Can AP connect to a wireless bridge with root off

[c.ong]

A 340 wireless bridge which is configured as an access point mode can be connected to 340 wireless bridge which is operating as bridge only mode with the root mode is turned off.

WEP is turned off. No MAC filtering enables. Both SSID are the same

However, this connection fails when I replace the wireless bridge in access point mode with a 350 access point. SSID is the same.

Why?

Thanks.

Delon

[jasochan]

Delon,

Did you have a look at the release notes detailing the following limitation on the 350 ? This was by design.

http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/product/wireless/airo_350/accsspts/ap350rn/rn1121.htm#55650

Cisco Aironet 350 Series Bridges Incompatible with 340 Series Bridges

Cisco Aironet 340 and 350 Series Bridges can be connected to the same LAN segments, but they cannot communicate wirelessly. Although you can disable STP on non-root 350 series bridges, 350 and 340 series bridges are not designed to interoperate. If you use both 340 and 350 series bridges on your network, make sure the 340 series bridges have radio bridge links only to other 340 series bridges, and that 350 series bridges have radio bridge links only to other 350 series bridges

[c.ong]

Hi Jason,

Thanks for your feedback.

However, I was able to connect a 350 series bridges with root on to communicate with a 340 series bridge with root off. I do not face any problem at all. If 350 bridge is incompatible with 340 bridge, how come i can establish the wireless link?

Do you think this setup will eventually cause any problem to the production network? Please let me know if what i did was absolutely wrong. I need to inform the customer immediately, if not i will be out of the job.

Thanks.

Delon

[derwin]

Hi Delon,

Jason is right the BR350 can not communicate on the same radio network as the BR340 that can communicate on the same ethernet LAN however.

It is physically possible to get this working in *some* situations with the right settings but the number of varriables involved as to if this will or will not work are too many. Links that have been *made* to work have not been reliable so I do not recommend it for a production network.

If you do play around and get this working you will leave you customer in a bad posistion for support and if the encounter a problem and ring the TAC for support then the their only option will be to use either 2 BR340's or 2 BR350's

The main reason for this incompatabilty was related to the way spanning tree protocol was implemented in the 340 bridges how ever turning of STP is not guarenteed to fix the problem.

The best way forward is to replace the existing BR340 with a BR350 and use the BR340 on another link that has a BR340.

It is unfortuant that they are not backwards compatible and as you may know Cisco works hard to make sure products are backwards compatiable but in this case, to keep it backwards compatible would have removed the ability to support some of the newer features that are now available on the BR350 we could not do both so the decision was made and this is the reason for the note in the release notes.

I am sorry I dont have better news for you.

David