virtual AP

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Topics Overview (cont.)

Wireless Security measures
Access List and Connect List Management Frame Protection RADIUS MAC Authentication Encryption

Introduce Yourself
Please, introduce yourself to the class
Your name Your Company Your previous knowledge about RouterOS Your previous knowledge about networking What do you expect from this course?

Wireless WDS and MESH Wireless Transparent Bridge

WDS VPLS/MPLS transparent bridging

Please, remember your class XY number.

(X is number of the row, Y is your seat number in the row)

Wireless Nstreme Protocol 802.11n

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My number is:_________
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Class Setup Lab

Create an [Link].0/24 Ethernet network between the laptop (.1) and the router (.254) Connect routers to the AP SSID AP_N Assign IP address [Link]/24 to the wlan1 Main GW and DNS address is [Link] Gain access to the internet from your laptops via local router Create new user for your router and change admin access rights to read
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Class Setup

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Class setup Lab (cont.)

Set system identity of the board and wireless radio name to XY_<your_name>. Example: 00_Janis Upgrade your router to the latest Mikrotik RouterOS version 5.x Upgrade your Winbox loader version Set up NTP client use [Link] as server Create a configuration backup and copy it to the laptop (it will be default configuration)
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Simple/Advanced View

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Wireless Standards
802.11b 11Mbps, 2.4Ghz 802.11g 54Mbps, 2.4Ghz 802.11a 54Mbps, 5Ghz 802.11n 300Mbps, 2.4/5Ghz 2Ghz

Wireless Bands

B, B/G, Only-G, G-Turbo, Only-N, B/G/N, 5mhz, 10mhz

5Ghz
A, A-Turbo, Only-N, A/N, 5mhz, 10mhz

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Band Variations
Double channel (40MHz) 108Mbit max air rate 2.4ghz-g-turbo 5ghz-turbo Half channel (10MHz) 27Mbit max air rate 2ghz-10mhz 5ghz-10mhz Quarter channel (5MHz) 13.5Mbit max air rate 2ghz-5mhz 5ghz-5mhz
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Supported Bands by chipsets

AR5213/AR5414
A/B/G, G-Turbo, A-Turbo, 5Mhz, 10Mhz

AR5416/AR9160/AR9220
A/B/G/N, 5Mhz*, 10Mhz*

*not fully supported

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Supported Frequencies
A/B/G Atheros chipset cards usually support such frequencies
2Ghz band: 2192-2539Mhz 5Ghz band: 4920-6100Mhz

Scan List
Default frequencies from the scan-list shown bold in the frequency field (Winbox only) Default scan-list value from the country shown as default Frequency range is specified by the dash
5500-5700

N Atheros chipset cards usually support such frequencies

2Ghz band: 2192-2539Mhz 5Ghz band: 4800-6075Mhz
[Link] 17

Exact frequencies specified by comma

5500,5520,5540

Mixed option also possible

default,5520,5540,5600-5700
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Wireless Tools
Wireless tools for finding the best band/frequency
Scan Frequency Usage Spectral Scan/History Snooper Align Sniffer

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Scan and Frequency Usage

Both tools use the Scan-list Interface is disabled during the usage of tools Scan shows all 802.11 based APs Frequency usage shows every 802.11 traffic

Spectral Scan/History
Uses only Atheros Merlin 802.11n chipset wireless cards Range
2ghz, 5ghz, current-channel, range

Value
avg, avg-peak, interference, max, min

Classify-samples
wifi, bluetooth, microwave-oven, etc
[Link] 21 [Link] 22

Spectral-history
Plot spectrogram Power values are printed in different colors Audible option - plays each line as it is printed on the routers speaker
Each line is played from left to right, with higher frequencies corresponding to higher values in the spectrogram

Spectral-history

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Spectral-scan
Continuously monitor spectral data Each line displays one spectrogram bucket:
Frequency Numeric value of power average Character graphic bar
average power value - ':' average peak hold - '.' maximum lone floating - ':'

Spectral-scan

Show Interference option

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Wireless Snooper Tool

Alignment Tool

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Wireless Sniffer

Wireless Tools Lab

Enable your AP on one of the 5ghz frequencies Check if that frequency is the less occupied by using the RouterOS wireless tools

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DFS
Dynamic Frequency Selection (DFS)

Use of DFS for automatic frequency selection

no radar detect - at startup AP scans channel list from "scan-list" and chooses the frequency which is with the lowest amount of other networks detected radar detect - adds capability to detect radar at start up for 60 seconds and avoid them by changing frequency

By most country regulations DFS must be set to radar detect

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DFS Lab
Enable the AP on frequency 5180Mhz Enable DFS mode to no radar detect Disable wireless interface on the AP for few seconds and enable it back Observe frequency jumps

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Troubleshooting Wireless Client

Analyzing registration table for troubleshooting the wireless connection
ACK-timeout CCQ TX/RX Signal Strength Frames vs. HW-frames Data-rate jumping

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Registration table

CCQ Client Connection Quality

Value in percent that shows how effective the bandwidth is used regarding the theoretically maximum available bandwidth Weighted average of values Tmin/Treal calculated for every transmitted frame
Tmin is time it would take to transmit given frame at highest rate with no retries Treal is time it took to transmit frame in real life

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Frames vs. HW-frames

Wireless retransmission is when the card sends out a frame and you don't receive back the acknowledgment (ACK), you send out the frame once more till you get back the acknowledgment If the hw-frames value is bigger than frames value then it means that the wireless link is making retransmissions I case of Nstreme you cant compare the frames with hw-frames
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Using advanced settings for troubleshooting and fine tuning the wireless connection

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Wireless Advanced Settings

Advanced Wireless Tab settings HW-retries HW-protection
RTS/CTS CTS to self

Wireless Advanced Tab

Adaptive-noise-immunity Configuration Reset WMM

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Advanced Wireless Tab

Area string that describes the AP, used in the clients Connect-list for choosing the AP by the area-prefix Ack-timeout acknowledgement code timeout in s; dynamic by default Periodic-calibration to ensure performance of chipset over temperature and environmental changes Hide-ssid whether to hide ssid or not in the beacon frames
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HW-retries
Number of frame sending retries until the transmission is considered failed Data rate is decreased upon failure But if there is no lower rate, 3 sequential failures activate on-fail-retry-time transmission pause and the counter restarts The frame is being retransmitted either until success or until client is disconnected disconnect-timeout reached
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HW-protection
Frame protection helps to fight "hidden node" problem CTS/RTS protection CTS to self protection hw-protection-threshold frame size threshold at which protection should be used; 0 used for all frames

RTS/CTS based protection

RTS/CTS based protection
Device willing to send frame at first sends RequestToSend frame and waits for ClearToSend frame from intended destination By "seeing" RTS or CTS frame 802.11 compliant devices know that somebody is about to transmit and therefore do not initiate transmission themselves

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CTS to self based protection

"CTS to self" based protection
Device willing to send frame sends CTS frame "to itself As in RTS/CTS protocol every 802.11 compliant device receiving this frame know not to transmit. "CTS to self" based protection has less overhead, but it must be taken into account that this only protects against devices receiving CTS frame
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CTS to self or RTS/CTS

If there are 2 "hidden" stations, there is no use for them to use "CTS to self" protection, because they will not be able to receive CTS sent by other station - in this case stations must use RTS/CTS so that other station knows not to transmit by seeing CTS transmitted by AP Use only one protection
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HW-fragmentation-threshold
Maximum fragment size in bytes when transmitted over wireless medium Fragmentation allows packets to be fragmented before transmiting over wireless medium to increase probability of successful transmission Only fragments that did not transmit correctly are retransmitted Transmission of fragmented packet is less efficient than transmitting unfragmented packet because of protocol overhead and increased resource usage at both - transmitting and receiving party
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Adaptive-noise-immunity
Adjusts various receiver parameters dynamically to minimize interference and noise effect on the signal quality Works on Atheros 5212 or newer Atheros chipset Uses CPU power 3 options:
None disabled Client-mode will be enabled only if station or station-wds used Ap-and-client-mode will be enabled in any mode

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Wireless Configuration reset

Sometimes after reconfiguring advanced settings you might want to get back the default settings Use the Reset Configuration option resets the current wireless cards all configuration
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Wireless MultiMedia (WMM)

4 transmit queues with priorities:
1,2 background 0,3 best effort 4,5 video 6,7 voice

Priorities set by
Bridge or IP firewall Ingress (VLAN or WMM) DSCP
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Basic and supported rates

Supported rates client data rates

Modifying data rates and tx-power for stabilizing wireless connection

Basic rates link management data Rates If router can't send or receive data at basic rate link goes down

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Data rates changing options

Lower the higher supported data-rates on the client which have stability issues Lower the higher supported data-rates on the AP if most of the clients have problems running on higher data rates. Not recommended to disable lower data rates and leave only the higher data rates as disconnection of the link could happen more often Note that AP and the Client should support the same Basic rates to establish the wireless connection
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TX power
Different TX-power for each data-rate higher date rate, less power Disabling the higher data-rates could improve the signal as it uses higher tx-power on lower data-rates

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TX-power-mode
Default uses tx-power values from cards eeeprom Card-rates use tx-power, that for different rates is calculated according the cards transmit power algorithm, which as an argument takes txpower value All-rates-fixed use one tx-power value for all rates Manual-table use the tx-power as defined in /interface wireless manual-tx-power-table
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Data rates Lab

Configure the AP to allow the data-rates up to 24Mbps data rates and test the max throughput Configure the AP to allow only the 54Mbps data rate and check the max throughput and check how stable is the connection

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Virtual AP
Use of Virtual AP feature for creating multiple APs
Used for creating a new AP on top of the physical wireless card Works for AR5212 and newer Atheros Chipset cards Up to 128 Virtual AP per wireless card Uses different MAC address and can be changed Can have different SSID, security profile, Access/Connect-list, WDS options
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Virtual AP Setup

Virtual AP Lab
Work two together Connect both routers using Ethernet cable First router
Create 2 VLAN interfaces on that Ethernet Create 2 hotspots one on each VLAN For one Hotspot change the background color of login page
add background-color: #A9F5A9; in the body line in the [Link] page

Second router
Create 2 VLAN interfaces on the Ethernet interfaces with the VLAN ID from the first router Create 2 Virtual APs with different SSID Bridge first VLAN with first Virtual AP Create second bridge with second VLAN and second Virtual AP

Connect to each Virtual AP and check if one AP has different login page Reset the configuration and switch places

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Access Management
Managing access for AP/Clients using Access-List and Connect-List
default-forwarding (on AP) whether the wireless clients may communicate with each other directly (access list may override this setting for individual clients) default-authentication default authentication policy that applies to all hosts not mentioned in the AP's access list or client's connect list Both options are obsolete same functionality can be achieved with new connect list and access list features
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Wireless Access/Connect Lists

Access List is AP's authentication filter Connect List is Client's authentication filter Entries in the lists are ordered, just like in firewall - each authentication request will have to pass from the first entry until the entry it match There can be several entries for the same MAC address and one entry for all MAC addresses Entries can be wireless interface specific or global for the router
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Wireless Access List

It is possible to specify authentication policy for specific signal strength range
Example: allow clients to connect with good signal level or not connect at all

It is possible to specify authentication policy for specific time periods

Example: allow clients to connect only on weekends

It is possible to specify authentication policy for specific security keys:

Example: allow clients only with specific security key to connect to the AP.
[Link] 66

Wireless Access List

Wireless Connect List

Used for allowing/denying access based on:
SSID MAC address of the AP Area Prefix of the AP Signal Strength Range Security Profile

It is possible to prioritize one AP over another AP by changing order of the entries Connect list is used also for WDS links, when one AP connects to other AP
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Access/Connect List Lab

Peer up with other group (so that there will be two APs and two clients in one group) Leave default-forwarding, defaultauthentication enabled On APs:
Ensure that only clients from your group and with -70..120 signal strength are able to connect (Advanced) Try out Time settings
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Access/Connect List Lab

On clients:
Ensure that your client will connect only to your group APs Try to prioritize one AP over another
When APs have same SSID When APs have different SSID

Centralized Access List Management RADIUS

Delete all access list and connect list rules change places and repeat the lab
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RADIUS MAC Authentication

Option for remote centralized MAC RADIUS authentication and accounting Possibility of using radius-incoming feature to disconnect specific MAC address from the AP MAC mode username or username and password MAC Caching Time how long the RADIUS authentication reply for MAC address authentication if considered valid for caching
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RADIUS Client Configuration

Create a RADIUS client under Radius menu Specify the Service, IP address of RADIUS Server and Secret Use Status section to monitor the connection status
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Wireless security for protecting wireless connection

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Wireless Security
Authentication
PSK Authentication EAP Authentication

Security Principles
Authentication - ensures acceptance of transmissions only from confirmed source Data encryption
Confidentiality - ensures that information is accessible only to those authorized to have access Integrity ensures that information is not changed by any other source and are exactly the same as it was sent out
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Encryption
AES TKIP WEP

EAP RADIUS Security

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PSK Authentication
Pre-Shared Key is a authentication mechanism that uses a secret which was previously shared between the two parties Most common used wireless security type Multiple authentication types for one profile Optional PSK key for each MAC address (using Access list)

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EAP Authentication
Extensible Authentication Protocol provides a negotiation of the desired authentication mechanism (a.k.a. EAP methods) There are about 40 different EAP methods RouterOS support EAP-TLS method and also is capable to passtrough all methods to the RADIUS server
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AES-CCM
AES-CCM AES with CTR with CBC-MAC AES - Advanced Encryption Standard is a block cipher that works with a fixed block size of 128 bits and a key size of 128, 192, or 256 bits CTR - Counter generates the next keystream block by encrypting successive values of a "counter"
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AES-CCM (2)
CBC - Cipher Block Chaining each block of plaintext is XORed with the previous ciphertext block before being encrypted. This way, each ciphertext block is dependent on all plaintext blocks processed up to that point. MAC - Message Authentication Code allows to detect any changes to the message content
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TKIP
Temporal Key Integrity Protocol is a security protocol used in the IEEE 802.11 wireless networks TKIP is evolution of WEP based on RC4 stream cipher Unlike WEP it provides
per-packet key mixing, a message integrity check, rekeying mechanism
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WEP (obsolete)
Wired Equivalent Privacy is one of the first and simple security type Does not have authentication method Not recommended as it is vulnerable to wireless hacking tools
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Pre-Shared Key (PSK)

To make PSK authentication
Use Dynamic Keys mode Enable WPAx-PSK authentication type Specify Unicast and Group Ciphers (AES CCM, TKIP) Specify WPAx-Pre-Shared Key

Keys generated on association from PSK will be used in ciphers as entry key
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Unicast Cipher

On the AP and on Station at least one unicast cipher should match to make the wireless connection between 2 devices

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Group Cipher
For the AP
If on AP the group cipher will be AES and TKIP the strongest will be used AES It is advised to choose only one group cipher on the AP

EAP RADIUS Security

To make the EAP passthrough authentication
Enable WPAx-EAP authentication type Enable MAC authentication Set EAP Method to passthrough Enable RADIUS client

For the Station

If on the Station both group ciphers are used it means that it will connect to the AP that supports any of these ciphers
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To make EAP-TLS authentication

Enable WPAx-EAP authentication type Configure TLS option if you plan to use certificate Import and decrypt certificate

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Wireless Security Lab

Make wireless link with your neighbour using WPA-PSK:
Create a security profile and use the same pre-shared key to establish a wireless connection with your neighbour router.

On the AP add an Access List entry with the neighbours MAC address and specify different PSK key, ask your neighbour to connect to it again
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Management Frame Protection

Protecting wireless clients from deauthentication and MAC cloning attacks
RouterOS implements proprietary management frame protection algorithm based on shared secret RouterOS wireless device is able to verify source of management frame and confirm that particular frame is not malicious Allows to withstand deauthentication and disassociation attacks on RouterOS based wireless devices.
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Management Protection Settings

Configured in the security-profile
disabled - management protection is disabled allowed - use management protection if supported by remote party
for AP - allow both, non-management protection and management protection clients for client - connect both to APs with and without management protection

Management Protection key

Configured with securityprofile management-protectionkey setting When interface is in AP mode, default management protection key can be overridded by key specified in access-list or RADIUS attribute.

required - establish association only with remote devices that support management protection
for AP - accept only clients that support management protection for client - connect only to APs that support management protection
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Management Protection Lab

Work in group with 3 persons One makes an AP Other two connect to the AP One of the client clones the other clients MAC address Check connectivity from both clients to the AP Set the management protection to required and specify a key on the AP and on the original client Check which client connected original or cloned
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Wireless WDS and MESH

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WDS and MESH

WDS
Dynamic WDS Interface Static WDS Interface

WDS Wireless Distribution System

WDS allows to create custom wireless coverage using multiple APs what is impossible to do only with one AP WDS allows packets to pass from one AP to another, just as if the APs were ports on a wired Ethernet switch APs must use the same band, same SSID and operate on the same frequency in order to connect to each other
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RSTP Bridge HWMP+ MESH

Reactive mode Proactive mode Portals
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Wireless Distribution System

One AP (bridge/ap-bridge mode) can have WDS link with:
Other AP in bridge/ap-bridge mode Other AP in wds-slave (frequency adapting) mode Client in station-wds mode

WDS Configuration
There are four different WDS operation modes
Dynamic WDS interfaces are created automatically as soon as other WDS compatible device is found Static WDS interfaces must be crated manually Dynamic-mesh same as dynamic mode, but with HWMP+ support (not compatible with standard dynamic mode or other vendors) Static-mesh same as static mode, but with HWMP+ support (not compatible with standard static mode or other vendors)

You must disable DFS setting if you have more that one AP in bridge/ap-bridge mode in your WDS network WDS implementation could be different for each vendor not all different vendor devices could be connected together with WDS
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WDS Configuration
There are four different WDS operation modes
Dynamic WDS interfaces are created automatically as soon as other WDS compatible device is found Static WDS interfaces must be crated manually Dynamic-mesh same as dynamic mode, but with HWMP+ support (not compatible with standard dynamic mode or other vendors) Static-mesh same as static mode, but with HWMP+ support (not compatible with standard static mode or other vendors)

Dynamic WDS Interface

It is created 'on the fly' and appears under WDS menu as a dynamic interface ('D' flag) When link for dynamic WDS interface goes down attached IP addresses will slip off from WDS interface and interface will slip of the bridge Specify wds-default-bridge parameter and attach IP addresses to the bridge
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Static WDS Interface

Requires the destination MAC address and master interface parameters to be specified manually Static WDS interfaces never disappear, unless you disable or remove them WDS-default-bridge should be changed to none

WDS Configuration
WDS Default Cost default bridge port cost of the WDS links WDS Cost Range margin of cost that can be adjusted based on link throughput WDS Ignore SSID whether to create WDS links with any other AP in this frequency

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Point-to-point WDS link

Single Band Mesh

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Dual Band Mesh

WDS Mesh and Bridge

WDS Mesh is not possible without bridging To create a WDS mesh all WDS interfaces on every router should be bridged together, and with interfaces where clients will be connected To prevent possible loops and enable link redundancy it is necessary to use (Rapid) Spanning Tree Protocol ((R)STP) RSTP works faster on topology changes than STP, but both have virtually the same functionality

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(Rapid) Spanning Tree Protocol

(R)STP eliminate the possibility for the same MAC addresses to be seen on multiple bridge ports by disabling secondary ports to that MAC address
First (R)STP will elect a root bridge based on smallest bridge ID Then (R)STP will use breadth-first search algorithm taking root bridge as starting point
If algorithm reaches the MAC address for the first time it leaves the link active If algorithm reaches the MAC address for the second time it disables the link
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(R)STP in Action

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(R)STP Topology

(R)STP Bridge Port Roles

Disabled port - for looped ports Root port a path to the root bridge Alternative port backup root port (only in RSTP) Designated port forwarding port Backup port backup designated port (only in RSTP)

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Admin MAC Address

MAC address for the bridge interface is taken from one on the bridge ports If the ports changes a lot MAC address of bridge also could change Admin MAC option allows to use static MAC address for the bridge
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RSTP Configuration
Router with the lowest priority in the network will be elected as a Root Bridge

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RSTP Port Configuration

Cost allows to choose one path over another Priority if costs are the same it is used to choose designated port Horizon feature used for MPLS
Do not forward packet to the same label ports
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RSTP Port Configuration

There are 3 options that allow to optimize RSTP performance:
Edge port indicates whether this port is connected to other bridges Point-to-point - indicates whether this port is connected only to one network device (WDS, wireless in bridge mode) External-fdb allow to use registration table instead as forwarding data base (only AP)
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Layer-2 routing for Mesh networks

MikroTik offers alternative to RSTP - HWMP+ HWMP+ is a MikroTik specific Layer-2 routing protocol for wireless mesh networks The HWMP+ protocol is based on, but is not compatible with Hybrid Wireless Mesh Protocol (HWMP) from IEEE 802.11s draft standard HWMP+ works only with
wds-mode=static-mesh wds-mode=dynamic-mesh
[Link] 121

HWMP+
To configure HWMP+ use /interface mesh menu - configuration is very similar to bridge configuration. HWMP+ provide optimal routing based on link metric
For Ethernet links the metric is configured statically For WDS links the metric is updated dynamically depending on wireless signal strength and the selected data transfer rate
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Reactive Mode Discover

All path are discovered on demand, by flooding Path Request (PREQ) message in the network.

Reactive Mode Response

The destination node or some router that has a path to the destination will reply with a Path Response (PREP)

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Proactive Mode
In proactive mode some routers are configured as portals router has interfaces to some other network, for example, entry/exit point to the mesh network Best suited when most of traffic goes between internal mesh nodes and a few portal nodes
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Proactive Mode Announcement

The portals will announce their presence by flooding Root Announcement (RANN) message in the network.

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Proactive Mode Response

Internal nodes will reply with a Path Registration (PREG) message Result routing trees with roots in the portal routers

Portals
Routes to portals will serve as a kind of default routes If an internal router does not know path to a particular destination, it will forward all data to its closest portal the portal will then discover path on behalf of the router, if needed. The data afterwards will flow through the portal This may lead to suboptimal routing, unless the data is addressed to the portal itself or some external network the portals has interfaces to
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Mesh configuration settings

Reoptimize paths sends out periodic PREQ messages asking for known MAC addresses
If no reply is received to a reoptimization PREQ, the existing path is kept anyway (until it timeouts itself) Better for Proactive mode and for mobile mesh networks

WDS/MESH Lab
Configure the wireless interface as an AP with the same SSID as the teachers AP Enable Static WDS mesh mode Create WDS link with the teachers AP Configure the MESH add WDS to the mesh port Use MESH traceroute to check the path to the neighbors router Create WDS link with your neighbor router and add that to the mesh port Check again the MESH traceroute to your neighbor
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hwmp-preq-destination-only if no then on the Path Requests not only the destination router could answer but also one of the router on the way if it has route to the destination hwmp-preq-reply-and-forward effective only when hwmp-preq-destination-only=no; Router on the way after the reply will still forward the Path Request to the destination (with flags that only the destination router could answer)
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Wireless Transparent Bridge

Bridging of Ethernet Clients using WDS Bridging using AP-Station WDS Pseudobridge mode with and without MAC Cloning Bridging of Wireless Clients using WDS

Wireless Transparent Bridge

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Bridging of the Ethernet Clients

AP-Station WDS Link

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Station-WDS
Set station-wds mode WDS-mode must be disabled on the wireless card Wireless client in Station-WDS mode can be bridged

Pseudobridge mode
Uses MAC-NAT MAC address translation for all the traffic Inspecting packets and building table of corresponding IP and MAC addresses All packets are sent to AP with the MAC address used by pseudobridge, and MAC addresses of received packets are restored from the address translation table Single entry in address translation table for all non-IP packets more than one host in the bridged network cannot reliably use non-IP protocols (pppoe for example) IPv6 doesn't work over Pseudobridge

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Pseudobridge Clone mode

station-bridge-clone-mac use this MAC address when connection to AP If this value is [Link], station will initially use MAC address of the wireless interface As soon as packet with MAC address of another device needs to be transmitted, station will reconnect to AP using that address
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Bridging of the Wireless Clients

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Transparent Bridging Lab

Create a transparent bridge between you and your neighbor Test both methods
WDS Pseudobridge mode Pseudobridge mode with MAC cloning

Wireless Nstreme Protocol

Check the communication between the PCs behind each router.

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MikroTik Nstreme
Nstreme is MikroTik's proprietary (i.e., incompatible with other vendors) wireless protocol created to improve point-to-point and point-to-multipoint wireless links.

Nstreme Protocol
Benefits of Nstreme protocol: Client polling Disable CSMA No protocol limits on link distance Smaller protocol overhead per frame allowing super-high data rates No protocol speed degradation for long link distances
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[Link]

Nstreme Protocol: Frames

framer-limit - maximal frame size framer-policy - the method how to combine frames. There are several methods of framing:
none - do not combine packets best-fit - put as much packets as possible in one frame, until the limit is met, but do not fragment packets exact-size - same as best-fit, but with the last packet fragmentation dynamic-size - choose the best frame size dynamically
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Nstreme Lab
Route your private network together with your neighbour's network Enable Nstreme and check link productivity with different framer policies

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Nstreme Dual Protocol

MikroTik proprietary (i.e., incompatible with other vendors) wireless protocol that works with a pair of wireless cards (Atheros chipset cards only) one transmitting, one receiving

Wireless Nstreme Dual Protocol

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Nstreme Dual Interface

Set both wireless cards into nstreme_dual_slave mode Create Nstreme dual interface Specify the remote MAC address MAC address of the remote ends receive wireless card Use framer policy only if necessary
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802.11n

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802.11n
MIMO 802.11n Data Rates Channel bonding Frame Aggregation Wireless card configuration TX-power for N cards Transparent bridging for N links
MPLS/VPLS tunnel
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802.11n Features
Increased data rates up to 300Mbps 20Mhz and 2x20Mhz channel support Works both in 2.4 and 5ghz Uses multiple antennas for receive and transmit Frame aggregation

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MIMO
MIMO Multiple Input and Multiple Output SDM Spatial Division Multiplexing Multiple spatial streams across multiple antennas Multiple antenna configurations for receive and transmit:
1x1, 1x2, 1x3 2x2, 2x3 3x3
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802.11n Data Rates

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N card Data Rates

Channel bonding 2x20Mhz

Adds additional 20Mhz channel to existing channel Channel placed below or above the main channel frequency Backwards compatible with 20Mhz clients connection made to the main channel Allows to use higher data rates

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Frame Aggregation
Combining multiple data frames into single frame decreasing the overhead Aggregation of MAC Service Data Units (AMSDU) Aggregation of MAC Protocol Data Units (AMPDU)
Uses Block Acknowledgement May increase the latency, by default enabled only for the best-effort traffic Sending and receiving AMSDUs will also increase CPU usage
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Wireless card configuration

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Wireless card configuration

ht-rxchains/ht-txchains which antenna connector use for receive and transmit
antenna-mode setting is ignored for N cards

Wireless card configuration

ht-guard-interval whether to allow use of short guard interval ht-extension-channel whether to use additional 20MHz extension channel; below or under the main channel frequency ht-ampdu-priorities frame priorities for which AMPDU sending should get negotiated and used (aggregating frames and using block acknowledgment)
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ht-amsdu-limit max AMSDU that device is allowed to prepare ht-amsdu-threshold max frame size to allow including in AMSDU

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TX-power for N cards

When using two chains at the same time the tx-power is increased by 3db see total-tx-power column When using three chains at the same time tx-power is increased by 5db
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Transparent Bridging of N links

WDS will not provide the full speed WDS doesnt support frame aggregation EOIP adds overhead MPLS/VPLS tunnel for faster speeds and less overhead

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VPLS/MPLS Bridge for N link

Establish the wireless N link AP<->Station Configure IP on AP and Station
[Link]/30 on wlan1 (AP) [Link]/30 on wlan1 (Station)

VPLS/MPLS Bridge for N link

Configure VPLS tunnel
/interface vpls add name=vpls1 remotepeer=[Link] vpls-id=1:1 disabled=no (AP) /interface vpls add name=vpls1 remotepeer=[Link] vpls-id=1:1 disabled=no (Station)

Enable LDP (Label Distribution Protocol)

/mpls ldp set enabled=yes lsr-id=[Link] transportaddress=[Link]; /mpls ldp interface add interface=wlan1 (AP) /mpls ldp set enabled=yeslsr-id=[Link] transportaddress=[Link]; /mpls ldp interface add interface=wlan1 (Station)
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Create Bridge and bridge ether1 and vpls1 interface together

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VPLS/MPLS Bridge for N link

Confirm the LDP running status
/mpls ldp neighbor print /mpls forwarding-table print

VPLS bridge and fragmentation

VPLS tunnel increases the packet size If it exceeds the MPLS MTU of outgoing interface fragmentation is used If case the ethernet interface supports MPLS MTU 1526 or greater fragmentation can be avoided by increasing the MPLS MTU
/mpls interface set 0 mpls-mtu=1526 List of RouterBoards that supports big MPLS MTU can be found on the wiki page

Confirm VPLS tunnel status

/interface vpls monitor vpls1 once

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Outdoor setup
Test each chain separately before using both chains at the same time For 2 chain operation suggested to use different polarization for each chain When used dual-polarization antennas, isolation of the antenna recommended to be at least 25db

802.11n Lab
Establish the N link with your neighbor Test the performance with one and with two chains Create the transparent bridge using VPLS

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Before Certification Test

Before Certification Test

Reset the router Restore backup or restore

configuration Make sure you have access to the Internet and to [Link]

Turn off your cellphone Dont use proxy Dont use copy, paste and print screen
bottom Close all messenger, email services and any capture software
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Certification Test

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