Now I want to do a LAB about another topic of bridging which is wireless station bridge.

My scenario now is as the following:

R1 has still the same configuration as it was in the previous LAB. So, all Ethernet ports (except Ether1) and WLAN interface are bridged together.

I have added another router (R2) and I have connected my PC to R2. My mission is to connect R2 via wireless to R1, and have internet service on my PC.

I want 1^st to bridge all interfaces on R2 including WLAN interface, similar to what we have done on the R1. Let’s do that:

[mepr-show rules=”319″ unauth=”message”]

I have bridged all interfaces on R2.

Now I need to connect wirelessly to R1. Let me show you how to do that:

I used the mode as station.

Station means that R2 is a station wireless to R1, this means that it is like a computer or phone connected to the wireless.

You see it has “RS” as a notation, that means that R2 is connected via wireless to R1.

As the WLAN2 interface is under the bridge interface, let’s enabled DHCP client on the Bridge interface.

This has been enabled. Let’s check if I received an IP on the bridge interface of R2:

Indeed, I have received an IP of 192.168.88.4/24

As everything is bridged all the way from R1 to R2 to my PC, let’s check if my PC has received an IP address from the DHCP server set on R1 and if it can go to the internet:

I see that my PC did not get an IP address from the DHCP server, he just got a Windows APIPA IP address.

But why this happened? Everything is bridged all the way to the PC. Why cannot my PC get an IP address from R1 DHCP server?

Well, there is a reason behind that, let me explain it to you in an illustration:

R1, which is the Access Point router, can learn only 3 addresses.

If the traffic is coming from the ISP towards R2, he can understand:

• Src: the source of the traffic from the internet which is the ISP router
• TA: the Transmit address which is R1 own address
• RA: the Receiving address which is R2 address.

And the way back of the traffic (R2 to the internet), R1 can understand the following addresses:

• TA: which is R2 address
• RA: which is R1 own address
• DST: which is the address of the ISP router

That’s how the technology works in Wireless. It cannot understand a 4^th address which is the PC address. That’s why the internet doesn’t work on the PC.

There is 1 exception of the rule is to make R2 a wireless station bridge. This this what is explained here:

You can see that the wireless technology says, that in case you enable wireless bridge then the Access point can understand address 4.

In our case the way it is now, we are on the infrastructure mode, which is line 2 of the table, and it clearly saying that Address 4 is not used.

To make R2 as a wireless bridge, we need to change the mode on the wireless to station bridge on R2. This is a MikroTik proprietary mode to make the router as a wireless bridge so we can use Address 4 for the PC. Got the idea?

Let’s do that and check if it will work:

The change has been done. Let’s check if my PC can get an IP from R1 DHCP server:

Now my PC got the IP address. Excellent!!!

Let’s check if my PC can go to the internet:

It is working now.

That’s all what I wanted to show you in this LAB and this whole course. I hope you enjoyed the course.

[/mepr-show]