Adding Third-party WIFI AP to your Meraki network

[dalmiroy2k]

Hi, I was wondering if you have experienced adding a third-party WiFi Access Point to your Meraki network to extend WIFI coverage. If so, tell me your experience.

Current Setup: MX64+MR33+Archer C7

So far, MX64 manages the network as it act as a security appliance, Wan uplink, DCHP server for both MR33 and Archer C7 in Access Point mode (No routing).

Things to consider:

_ Go to Air Marshall and enable "Allow clients to connect to rogue SSIDs by default". Add your SSIDs to the whitelist.

_ Your Third-party AP should have an static IP, So it's easy to manage.

_ Client discovery via Mac Address for your non-meraki portion of the network works great, in most cases.

_ Bw and firewall Policies are working fine for any client (both meraki and Archer).

Things to try:

I wonder if roaming works seamlessly if I use the same SSID in both MR33 and Archer C7. 

[kYutobi]

I would test that. Since it's a non-Meraki I'm not sure the roaming wouldbe seamless but it would be something good to know/try. That part I haven't tried since I only have MR AP's. 

[ww]

L2 roaming should work fine if your client is smart enough and everything is in one vlan

[jdsilva]

To add to @ww 's comments, you want both AP's bridged to the same VLAN, with PSK. 

If you're using dot1x they won't roam.

If you're using anything other than bridged to the same VLAN they won't roam. 

Meraki has some roaming guidelines, and I think as long as all this is true for your two AP's it should work (or at least work well enough that it doesn't really matter).

https://documentation.meraki.com/MR/WiFi_Basics_and_Best_Practices/Seamless_Roaming_with_MR_Access_P...

I would also whitelist the other AP in Air Marshall since the non-meraki AP will show up as a rogue.

[NolanHerring]

It should in theory work but its usually not a recommended solution as issues might crop up. As long as your using an OPEN or WPA2-PSK SSID, roaming should work.