MikroTik RouterOS Training

Advanced Wireless
MTCWE

2013
©MikroTik 2010 1
 Schedule
• 16:00 – 18 Session I
• 15 min Break
• 18:15 – 20:30 Session II
• 30 min Break
• 21 – 22 Session III

©MikroTik 2010 2
 Housekeeping
• Course materials
• Routers, cables
• Break times and lunch
• Restrooms and smoking area locations

©MikroTik 2010 3
 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
©MikroTik 2010 4
 Topics Overview
• Wireless Standard overview
• Wireless tools
• Troubleshooting wireless clients
• Wireless Advanced settings
– DFS and country regulation
– Data Rates and TX-power
– Virtual AP

©MikroTik 2010 5
 Topics Overview (cont.)
• Wireless Security measures
– Access List and Connect List
– Management Frame Protection
– RADIUS MAC Authentication
– Encryption
• Wireless WDS and MESH
• Wireless Transparent Bridge
– WDS
– VPLS/MPLS transparent bridging
• Wireless Nstreme Protocol
• 802.11n

©MikroTik 2010 6
 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?

• Please, remember your class XY number.

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

My
number is:_________
©MikroTik 2010 7
 Class Setup Lab
• Create an 192.168.XY.0/24 Ethernet network
between the laptop (.1) and the router (.254)
• Connect routers to the AP SSID “AP_N”
• Assign IP address 10.1.1.XY/24 to the wlan1
• Main GW and DNS address is 10.1.1.254
• Gain access to the internet from your laptops via
local router
• Create new user for your router and change
“admin” access rights to “read”

©MikroTik 2010 8
Class Setup

©MikroTik 2010 9
 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 4.x
• Upgrade your Winbox loader version
• Set up NTP client – use 10.1.1.254 as server
• Create a configuration backup and copy it to the
laptop (it will be default configuration)

©MikroTik 2010 10
©MikroTik 2010
 Wireless Standards
• 802.11b – 11Mbps, 2.4Ghz
• 802.11g – 54Mbps, 2.4Ghz
• 802.11a – 54Mbps, 5Ghz
• 802.11n – 300Mbps, 2.4/5Ghz

©MikroTik 2010 12
 Wireless Bands
• 2Ghz
– B, B/G, Only-G, G-Turbo, Only-N, B/G/N,
5mhz, 10mhz
• 5Ghz
– A, A-Turbo, Only-N, A/N, 5mhz, 10mhz

©MikroTik 2010 13
 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

©MikroTik 2010 14
 Supported Frequencies
• A/B/G Atheros chipset cards usually
support such frequencies
– 2Ghz band: 2192-2539Mhz
– 5Ghz band: 4920-6100Mhz
• N Atheros chipset cards usually support
such frequencies
– 2Ghz band: 2192-2539Mhz
– 5Ghz band: 4800-6075Mhz

©MikroTik 2010 15
 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
• Exact frequencies specified by comma
– 5500,5520,5540
• Mixed option also possible
– default,5520,5540,5600-5700

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Wireless tools for finding the best
band/frequency

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 Wireless Tools
• 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

©MikroTik 2010 19
 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

©MikroTik 2010 20
 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

©MikroTik 2010 21
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 - ':'
• Show Interference option

©MikroTik 2010 23
Spectral-scan

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Wireless Snooper Tool

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Alignment Tool

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Wireless Sniffer

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 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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Use of DFS for automatic
frequency selection

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 DFS
• Dynamic Frequency Selection (DFS)
• “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”

©MikroTik 2010 30
 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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©MikroTik 2010
Analyzing registration table for
troubleshooting the wireless
connection

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Troubleshooting Wireless Client
• ACK-timeout
• CCQ
• TX/RX Signal Strength
• Frames vs. HW-frames
• Data-rate jumping

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Registration table

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 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

©MikroTik 2010 36
 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 can’t compare the frames
with hw-frames

©MikroTik 2010 37
 Using advanced settings for
troubleshooting and fine tuning the
wireless connection

©MikroTik 2010 38
 Wireless Advanced Settings
• Advanced Wireless Tab settings
• HW-retries
• HW-protection
– RTS/CTS
– CTS to self
• Adaptive-noise-immunity
• Configuration Reset
• WMM
©MikroTik 2010 39
Wireless Advanced Tab

©MikroTik 2010 40
 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
µs; “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

©MikroTik 2010 41
 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
©MikroTik 2010 42
 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

©MikroTik 2010 43
 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

©MikroTik 2010 44
 “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

©MikroTik 2010 45
 “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

©MikroTik 2010 46
 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

©MikroTik 2010 47
 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

©MikroTik 2010 48
 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

©MikroTik 2010 49
 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
©MikroTik 2010 50
Modifying data rates and tx-power
for stabilizing wireless connection

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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
©MikroTik 2010 53
 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

©MikroTik 2010 54
 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 tx-
power 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

©MikroTik 2010 55
 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

©MikroTik 2010 56
Use of Virtual AP feature for
creating multiple APs

©MikroTik 2010 57
 Virtual AP
• 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
©MikroTik 2010 58
Virtual AP Setup

©MikroTik 2010 59
 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 login.html 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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 Managing access for AP/Clients
using Access-List and Connect-List

©MikroTik 2010 61
 Access Management
• 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
©MikroTik 2010 62
 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

©MikroTik 2010 63
 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.

©MikroTik 2010 64
Wireless Access List

©MikroTik 2010 65
 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
©MikroTik 2010 66
©MikroTik 2010
 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, default-
authentication 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

©MikroTik 2010 68
 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
• Delete all access list and connect list rules
– change places and repeat the lab

©MikroTik 2010 69
Centralized Access List
Management – RADIUS

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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

©MikroTik 2010 71
©MikroTik 2010
 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

©MikroTik 2010 73
Wireless security for protecting
wireless connection

©MikroTik 2010 74
 Wireless Security
• Authentication
– PSK Authentication
– EAP Authentication
• Encryption
– AES
– TKIP
– WEP
• EAP RADIUS Security

©MikroTik 2010 75
 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

©MikroTik 2010 76
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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)

©MikroTik 2010 78
 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

©MikroTik 2010 79
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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"
©MikroTik 2010 81
 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
©MikroTik 2010 82
 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
©MikroTik 2010 83
 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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©MikroTik 2010
 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

©MikroTik 2010 86
©MikroTik 2010
 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
• 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

©MikroTik 2010 89
 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
• To make EAP-TLS authentication
• Enable WPAx-EAP authentication type
• Configure TLS option if you plan to use certificate
• Import and decrypt certificate

©MikroTik 2010 90
©MikroTik 2010
 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
©MikroTik 2010 92
 Protecting wireless clients from
deauthentication and MAC cloning
attacks

©MikroTik 2010 93
Management Frame Protection
• 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.

©MikroTik 2010 94
 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
– 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

©MikroTik 2010 95
 Management Protection key
• Configured with security-
profile management-protection-
key setting
• When interface is in AP mode, default
management protection key can be
overridded by key specified in access-list
or RADIUS attribute.

©MikroTik 2010 96
 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
©MikroTik 2010 97
Wireless WDS and MESH

©MikroTik 2010 98
 WDS and MESH
• WDS
– Dynamic WDS Interface
– Static WDS Interface
• RSTP Bridge
• HWMP+ MESH
– Reactive mode
– Proactive mode
– Portals

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 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

©MikroTik 2010 100

 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
• 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)

©MikroTik 2010 102

©MikroTik 2010
 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

©MikroTik 2010 104

 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”

©MikroTik 2010 105

©MikroTik 2010
Point-to-point WDS link

©MikroTik 2010 107

Single Band Mesh

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Dual Band Mesh

©MikroTik 2010 109

 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

©MikroTik 2010 110

(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

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 (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)

©MikroTik 2010 114

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

©MikroTik 2010 115

RSTP Configuration

• Router with the

lowest priority in
the network will be
elected as a Root
Bridge

©MikroTik 2010 116

 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

©MikroTik 2010 117

 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)

©MikroTik 2010 118

 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

©MikroTik 2010 119

 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

©MikroTik 2010 120

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

©MikroTik 2010 121

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

©MikroTik 2010 122

 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

©MikroTik 2010 123

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

©MikroTik 2010 124

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

©MikroTik 2010 125

 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

©MikroTik 2010 126

 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
• 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)

©MikroTik 2010 127

 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

©MikroTik 2010 128

Wireless Transparent Bridge

©MikroTik 2010 129

 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

©MikroTik 2010 130

Bridging of the Ethernet Clients

©MikroTik 2010 131

AP-Station WDS Link

©MikroTik 2010 132

©MikroTik 2010
 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

©MikroTik 2010 134

 Pseudobridge Clone mode
• station-bridge-clone-mac – use this
MAC address when connection to AP
• If this value is 00:00:00:00:00:00, 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

©MikroTik 2010 135

Bridging of the Wireless Clients

©MikroTik 2010 136

 Transparent Bridging Lab
• Create a transparent bridge between you
and your neighbor
• Test both methods
– WDS
– Pseudobridge mode
– Pseudobridge mode with MAC cloning
• Check the communication between the
PCs behind each router.

©MikroTik 2010 137

Wireless Nstreme Protocol

©MikroTik 2010 138

 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.

©MikroTik 2010 139

 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
©MikroTik 2010 140
 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

©MikroTik 2010 141

 Nstreme Lab
• Route your private network together with
your neighbour's network
• Enable Nstreme and check link productivity
with different framer policies

©MikroTik 2010 142

Wireless Nstreme Dual Protocol

©MikroTik 2010 143

 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

©MikroTik 2010 144

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
©MikroTik 2010 145
802.11n

©MikroTik 2010 146

 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

©MikroTik 2010 147

 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

©MikroTik 2010 148

 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
©MikroTik 2010 149
802.11n Data Rates

©MikroTik 2010 150

N card Data Rates

©MikroTik 2010 151

 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

©MikroTik 2010 152

 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

©MikroTik 2010 153

Wireless card configuration

©MikroTik 2010 154

 Wireless card configuration
• ht-rxchains/ht-txchains – which antenna
connector use for receive and transmit
– antenna-mode setting is ignored for N cards
• ht-amsdu-limit – max AMSDU that device
is allowed to prepare
• ht-amsdu-threshold – max frame size to
allow including in AMSDU

©MikroTik 2010 155

 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)

©MikroTik 2010 156

 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
©MikroTik 2010 157
 Transparent Bridging of N links
• WDS will not provide the full speed – WDS
doesn’t support frame aggregation
• EOIP adds overhead
• MPLS/VPLS tunnel for faster speeds and
less overhead

©MikroTik 2010 158

 VPLS/MPLS Bridge for N link
• Establish the wireless N link AP<->Station
• Configure IP on AP and Station
– 172.16.0.1/30 on wlan1 (AP)
– 172.16.0.2/30 on wlan1 (Station)
• Enable LDP (Label Distribution Protocol)
– /mpls ldp set enabled=yes lsr-id=172.16.0.1 transport-
address=172.16.0.1; /mpls ldp interface add
interface=wlan1 (AP)
– /mpls ldp set enabled=yeslsr-id=172.16.0.2 transport-
address=172.16.0.2; /mpls ldp interface add
interface=wlan1 (Station)

©MikroTik 2010 159

 VPLS/MPLS Bridge for N link
• Configure VPLS tunnel
– /interface vpls add name=vpls1 remote-
peer=172.16.0.2 vpls-id=1:1 disabled=no (AP)
– /interface vpls add name=vpls1 remote-
peer=172.16.0.1 vpls-id=1:1 disabled=no
(Station)
• Create Bridge and bridge ether1 and vpls1
interface together

©MikroTik 2010 160

 VPLS/MPLS Bridge for N link
• Confirm the LDP running status
– /mpls ldp neighbor print
– /mpls forwarding-table print
• Confirm VPLS tunnel status
– /interface vpls monitor vpls1 once

©MikroTik 2010 161

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

©MikroTik 2010 162

 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

©MikroTik 2010 163

 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

©MikroTik 2010 164