Mikrotik Certified

Wireless Engineer
(MTCWE)
©©MikroTik,
MikroTik, [Link].
[Link]. AllAll
rights reserved.
rights Reprinted
reserved. with
Reprinted
permission.
with permission.

MikroTik Xperts
[Link]
Mauro Escalante C.
mescalante@[Link]
MikroTik Certified Trainer
MikroTik Trainer ID #TR0086

© MikroTik Xperts
2012
Schedule
• 09:00 – 10:30 Morning Session I
• 10:30 – 11:00 Morning Break
• 11:00 – 12:30 Morning Session II
• 12:30 – 13:30 Lunch Break
• 13:30 – 15:00 Afternoon Session I
• 15:00 – 15:30 Afternoon Break
• 15:30 – 17:00 (18.00) Afternoon Session II

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 2

Instructor
• Mauro Escalante
• Co-Fundador y CEO de MikroTik Xperts
• Co-Fundador y CEO de Network Xperts
• MikroTik Certified Trainer (desde 2009)
• MTCNA, MTCTCE, MTCWE, MTCRE
• Observer/Sniffer Certified Engineer (desde 2001)
• Ingeniería en Ciencias de la Computación
(Escuela Superior Politécnica del Litoral,
Guayaquil, Ecuador)

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 3

Course Objective

• Provide thorough knowledge and hands-

on training for MikroTik RouterOS
advanced wireless capabilities for small
and medium size networks
• Introduce the 802.11n wireless networking
• Upon completion of the course you will be
able to plan, implement, adjust and debug
wireless MikroTik RouterOS network
configurations
©MikroTik Xperts 2012 4
Topics Overview
• Wireless Standard overview
• Wireless tools
• Troubleshooting wireless clients
• Wireless Advanced settings
– DFS and country regulation
– Data Rates and TX-power
– Virtual AP

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 5

Topics Overview (cont.)
• Wireless Security measures
– Access List and Connect List
– Management Frame Protection
– RADIUS MAC Authentication
– Encryption
• Wireless WDS and MESH
• Wireless Transparent Bridge
– WDS
– VPLS/MPLS transparent bridging
• Wireless Nstreme Protocol
• 802.11n

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Introduce Yourself
• Please, introduce yourself to the class
• Your name
• Your Company
• Your previous knowledge about RouterOS
• Your previous knowledge about networking
• What do you expect from this course?

• Please, remember your class XY number.

(X is number of the row, Y is your seat number in the row)

My number is:_________

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 7

Class Setup Lab
• Create an [Link].0/24 Ethernet network
between the laptop (.1) and the router (.254)
• Connect routers to the AP SSID “AP_N”
• Assign IP address [Link]/24 to the wlan1
• Main GW and DNS address is [Link]
• Gain access to the internet from your laptops via
local router
• Create new user for your router and change
“admin” access rights to “read”

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 8

Class Setup

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 9

Class setup Lab (cont.)
• Set system identity of the board and wireless
radio name to “XY_<your_name>”. Example:
“00_Janis”
• Upgrade your router to the latest Mikrotik
RouterOS version 4.x
• Upgrade your Winbox loader version
• Set up NTP client – use [Link] as server
• Create a configuration backup and copy it to the
laptop (it will be default configuration)

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 10

Quick Check

• Everyone must be in main AP’s registration list

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 11

Wireless Standards
• 802.11b – 11Mbps, 2.4Ghz
• 802.11g – 54Mbps, 2.4Ghz
• 802.11a – 54Mbps, 5Ghz
• 802.11n – 300Mbps, 2.4/5Ghz

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 12

Wireless Bands
• 2Ghz
– B, B/G, Only-G, G-Turbo, Only-N, B/G/N,
5mhz, 10mhz
• 5Ghz
– A, A-Turbo, Only-N, A/N, 5mhz, 10mhz

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 13

Supported Bands by chipsets
• AR5213/AR5414
– A/B/G, G-Turbo, A-Turbo, 5Mhz, 10Mhz
• AR5416/AR9160/AR9220
– A/B/G/N, 5Mhz*, 10Mhz*

*not fully supported

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 14

Supported Frequencies
• A/B/G Atheros chipset cards usually
support such frequencies
– 2Ghz band: 2192-2539Mhz
– 5Ghz band: 4920-6100Mhz
• N Atheros chipset cards usually support
such frequencies
– 2Ghz band: 2192-2539Mhz
– 5Ghz band: 4800-6075Mhz

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 15

Scan List
• Default frequencies from the scan-list shown
bold in the frequency field (Winbox only)
• Default scan-list value from the country shown
as ‘default’
• Frequency range is specified by the dash
– 5500-5700
• Exact frequencies specified by comma
– 5500,5520,5540
• Mixed option also possible
– default,5520,5540,5600-5700

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 16

Wireless tools for finding the best
band/frequency

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 17

Wireless Tools
• Scan
• Frequency Usage
• Spectral Scan/History
• Snooper
• Align
• Sniffer

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Scan and Frequency Usage
• Both tools use the Scan-list
• Interface is disabled during the usage of
tools
• Scan shows all 802.11 based APs
• Frequency usage shows every 802.11
traffic

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 19

Spectral Scan/History
• Uses only Atheros Merlin 802.11n chipset
wireless cards
• Range
– 2ghz, 5ghz, current-channel, range
• Value
– avg, avg-peak, interference, max, min
• Classify-samples
– wifi, bluetooth, microwave-oven, etc

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 20

Spectral-history
• Plot spectrogram
• Power values are printed in different
colors
• Audible option - plays each line as it is
printed on the routers speaker
– Each line is played from left to right, with
higher frequencies corresponding to higher
values in the spectrogram

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 21

Spectral-history

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 22

Spectral-scan
• Continuously monitor spectral data
• Each line displays one spectrogram bucket:
– Frequency
– Numeric value of power average
– Character graphic bar
• average power value - ':'
• average peak hold - '.'
• maximum lone floating - ':'
• Show Interference option

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 23

Spectral-scan

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 24

Wireless Snooper Tool

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 25

Alignment Tool

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Wireless Sniffer

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Wireless Tools Lab
• Enable your AP on one of the 5ghz
frequencies
• Check if that frequency is the less
occupied by using the RouterOS wireless
tools

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 28

Use of DFS for automatic
frequency selection

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 29

DFS
• Dynamic Frequency Selection (DFS)
• “no radar detect” - at startup AP scans channel
list from "scan-list" and chooses the frequency
which is with the lowest amount of other
networks detected
• “radar detect” - adds capability to detect radar
at start up for 60 seconds and avoid them by
changing frequency
• By most country regulations DFS must be
set to “radar detect”
©MikroTik Xperts 2012 30
DFS Lab
• Enable the AP on frequency 5180Mhz
• Enable DFS mode to “no radar detect”
• Disable wireless interface on the AP for
few seconds and enable it back
• Observe frequency jumps

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 31

Wireless Country Regulations
• Frequency mode
• “regulatory domain”
- restricts usage only
to allowed channels
with allowed transmit
powers
• “manual txpower” -
ignore transmit power
restrictions, but apply
to frequency limitations
• “superchannel” -
ignore all restrictions
©MikroTik Xperts 2012
Analyzing registration table for
troubleshooting the wireless
connection

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 33

Troubleshooting Wireless Client
• ACK-timeout
• CCQ
• TX/RX Signal Strength
• Frames vs. HW-frames
• Data-rate jumping

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 34

Registration table

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 35

CCQ – Client Connection Quality
• Value in percent that shows how effective
the bandwidth is used regarding the
theoretically maximum available
bandwidth
• Weighted average of values Tmin/Treal
calculated for every transmitted frame
– Tmin is time it would take to transmit given
frame at highest rate with no retries
– Treal is time it took to transmit frame in real
life
©MikroTik Xperts 2012 36
Frames vs. HW-frames
• Wireless retransmission is when the card sends
out a frame and you don't receive back the
acknowledgment (ACK), you send out the frame
once more till you get back the acknowledgment
• If the hw-frames value is bigger
than frames value then it means that the
wireless link is making retransmissions
• I case of Nstreme you can’t compare the frames
with hw-frames

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 37

Using advanced settings for
troubleshooting and fine tuning the
wireless connection

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 38

Wireless Advanced Settings
• Advanced Wireless Tab settings
• HW-retries
• HW-protection
– RTS/CTS
– CTS to self
• Adaptive-noise-immunity
• Configuration Reset
• WMM
©MikroTik Xperts 2012 39
Wireless Advanced Tab

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 40

Advanced Wireless Tab
• Area – string that describes the AP, used in the
clients Connect-list for choosing the AP by the
area-prefix
• Ack-timeout – acknowledgement code timeout in
µs; “dynamic” by default
• Periodic-calibration – to ensure performance of
chipset over temperature and environmental
changes
• Hide-ssid – whether to hide ssid or not in the
beacon frames

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 41

HW-retries
• Number of frame sending retries until the
transmission is considered failed
• Data rate is decreased upon failure
• But if there is no lower rate, 3 sequential
failures activate on-fail-retry-time
transmission pause and the counter
restarts
• The frame is being retransmitted either
until success or until client is disconnected
– disconnect-timeout reached
©MikroTik Xperts 2012 42
HW-protection
• Frame protection helps to fight "hidden
node" problem
• CTS/RTS protection
• “CTS to self” protection
• hw-protection-threshold – frame size
threshold at which protection should be
used; 0 – used for all frames

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 43

RTS/CTS based protection
• RTS/CTS based protection
– Device willing to send frame at first sends
RequestToSend frame and waits for
ClearToSend frame from intended destination
– By "seeing" RTS or CTS frame 802.11
compliant devices know that somebody is
about to transmit and therefore do not initiate
transmission themselves

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 44

“CTS to self” based protection
• "CTS to self" based protection
– Device willing to send frame sends CTS frame
"to itself“
– As in RTS/CTS protocol every 802.11
compliant device receiving this frame know
not to transmit.
– "CTS to self" based protection has less
overhead, but it must be taken into account
that this only protects against devices
receiving CTS frame

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 45

“CTS to self” or RTS/CTS
• If there are 2 "hidden" stations, there is no
use for them to use "CTS to self"
protection, because they will not be able to
receive CTS sent by other station - in this
case stations must use RTS/CTS so that
other station knows not to transmit by
seeing CTS transmitted by AP
• Use only one protection

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 46

HW-fragmentation-threshold
• Maximum fragment size in bytes when
transmitted over wireless medium
• Fragmentation allows packets to be fragmented
before transmiting over wireless medium to
increase probability of successful transmission
• Only fragments that did not transmit correctly are
retransmitted
• Transmission of fragmented packet is less
efficient than transmitting unfragmented packet
because of protocol overhead and increased
resource usage at both - transmitting and
receiving party

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 47

Adaptive-noise-immunity
• Adjusts various receiver parameters dynamically
to minimize interference and noise effect on the
signal quality
• Works on Atheros 5212 or newer Atheros
chipset
• Uses CPU power
• 3 options:
– None – disabled
– Client-mode – will be enabled only if station or station-
wds used
– Ap-and-client-mode – will be enabled in any mode

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 48

Wireless Configuration reset
• Sometimes after
reconfiguring
advanced settings
you might want to get
back the default
settings
• Use the “Reset
Configuration” option
– resets the current
wireless cards all
configuration
©MikroTik Xperts 2012 49
Wireless MultiMedia (WMM)
• 4 transmit queues with priorities:
• 1,2 – background
• 0,3 – best effort
• 4,5 – video
• 6,7 – voice
• Priorities set by
• Bridge or IP firewall
• Ingress (VLAN or WMM)
• DSCP
©MikroTik Xperts 2012 50
Modifying data rates and tx-power
for stabilizing wireless connection

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 51

Basic and supported rates
• Supported rates –
client data rates
• Basic rates – link
management data
rates
• If router can't send
or receive data at
basic rate – link
goes down

©MikroTik Xperts 2012

Data rates changing options
• Lower the higher supported data-rates on the
client which have stability issues
• Lower the higher supported data-rates on the AP
if most of the clients have problems running on
higher data rates.
• Not recommended to disable lower data rates
and leave only the higher data rates as
disconnection of the link could happen more
often
• Note that AP and the Client should support the
same Basic rates to establish the wireless
connection
©MikroTik Xperts 2012 53
TX power
• Different TX-power for
each data-rate –
higher date rate, less
power
• Disabling the higher
data-rates could
improve the signal as it
uses higher tx-power
on lower data-rates

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 54

TX-power-mode
• Default – uses tx-power values from cards
eeeprom
• Card-rates – use tx-power, that for different rates
is calculated according the cards transmit power
algorithm, which as an argument takes tx-
power value
• All-rates-fixed – use one tx-power value for all
rates
• Manual-table – use the tx-power as defined
in /interface wireless manual-tx-power-table

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 55

Data rates Lab
• Configure the AP to allow the data-rates
up to 24Mbps data rates and test the max
throughput
• Configure the AP to allow only the 54Mbps
data rate and check the max throughput
and check how stable is the connection

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 56

Use of Virtual AP feature for
creating multiple APs

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 57

Virtual AP
• Used for creating a new AP on top of the
physical wireless card
• Works for AR5212 and newer Atheros
Chipset cards
• Up to 128 Virtual AP per wireless card
• Uses different MAC address and can be
changed
• Can have different SSID, security profile,
Access/Connect-list, WDS options
©MikroTik Xperts 2012 58
Virtual AP Setup

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 59

Virtual AP Lab
• Work two together
• Connect both routers using Ethernet cable
• First router
– Create 2 VLAN interfaces on that Ethernet
– Create 2 hotspots – one on each VLAN
– For one Hotspot change the background color of login page
• add background-color: #A9F5A9; in the body line in the [Link] page
• Second router
– Create 2 VLAN interfaces on the Ethernet interfaces with the VLAN ID
from the first router
– Create 2 Virtual APs with different SSID
– Bridge first VLAN with first Virtual AP
– Create second bridge with second VLAN and second Virtual AP
• Connect to each Virtual AP and check if one AP has different login
page
• Reset the configuration and switch places

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 60

Managing access for AP/Clients
using Access-List and Connect-List

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 61

 Access Management
• default-forwarding (on AP) – whether the
wireless clients may communicate with each
other directly (access list may override this
setting for individual clients)
• default-authentication – default authentication
policy that applies to all hosts not mentioned in
the AP's access list or client's connect list
• Both options are obsolete – same functionality
can be achieved with new connect list and
access list features

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 62

Wireless Access/Connect Lists
• Access List is AP's authentication filter
• Connect List is Client's authentication filter
• Entries in the lists are ordered, just like in firewall
- each authentication request will have to pass
from the first entry until the entry it match
• There can be several entries for the same MAC
address and one entry for all MAC addresses
• Entries can be wireless interface specific or
global for the router

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 63

 Wireless Access List
• It is possible to specify authentication policy for
specific signal strength range
• Example: allow clients to connect with good signal
level or not connect at all
• It is possible to specify authentication policy for
specific time periods
• Example: allow clients to connect only on weekends
• It is possible to specify authentication policy for
specific security keys:
• Example: allow clients only with specific security key
to connect to the AP.

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 64

Wireless Access List

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 65

 Wireless Connect List
• Used for allowing/denying access based on:
• SSID
• MAC address of the AP
• Area Prefix of the AP
• Signal Strength Range
• Security Profile
• It is possible to prioritize one AP over another AP
by changing order of the entries
• Connect list is used also for WDS links, when
one AP connects to other AP
©MikroTik Xperts 2012 66
Wireless Connect List

©MikroTik Xperts 2012

Access/Connect List Lab
• Peer up with other group (so that there will
be two APs and two clients in one group)
• Leave default-forwarding, default-
authentication enabled
• On APs:
• Ensure that only clients from your group and
with -70..120 signal strength are able to
connect
• (Advanced) Try out Time settings

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 68

Access/Connect List Lab
• On clients:
• Ensure that your client will connect only to
your group APs
• Try to prioritize one AP over another
• When APs have same SSID
• When APs have different SSID
• Delete all access list and connect list rules
– change places and repeat the lab

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 69

Centralized Access List
Management – RADIUS

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 70

RADIUS MAC Authentication
• Option for remote centralized MAC RADIUS
authentication and accounting
• Possibility of using radius-incoming feature to
disconnect specific MAC address from the AP
• MAC mode – username or username and
password
• MAC Caching Time – how long the RADIUS
authentication reply for MAC address
authentication if considered valid for caching

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 71

RADIUS MAC Authentication

©MikroTik Xperts 2012

RADIUS Client Configuration
• Create a RADIUS
client under ‘Radius’
menu
• Specify the Service,
IP address of
RADIUS Server and
Secret
• Use Status section to
monitor the
connection status

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 73

Wireless security for protecting
wireless connection

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 74

Wireless Security
• Authentication
– PSK Authentication
– EAP Authentication
• Encryption
– AES
– TKIP
– WEP
• EAP RADIUS Security

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 75

Security Principles
• Authentication - ensures acceptance of
transmissions only from confirmed source
• Data encryption
• Confidentiality - ensures that information is
accessible only to those authorized to have
access
• Integrity – ensures that information is not
changed by any other source and are exactly
the same as it was sent out

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 76

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 77
PSK Authentication
• Pre-Shared Key is a authentication
mechanism that uses a secret which was
previously shared between the two parties
• Most common used wireless security type
• Multiple authentication types for one profile
• Optional PSK key for each MAC address
(using Access list)

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 78

EAP Authentication
• Extensible Authentication Protocol
provides a negotiation of the desired
authentication mechanism (a.k.a. EAP
methods)
• There are about 40 different EAP methods
• RouterOS support EAP-TLS method and
also is capable to passtrough all methods
to the RADIUS server

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 79

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 80
AES-CCM
• AES-CCM – AES with CTR with CBC-MAC

• AES - Advanced Encryption Standard is

a block cipher that works with a fixed block
size of 128 bits and a key size of 128, 192,
or 256 bits
• CTR - Counter generates the next
keystream block by encrypting successive
values of a "counter"
©MikroTik Xperts 2012 81
AES-CCM (2)
• CBC - Cipher Block Chaining each block
of plaintext is XORed with the previous
ciphertext block before being encrypted.
This way, each ciphertext block is
dependent on all plaintext blocks
processed up to that point.
• MAC - Message Authentication Code
allows to detect any changes to the
message content
©MikroTik Xperts 2012 82
TKIP
• Temporal Key Integrity Protocol is a
security protocol used in the IEEE 802.11
wireless networks
• TKIP is evolution of WEP based on RC4
stream cipher
• Unlike WEP it provides
• per-packet key mixing,
• a message integrity check,
• rekeying mechanism
©MikroTik Xperts 2012 83
WEP (obsolete)
• Wired Equivalent Privacy is one of the first
and simple security type
• Does not have authentication method
• Not recommended as it is vulnerable to
wireless hacking tools

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 84

WEP (obsolete)

©MikroTik Xperts 2012

Pre-Shared Key (PSK)
• To make PSK authentication
• Use “Dynamic Keys” mode
• Enable WPAx-PSK authentication type
• Specify Unicast and Group Ciphers (AES
CCM, TKIP)
• Specify WPAx-Pre-Shared Key
• Keys generated on association from PSK
will be used in ciphers as entry key

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 86

Pre-Shared Key (PSK)

©MikroTik Xperts 2012

Unicast Cipher
• On the AP and on Station at least one
unicast cipher should match to make the
wireless connection between 2 devices

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 88

Group Cipher
• For the AP
– If on AP the group cipher will be AES and
TKIP the strongest will be used – AES
– It is advised to choose only one group cipher
on the AP
• For the Station
– If on the Station both group ciphers are used
it means that it will connect to the AP that
supports any of these ciphers

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 89

EAP RADIUS Security
• To make the EAP passthrough authentication
• Enable WPAx-EAP authentication type
• Enable MAC authentication
• Set EAP Method to passthrough
• Enable RADIUS client
• To make EAP-TLS authentication
• Enable WPAx-EAP authentication type
• Configure TLS option if you plan to use certificate
• Import and decrypt certificate

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 90

EAP RADIUS Security

©MikroTik Xperts 2012

Wireless Security Lab
• Make wireless link with your neighbour
using WPA-PSK:
• Create a security profile and use the same
pre-shared key to establish a wireless
connection with your neighbour router.
• On the AP add an Access List entry with
the neighbours MAC address and specify
different PSK key, ask your neighbour to
connect to it again
©MikroTik Xperts 2012 92
Protecting wireless clients from
deauthentication and MAC cloning
attacks

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 93

Management Frame Protection
• RouterOS implements proprietary
management frame protection algorithm
based on shared secret
• RouterOS wireless device is able to verify
source of management frame and confirm
that particular frame is not malicious
• Allows to withstand deauthentication and
disassociation attacks on RouterOS based
wireless devices.

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 94

Management Protection Settings
• Configured in the security-profile
– disabled - management protection is disabled
– allowed - use management protection if supported by
remote party
• for AP - allow both, non-management protection and
management protection clients
• for client - connect both to APs with and without management
protection
– required - establish association only with remote
devices that support management protection
• for AP - accept only clients that support management
protection
• for client - connect only to APs that support management
protection
©MikroTik Xperts 2012 95
Management Protection key
• Configured with security-
profile management-protection-
key setting
• When interface is in AP mode, default
management protection key can be
overridded by key specified in access-list
or RADIUS attribute.

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 96

Management Protection Lab
• Work in group with 3 persons
• One makes an AP
• Other two connect to the AP
• One of the client clones the other clients MAC
address
• Check connectivity from both clients to the AP
• Set the management protection to required and
specify a key on the AP and on the original client
• Check which client connected – original or
cloned
©MikroTik Xperts 2012 97
Wireless WDS and MESH

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 98

WDS and MESH
• WDS
– Dynamic WDS Interface
– Static WDS Interface
• RSTP Bridge
• HWMP+ MESH
– Reactive mode
– Proactive mode
– Portals

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 99

WDS – Wireless Distribution
System
• WDS allows to create custom wireless
coverage using multiple APs what is
impossible to do only with one AP
• WDS allows packets to pass from one AP
to another, just as if the APs were ports on
a wired Ethernet switch
• APs must use the same band, same SSID
and operate on the same frequency in
order to connect to each other

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 100

 Wireless Distribution System
• One AP (bridge/ap-bridge mode) can have WDS
link with:
• Other AP in bridge/ap-bridge mode
• Other AP in wds-slave (frequency adapting) mode
• Client in station-wds mode
• You must disable DFS setting if you have more
that one AP in bridge/ap-bridge mode in your
WDS network
• WDS implementation could be different for each
vendor – not all different vendor devices could be
connected together with WDS
©MikroTik Xperts 2012 101
WDS Configuration
• There are four different WDS operation modes
• Dynamic – WDS interfaces are created automatically
as soon as other WDS compatible device is found
• Static – WDS interfaces must be crated manually
• Dynamic-mesh – same as dynamic mode, but with
HWMP+ support (not compatible with standard
dynamic mode or other vendors)
• Static-mesh – same as static mode, but with HWMP+
support (not compatible with standard static mode or
other vendors)

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 102

WDS Configuration
• WDS Default Cost -
default bridge port cost of
the WDS links
• WDS Cost Range -
margin of cost that can be
adjusted based on link
throughput
• WDS Ignore SSID –
whether to create WDS
links with any other AP in
this frequency

©MikroTik Xperts 2012

Dynamic WDS Interface
• It is created 'on the fly' and appears under
WDS menu as a dynamic interface ('D'
flag)
• When link for dynamic WDS interface
goes down attached IP addresses will slip
off from WDS interface and interface will
slip of the bridge
• Specify “wds-default-bridge” parameter
and attach IP addresses to the bridge

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 104

Static WDS Interface
• Requires the destination MAC address and
master interface parameters to be
specified manually
• Static WDS interfaces never disappear,
unless you disable or remove them
• WDS-default-bridge should be changed to
“none”

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 105

Static WDS Interface

©MikroTik Xperts 2012

Point-to-point WDS link

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 107

Single Band Mesh

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 108

Dual Band Mesh

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 109

WDS Mesh and Bridge
• WDS Mesh is not possible without bridging
• To create a WDS mesh all WDS interfaces on
every router should be bridged together, and with
interfaces where clients will be connected
• To prevent possible loops and enable link
redundancy it is necessary to use (Rapid)
Spanning Tree Protocol ((R)STP)
• RSTP works faster on topology changes than
STP, but both have virtually the same
functionality

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 110

(Rapid) Spanning Tree Protocol
• (R)STP eliminate the possibility for the same
MAC addresses to be seen on multiple bridge
ports by disabling secondary ports to that MAC
address
• First (R)STP will elect a root bridge based on smallest
bridge ID
• Then (R)STP will use breadth-first search algorithm
taking root bridge as starting point
• If algorithm reaches the MAC address for the first time – it
leaves the link active
• If algorithm reaches the MAC address for the second time – it
disables the link

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 111

(R)STP in Action

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 112

(R)STP Topology

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 113

(R)STP Bridge Port Roles
• Disabled port - for looped ports
• Root port – a path to the root bridge
• Alternative port – backup root port (only in
RSTP)
• Designated port – forwarding port
• Backup port – backup designated port
(only in RSTP)

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 114

Admin MAC Address
• MAC address for the
bridge interface is taken
from one on the bridge
ports
• If the ports changes a lot
– MAC address of bridge
also could change
• Admin MAC option allows
to use static MAC
address for the bridge

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 115

RSTP Configuration

• Router with the

lowest priority in
the network will be
elected as a Root
Bridge

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 116

RSTP Port Configuration
• Cost – allows to
choose one path over
another
• Priority – if costs are
the same it is used to
choose designated
port
• Horizon – feature
used for MPLS
• Do not forward packet
to the same label ports

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 117

RSTP Port Configuration
• There are 3 options that allow to optimize
RSTP performance:
• Edge port – indicates whether this port is
connected to other bridges
• Point-to-point - indicates whether this port is
connected only to one network device (WDS,
wireless in bridge mode)
• External-fdb – allow to use registration table
instead as forwarding data base (only AP)

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 118

Layer-2 routing for Mesh
networks
• MikroTik offers alternative to RSTP - HWMP+
• HWMP+ is a MikroTik specific Layer-2 routing
protocol for wireless mesh networks
• The HWMP+ protocol is based on, but is not
compatible with Hybrid Wireless Mesh Protocol
(HWMP) from IEEE 802.11s draft standard
• HWMP+ works only with
• wds-mode=static-mesh
• wds-mode=dynamic-mesh

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 119

HWMP+
• To configure HWMP+ use “/interface
mesh” menu - configuration is very similar
to bridge configuration.
• HWMP+ provide optimal routing based on
link metric
• For Ethernet links the metric is configured
statically
• For WDS links the metric is updated
dynamically depending on wireless signal
strength and the selected data transfer rate

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 120

Reactive Mode Discover
• All path are
discovered on
demand, by flooding
Path Request
(PREQ) message in
the network.

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 121

Reactive Mode Response
• The destination
node or some router
that has a path to
the destination will
reply with a Path
Response (PREP)

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 122

Proactive Mode
• In proactive mode some routers are
configured as portals – router has
interfaces to some other network, for
example, entry/exit point to the mesh
network
• Best suited when most of traffic goes
between internal mesh nodes and a few
portal nodes

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 123

Proactive Mode Announcement
• The portals will
announce their
presence by
flooding Root
Announcement
(RANN) message
in the network.

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 124

Proactive Mode Response
• Internal nodes will
reply with a Path
Registration
(PREG) message
• Result – routing
trees with roots in
the portal routers

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 125

Portals
• Routes to portals will serve as a kind of default
routes
• If an internal router does not know path to a
particular destination, it will forward all data to its
closest portal – the portal will then discover path
on behalf of the router, if needed. The data
afterwards will flow through the portal
• This may lead to suboptimal routing, unless the
data is addressed to the portal itself or some
external network the portals has interfaces to

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 126

Mesh configuration settings
• Reoptimize paths – sends out periodic PREQ messages
asking for known MAC addresses
– If no reply is received to a reoptimization PREQ, the existing
path is kept anyway (until it timeouts itself)
– Better for Proactive mode and for mobile mesh networks
• hwmp-preq-destination-only – if ‘no’ then on the Path
Requests not only the destination router could answer
but also one of the router on the way if it has route to the
destination
• hwmp-preq-reply-and-forward – effective only when
hwmp-preq-destination-only=no; Router on the way after
the reply will still forward the Path Request to the
destination (with flags that only the destination router
could answer)

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 127

WDS/MESH Lab
• Configure the wireless interface as an AP with the same
SSID as the teachers AP
• Enable Static WDS mesh mode
• Create WDS link with the teachers AP
• Configure the MESH – add WDS to the mesh port
• Use MESH traceroute to check the path to the neighbors
router

• Create WDS link with your neighbor router and add that
to the mesh port
• Check again the MESH traceroute to your neighbor

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 128

Wireless Transparent Bridge

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 129

Wireless Transparent Bridge
• Bridging of Ethernet Clients using WDS
• Bridging using AP-Station WDS
• Pseudobridge mode with and without MAC
Cloning
• Bridging of Wireless Clients using WDS

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 130

Bridging of the Ethernet Clients

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 131

AP-Station WDS Link

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 132

 AP-Station WDS Link
• Set station-wds
mode
• WDS-mode must be
“disabled” on the
wireless card
• Wireless client in
Station-WDS mode
can be bridged

©MikroTik Xperts 2012

Pseudobridge mode
• Uses MAC-NAT – MAC address translation for all the
traffic
• Inspecting packets and building table of corresponding
IP and MAC addresses
• All packets are sent to AP with the MAC address used by
pseudobridge, and MAC addresses of received packets
are restored from the address translation table
• Single entry in address translation table for all non-IP
packets – more than one host in the bridged network
cannot reliably use non-IP protocols (pppoe for example)
• IPv6 doesn't work over Pseudobridge

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 134

Pseudobridge Clone mode
• station-bridge-clone-mac – use this
MAC address when connection to AP
• If this value is [Link], station
will initially use MAC address of the
wireless interface
• As soon as packet with MAC address of
another device needs to be transmitted,
station will reconnect to AP using that
address

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 135

Bridging of the Wireless Clients

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 136

Transparent Bridging Lab
• Create a transparent bridge between you
and your neighbor
• Test both methods
– WDS
– Pseudobridge mode
– Pseudobridge mode with MAC cloning
• Check the communication between the
PCs behind each router.

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 137

Wireless Nstreme Protocol

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 138

MikroTik Nstreme
• Nstreme is MikroTik's proprietary (i.e.,
incompatible with other vendors) wireless
protocol created to improve point-to-point
and point-to-multipoint wireless links.

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 139

 Nstreme Protocol
• Benefits of Nstreme protocol:
• Client polling
• Disable CSMA
• No protocol limits on link distance
• Smaller protocol overhead per frame
allowing super-high data rates
• No protocol speed degradation for long link
distances
©MikroTik Xperts 2012 140
 Nstreme Protocol: Frames
• framer-limit - maximal frame size
• framer-policy - the method how to combine
frames. There are several methods of framing:
• none - do not combine packets
• best-fit - put as much packets as possible in one
frame, until the limit is met, but do not fragment
packets
• exact-size - same as best-fit, but with the last packet
fragmentation
• dynamic-size - choose the best frame size
dynamically

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 141

Nstreme Lab
• Route your private network together with
your neighbour's network
• Enable Nstreme and check link productivity
with different framer policies

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 142

Wireless Nstreme Dual Protocol

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 143

Nstreme Dual Protocol
• MikroTik proprietary (i.e., incompatible with other
vendors) wireless protocol that works with a pair of
wireless cards (Atheros chipset cards only) – one
transmitting, one receiving

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 144

Nstreme Dual Interface
• Set both wireless
cards into
“nstreme_dual_slave”
mode
• Create Nstreme dual
interface
• Specify the remote
MAC address – MAC
address of the remote
ends receive wireless
card
• Use framer policy only
if necessary
©MikroTik Xperts 2012 145
802.11n

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 146

802.11n
• MIMO
• 802.11n Data Rates
• Channel bonding
• Frame Aggregation
• Wireless card configuration
• TX-power for N cards
• Transparent bridging for N links
– MPLS/VPLS tunnel

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 147

802.11n Features
• Increased data rates – up to 300Mbps
• 20Mhz and 2x20Mhz channel support
• Works both in 2.4 and 5ghz
• Uses multiple antennas for receive and
transmit
• Frame aggregation

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 148

MIMO
• MIMO – Multiple Input and Multiple Output
• SDM – Spatial Division Multiplexing
• Multiple spatial streams across multiple
antennas
• Multiple antenna configurations for receive
and transmit:
– 1x1, 1x2, 1x3
– 2x2, 2x3
– 3x3
©MikroTik Xperts 2012 149
802.11n Data Rates

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 150

N card Data Rates

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 151

Channel bonding – 2x20Mhz
• Adds additional 20Mhz channel to existing
channel
• Channel placed below or above the main
channel frequency
• Backwards compatible with 20Mhz clients
– connection made to the main channel
• Allows to use higher data rates

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 152

Frame Aggregation
• Combining multiple data frames into single
frame – decreasing the overhead
• Aggregation of MAC Service Data Units
(AMSDU)
• Aggregation of MAC Protocol Data Units
(AMPDU)
– Uses Block Acknowledgement
– May increase the latency, by default enabled only for
the best-effort traffic
– Sending and receiving AMSDUs will also increase
CPU usage

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 153

Wireless card configuration

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 154

Wireless card configuration
• ht-rxchains/ht-txchains – which antenna
connector use for receive and transmit
– antenna-mode setting is ignored for N cards
• ht-amsdu-limit – max AMSDU that device
is allowed to prepare
• ht-amsdu-threshold – max frame size to
allow including in AMSDU

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 155

Wireless card configuration
• ht-guard-interval – whether to allow use of short
guard interval
• ht-extension-channel – whether to use additional
20MHz extension channel; below or under the
main channel frequency
• ht-ampdu-priorities – frame priorities for which
AMPDU sending should get negotiated and used
(aggregating frames and using block
acknowledgment)

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 156

TX-power for N cards
• When using two
chains at the same
time the tx-power is
increased by 3db –
see total-tx-power
column
• When using three
chains at the same
time tx-power is
increased by 5db
©MikroTik Xperts 2012 157
Transparent Bridging of N links
• WDS will not provide the full speed – WDS
doesn’t support frame aggregation
• EOIP adds overhead
• MPLS/VPLS tunnel for faster speeds and
less overhead

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 158

VPLS/MPLS Bridge for N link
• Establish the wireless N link AP<->Station
• Configure IP on AP and Station
– [Link]/30 on wlan1 (AP)
– [Link]/30 on wlan1 (Station)
• Enable LDP (Label Distribution Protocol)
– /mpls ldp set enabled=yes lsr-id=[Link] transport-
address=[Link]; /mpls ldp interface add
interface=wlan1 (AP)
– /mpls ldp set enabled=yeslsr-id=[Link] transport-
address=[Link]; /mpls ldp interface add
interface=wlan1 (Station)

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 159

VPLS/MPLS Bridge for N link
• Configure VPLS tunnel
– /interface vpls add name=vpls1 remote-
peer=[Link] vpls-id=1:1 disabled=no (AP)
– /interface vpls add name=vpls1 remote-
peer=[Link] vpls-id=1:1 disabled=no
(Station)
• Create Bridge and bridge ether1 and vpls1
interface together

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 160

VPLS/MPLS Bridge for N link
• Confirm the LDP running status
– /mpls ldp neighbor print
– /mpls forwarding-table print
• Confirm VPLS tunnel status
– /interface vpls monitor vpls1 once

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 161

VPLS bridge and fragmentation
• VPLS tunnel increases the packet size
• If it exceeds the MPLS MTU of outgoing
interface fragmentation is used
• If case the ethernet interface supports MPLS
MTU 1526 or greater fragmentation can be
avoided by increasing the MPLS MTU
– /mpls interface set 0 mpls-mtu=1526
– List of RouterBoards that supports big MPLS MTU
can be found on the wiki page

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 162

Outdoor setup
• Test each chain separately before using
both chains at the same time
• For 2 chain operation suggested to use
different polarization for each chain
• When used dual-polarization antennas,
isolation of the antenna recommended to
be at least 25db

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 163

802.11n Lab
• Establish the N link with your neighbor
• Test the performance with one and with
two chains
• Create the transparent bridge using VPLS

©MikroTik Xperts 2012 164