One major hickup

[succeednet]

Well I am sitting here today planning for a major rollout for our network using Ubiquiti equipment. And I find myself stuck at an impass because either I am not seeing it or its just not there or possible.

Typically when we rollout a tower or network segment, it will all be on the same subnet. If we have three towers in an are we will start them on the same subnet then as it grows and changes we subnet accordingly. Well unfortunatley with the Rockets this is not possible as there is only one ethern3t port availble and its LAN only.

For example on a single tower you have 3 rockets, they must all be on seperate subnets since they can't be linked except by anything but the LAN port. In our case and with radios we currently use, the ethernet ports are all software selectable via the web interface on what they go with. IE one LAN, one WLAN and you have one radio on the tower setup as the router and the rest bridges. Thus 3 radios on the tower, one router handles the subnet dhcp and the other two just handle client traffic.

Not being able to or having access to a second port for WLAN side ethernet connection on the Rockets, severely limits its capabilities for convenient rollouts. Don't get me wrong, To date I love the product. But making each radio have a seperate subnet is a huge waste of IP Space when there may only be 50 or less customers per tower.

Yes I know I could put the 3 rockets in Bridge and put a router at the base, but on some towers this is not feasable and it just adds one more device or point of failure at a location. And with some sites being solar, the less equipment the better.

If I am just being blind let me know. If you have better ways of doing this let me know.

Thanks much and keep up the great work.

[Dave-D]

I'll probably show some ignorance, but ....

I would deploy multiple radios on a tower as
you describe: bridge mode with a separate
router. Yes, more stuff, more expensive, but
I don't see these devices as great routers.
That router doesn't have to be at the base
of the tower--it can be anywhere in the feed.

Many far more expensive radios have only
one NIC port.

And I don't understand the 'waste of IP space'.
If you use isolated/private IP addresses, who
cares? You aren't paying for the addresses.
And you get a new class-C subnet with every
router you deploy. Dave

[Airwip]

I don't know how much I can add to this, asides from the simple advice of - DON'T use these things as routers.

Radios are Radios
Routers are Routers
Switches are Switches

Don't make one do the job of the other, even though it has that "Functionality" built in. That's just asking for trouble in the end, especially when you need something complicated done.

Our radios are all set to bridge mode, with a router a the bottom of each tower. Depending on how we set up the grid and how many clients we anticipate, we will either assign each radio to an individual subnet and port on the router... Or we will simply plug them all into a switch and run that into a single port of the router.

i second that +1 .. but look at the forum poeple are asking over and over about such and such routing/switching features like they orderd a 2400$ cisco box..its simply freaking ignorant.

[succeednet]

Thanks for the input. i know that what your explaining is typically how most of you do it. And I would agree. The issue is that this network has been up and running far longer than I have been working here using the radios as routers. Just the way it has been built out. 700 + customers and working fine. So can't quite tell them they had it set up wrong all along.

Kewl - I follow your postings all over the place and take your advice as much as I can get it.

Even before coming back in this morning and reading the posts I had already figured on the router at the tower and bridging the radios.

My question now is what types of routers are you using? Keep in mind that some of our sites are solar and work off of 12 or 24v DC.

[NZFoxnet]

Mikrotiks all the way. Cheap as chips for something suitable for the bottom of a tower (RB750 etc) and the features and usefulness are outstanding. I have 'tiks everywhere in my network and love them.

[succeednet]

Looks like I am going to learn RouterOS.

Just ordered a RB450g to play with.

Get ready for the questions.

[Dave-D]

Yep--questions that go to the Mikrotik
wiki and forums. Note that there is an
entire app note there on solar.

Good luck! Dave

[succeednet]

Yes of course MT stuff doesn't go here that would be rude.

:)

[Dave-D]

Welll.. unproductive anyway! Dave

[kilos]

If you have a long leg that requires multiple PtP links, would you
bridge them all on the same subnet or setup up smaller subnets
(with RB750 at each "repeater" - tower)
Makes it easier to establish which multiple PtP link is down.

Hybrid system:- (as kewlkeed mentioned)
* Radios = ubnt (bridge mode ?)
* Routers = MT (running OSPF, BGP, RIP ??)

My ignorant 2c worth

Cheers
Justin