A few days ago I received and configured a Miktotik hAP ac Lite to be used at my house. Unlike "normal" AREDN nodes, I found that the hAP ac Lite uses individual physical ports for LAN, vs WAN, vs DtD. That means that it will take two or likely three ports on my family room network switch instead of the normal one. Now I fully understand that for some people, that is an advantage and I am NOT suggesting removing that capability. What I am suggesting is that one port be available as the "all in one" mode. For example, something like this:
Port Currently Suggested 1 WAN (untagged) WAN (untagged) 2 LAN (untagged) LAN (untagged) 3 LAN (untagged) LAN (untagged) 4 LAN (untagged) "All in one" port 5 DtD (tagged 2) DtD (tagged 2)
I suggested port 4 as the "All in one" port so that the current ports 1, 2, & 5 are unchanged.
Jim
K6CCC
Jim, this would be best submitted in Github as an enhancement request. The core use case for this device is for those that do not have an 802.1q external switch. I can see where this configuration can add benefit, and I don't think we'd have to sacrifice a port for the core use case -- port 4 could still be a LAN port as expected but add vlan 1 and vlan 2.
Joe AE6XE
Thanks Joe. Good point about not needing to lose port 4 for LAN use since WAN and DtD are VLAN tagged - DUH!
As for Github, I have heard of that, but don't even know what it is.
take a spin around the pre-existing issues, both enhancements and defects:
https://github.com/aredn/aredn_ar71xx/issues
Joe AE6XE
Isn't the capability already there to change the PORT assignment functions in the "swconfig" file? I've modified AirRouters to support DTD on all of the ports 1-4 for some configurations. I haven't explored the capbilities in the HAP, but "assume" the same ability is already in there??
Yes, this can be done. However, there is a historical issue, when you have LAN and DtDLink on the same port, both won't work at the same time in how AREDN vlans are currently done, which is the use case here. I suspect in your use case, only dtdlink or LAN is used, but not both at the same time?
I found a way on NanoStations to work around this, but all ports act the same, this is a bit different issue on the hAP ac lite, so won't work. I have an idea how to make the whole issue go away by handling the LAN differently on devices with an internal switch -- just need an internal hidden vlan tag for LAN, but untagged as the packet goes in/out the port. Today, the LAN has no internal vlan tag and this is what I suspect is in conflict with how linux and openwrt do things.
Joe AE6XE
So am I correct in assuming that I make the changes in the SWCONFIG file on the HAP AC Lite and just avoid setting the port for "multiple" purposes like the UBNT Nanostations can do? All I need in these cases is to repurpose more than one port for DTD dedicated function. Do you have any "sample" suggested configurations, say for port 4 & 5 for DTD, 3,4,5 DTD?