Extending the LAN with a Wireless Mesh Link - keep knocking repeater offline

[TownofMidland]

I have been trying to set up a simple wireless connection to an outlying building and have been unsuccessful.

I am using two MR74s and they set themselves up as gateway and repeater just fine. Things go south whenever I plug a switch into the repeater. No matter what I plug in, a Meraki switch or a cheap, dumb switch; the repeater goes offline and I have to disconnect the switch and perform the (not so factory) factory reset on the repeater to get it to connect again.

I have tried various combinations of the uplink port on the repeater switch being TRUNK, ACCESS, one or more VLANs  - whatever (the documentation never actually states how it should be set) to no avail.

• I have manually chosen the radio channels so they always find each other
• I have set the VLAN on and off the BRIDGED SSID
• I have only configured one VLAN across the link

Every time I plug something into the power injector of the MR74, things stop working.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

In particular, I wish to confirm:

• The GATEWAY AP - it's uplink switch port should still be TRUNK?
• Does VLAN tagging on the SSID Access Control have any effect?

[Nash]

I'm using a wireless bridge at a client, with two MR74s and (on the repeater end) an MS220. We're using an MS220FP because I need to have wired clients in addition to an indoor AP at the remote end, so it has to be an L3 switch.

Looks like my links to both MR74 are set as trunks.

I've set the 'bridge' SSID to 'Bridge to LAN' mode.

I've set "Clients wired directly to Meraki APs" to "behave like they are connected to [correct ssid]".

How's your line of site between the two MR74s, by the way?

[TownofMidland]

Thank you. That covers one concern that the single ethernet jack MR74's (as opposed to the two-port MR84's) could not handle this type of set up 

The bridge SSID is set to Bridge Mode and the clients are that are wired are set globally to behave like they are connected to the SSID.

When I had my remote switch set to trunk - at least the repeater came back online after unplugging the switch. In access mode or with the dumb switch, it needs a reset to come back to life.

Right now, line of sight is awesome. They are on either side of our config room (but up high so no sterilization is happening).

I am wondering if it is the MS120-8 giving the issue? I just need to run security cameras and some building automation and it will be a 'not so great' environment (it is a cold storage shed for maintenance equipment) so I went with a lower model instead of my usual MS250's.

I am still digging.

[Nash]

Do you have a spare MS250 that you could very temporarily setup and see what happens? Just... out of curiosity.

Also, just to confirm, you're only using wired devices on your remote end?

[TownofMidland]

Yup, just wired and unfortunately no, I do not have another switch to use.

Now to add to my joy, the repeater isn't coming back online. With a long weekend coming, the pub is looking real good right now.

[rhbirkelund]

Have you followed this guide from Meraki?

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

[PhilipDAth]

>Things go south whenever I plug a switch into the repeater.

Anything acting as a DHCP server plugged into this switch (or the switch itself)?  If so, they'll make the repeater think it is another gateway.

[TownofMidland · Accepted solution]

I think I may have it.

• The key issues appeared to be time & Native VLAN
• In regards to TIME - I have run into this before with Meraki devices and I can only guess that being a cloud based config, sometimes they need time to settle into their configuration. My experience has shown that some devices like the MX and apparently those in this type of configuration, are more sensitive to constant changes
• As for Native VLAN – I reset everything to the default VLAN of 1 then once everything settled in (alerting but still working) I changed things around to my desired configuration

So what did I do?

• Set up the Gateway and Repeater APs and left it working with nothing connected and no changes over the Thanksgiving long weekend
• Took the remote switch and reset it to factory settings (no configuration)
• Plugged it in and left it for 30 min. Everything stayed ONLINE though the remote switch was alerting (management address from wrong VLAN)
• Then I started configuring the Native VLAN for management (on the TRUNK uplink port) along with the same VLAN for the remote wired devices (on the Access ports)
• Set a static management IP
• Wired clients getting DHCP addresses (on the native VLAN)
• Wireless getting DHCP addresses per SSID