Cisco Wireless – Cannot Bridge Point-to-Point Between Autonomous AP and Lightweight AP

bridgecapwapciscoieee 802.11wireless

I'm doing some tests in a company, and I have some problems.

My mission is to configure an autonomous AP Cisco AIRCAP-2602E, and do a Wi-Fi bridge point-to-point between a Cisco lightweight AP and the autonomous AP (which is the Cisco AIRCAP-2602E).

The lightweight AP is connected to a Cisco Wi-Fi controler and my autonomous AP is alone.

I just want to do a bridge between these two APs to broadcast the network (from the vlan 10), which is broadcast by the lightweight AP on the Gigabit interface of my autonomous AP that will be linked to a computer.

But, I'm searching on the web for a solution. I have tested a lot of things, and nothing works. I cannot bridge between these APs.

I don't have much knowledge about the Wi-Fi with Cisco. I tried a lot of things like set up bridge-group, do universal root bridge, etc., but nothing works.

What is the good mode for the autonomous AP? How do I connect them together?

I'm so lost please help me…

Sory for my bad english, I've done my best…
If you have questions for some precision ask me

Best Answer

You can configure the WAP to be a client of the LWAP. The WAP would act as a wireless bridge. It will not be a point-to-point link, but the WAP will bridge the devices connected to its ethernet interface to the LWAP.

Apparently, you can only configure this for one radio in the WAP. In the radio configuration, use the station-role workgroup-bridge command. Cisco provides an example:

AP# configure terminal
AP(config)# interface dot11radio 0
AP(config-if)# station-role workgroup-bridge
AP(config-if)# ssid infra
AP(config-ssid)# infrastructure-ssid
AP(config-ssid)# authentication client username wgb1 password cisco123
AP(config-ssid)# exit
AP(config-if)# exit
AP(config)# workgroup-bridge client-vlan 22
AP(config)# end

One hitch is that the WAP as a bridge can time out the MAC addresses of the clients it is bridging, if they do not send very often, even if they are receiving. You can increase the timeout for this problem:

configure terminal
bridge <bridge-group-number> <aging-time seconds>
exit
end

Cisco has the full set of instructions on configuring a workgroup bridge, e.g. Cisco IOS Configuration Guide for Autonomous Aironet Access Points Cisco IOS Release 15.3(3)JAB. In particular, there is a section on configuring a workgroup bridge, and a following section on how to work with a workgroup bridge as a client of an LWAP.

Understanding Workgroup Bridge Mode

You can configure access points as workgroup bridges. In workgroup bridge mode, the unit associates to another access point as a client and provides a network connection for the devices connected to its Ethernet port. For example, if you need to provide wireless connectivity for a group of network printers, you can connect the printers to a hub or to a switch, connect the hub or switch to the access point Ethernet port, and configure the access point as a workgroup bridge. The workgroup bridge associates to an access point on your network.

If your access point has two radios, either the 2.4-GHz radio or the 5-GHz radio can function in workgroup bridge mode. When you configure one radio interface as a workgroup bridge, the other radio remains up. However, both radios cannot be configured to operate simultaneously as a workgroup bridge. The other radio can either be disabled (shutdown), or be in root (access point or bridge), scanner, or spectrum mode.

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