Wireless mesh issue 3602I & wlc 2504

[Don Nelson]

Hi,

I am trying to create a wireless mesh between my house & my garage. The good news is the MAP (Garage AP), can see the RAP (Basement AP) & I have devices connecting wirelessly in the garage.

The new issue is I have some wired devices that I would like to plug into the map to go over the bridge via an unmanaged 5port switch. I enabled Ethernet bridging on both APs and assumed that would be all. It appears not.  I went and added vlan 251 on both interfaces, as that is the network I want these devices to connect to in the garage. The RAP does have a trunk interface configured on the layer 3 switch for vlan 251(SSID #3), and vlan 3 (SSID #1) & vlan 250 (SSID #2). 

I attached screen a screen shot of my MAP (DnelGarage) & my RAP (DnelBasement) as well as the mesh section. If anyone could provide suggestions that would be great. 

[pieterh]

at time of screenshot the MAP is not connected to a LAN is that intended?

when connecting vlan251 to an unmanaged switch you may get unpredictable behavior,

because packets are sent out of the access point with vlan-tag to a switch that does not know about vlans

they may be forwarded including tag, but then it depends on how the client will handle these packets.

[Don Nelson]

The map is connected to a unmanaged switch at the moment. That is its intended setup as i have a couple of wired devices on that end that I would like to communicate back to my network at the house (Which is about 20ft away) over wireless if possible. When I have kept it at the default which I believe is vlan 0, it will still show a disconnected status and none of the wired traffic is accessible from the opposite end. All of the devices on the map side are statically assigned IPs in the 251 network. If I leave both ends set to the default of vlan 0, the rap ethernet port always shows as online, and the map is always offline (Unless I physically bring it back to the house and plug it into my layer 2 switch).

[pieterh]

exactly that is the point I want to make

just for the record a VLAN with number 0 does not exist, 

if 0 is configured it would mean packets with no vlan tag which are treated as the default vlan or accces vlan (vlan 1) on equipment that knows vlans

when an unmanaged switch is connected there is no connection to vlan 251 !

-> the physical port is connected, but vlan 251 is "disconnected" on this port (no packets with vlan 251 tag)

I suggest configuring vlan 0 (untagged) at the map and vlan 251 at the rap

and check if the map displays online

the map-rap connection "converts" the default vlan and delivers the packets on vlan251 at the house end