LiteStation SR-71 Bridge Mode - Broadcast problems

[eschoeller]

Hi,

I have a single LiteStation SR-71 with an SR-71a radio installed. Must say, I am very impressed with the setup and the AirOS.

I am having a problem when operating the Litestation in bridge mode, acting as a Station. I'm not getting multicast DNS broadcast traffic (for iTunes) through the bridge. There are is also some other broadcast traffic that isn't making it, but I don't have the specifics on that.

I tested this with a laptop and the following setup:

WinXP (Virtualbox) running on Kubuntu -> POE hub -> Litestation SR71 -> Cisco Aironet 1200 -> Asus router running OpenWrt -> iTunes Server

Oy, yeah, that's rather complicated. Using this configuration I saw the iTunes client send multicast broadcast traffic from the WinXP machine while tcpdump'ing in kubuntu. I saw the broadcasts, and the broadcast replies on the Asus Router. The replies weren't making it back to my client.

Let's simplify things a bit

WinXP (Virtualbox) running on Kubuntu -> Cisco Aironet 1200 ....

Works correctly. And so does

WinXP (Virtualbox) running on Kubuntu -> Asus router running Openwrt ...


Given these scenarios I think it's safe to say the multicast DNS traffic is getting eaten by the LiteStation, despite the fact that it's in bridge mode.
I read in the manual that some broadcast traffic will have trouble if the LiteStation is in "Station" mode and not "Station WDS". Oy. So I try configuring the Asus and Cisco to support WDS ... but no luck with that either.

Any Ideas?

[MRojas]

Try running it in WDS mode. Make sure you specify the Mac addresses in both the AP and LS.

[eschoeller]

I had trouble running it as a "Station WDS" in bridge mode. The LS would associate with my AP just fine, and my device on the other side of the LS could get an IP address (somehow) but it wouldn't have any network connectivity. I'll try it again tonight.

As far as I can tell, this is just a simple linux ethernet bridge between the eth0 and ath0 interfaces ... why does running Station vs Station WDS make a difference?

Is there an iwpriv attribute that I need to tweak?

[MRojas]

I'm not sure why WDS mode makes a difference, but I do know that not running in this mode stops the OSPF from working between the two routers I have connected directly to the radios.

My guess is it has something to do with the way the LiteStation processes layer 2 (or 'bridged') packets... it doesn't forward the MAC of the connected device, instead it forwards it's own... or something along those lines.

[eschoeller]

Well, after some more testing I'm still at an impasse. I now have two LS-SR71's with SR71A radios installed. One is running in AP WDS (bridged) mode, the other is running in Station WDS (bridged) mode. My device on the other end of the station is not receiving multicast DNS traffic. When I connect to the LS in AP WDS mode with a laptop client multicast DNS works fine.

So it seems that regardless of WDS/non-WDS connections the LS-SR71 running in Station mode (bridged configuration) does not seem to pass multicast DNS traffic. Can anyone else confirm this, or suggest a possible work-around for this issue?

Thanks.

[keyzed]

I have a wireless bridge between 2 Litestation that are connected via ethernet with 2 MT routerOS device (RB333). The first LS is running in AP WDS (bridged) mode, the other is running in Station WDS (bridged) mode. The MT router on other end of the station is not receiving multicast OSPF traffic and OSPF do not work between the 2 MT router.

Meanwhile that Ubiquity resolve this issue I have find a workaround to bring OSPF operational between the 2 MT router:

On routerOS I have defined 2 virtual interface EOIP (Ethernet over IP) tunnell between the 2 MT router using the ip address of the LAN (ethernet) interface connected to the 2 Litestation devices, and I declare in OSPF the virtual EOIP interfaces of the MT router instead of the phisical LAN interface of the MT router. In this way OSPF works...

I hope that Ubiquity resolve this issue as soon as possible...

[MRojas]

I didn't have to resort to any extra configuration on Mikrotik to get OSPF to work, including EOIP tunnels.

I just had to make sure the WDS bridge in the LiteStation was setup correctly and that the corresponding MAC addresses were entered into each of the LiteStation's WDS settings.

I try to keep things simple and let bridges bridge and routers route.

[keyzed]

I didn't have to resort to any extra configuration on Mikrotik to get OSPF to work, including EOIP tunnels.

I just had to make sure the WDS bridge in the LiteStation was setup correctly and that the corresponding MAC addresses were entered into each of the LiteStation's WDS settings.

I try to keep things simple and let bridges bridge and routers route.

Maybe you have a custom configuration of your LS...

I must setting up this command on the LS WDS Station:

"ifconfig ath0 allmulti"

to make OSPF working.

This confirms that, with the default setting of the LS, there is a problem on the bridge between the Ethernet and radio port on the LS-SR71 that works in station WDS mode.

I think it drops multicast traffic of the OSPF protocol.

I hope that Ubiquiti will introduce the MULTICAST ALL feature in the next release of the LS web based configuration: it is already present on the Bullet and NS5 web interface.