CHEAP WI-FI MESH ALTERNATIVE with fast roaming OpenWrt Wi-Fi Access points

[@OneMarcFifty]

*IMPORTANT UPDATE* : If you don't see the 802.11r options in the luci Web interface then please go to system-software and *_install the package wpad-basic_* . Then you might need to reboot the device. By default OpenWrt has a light or mini version of wpad installed that doesn't have that option. Sorry I forgot to mention that step in the video.

[@hir3npatel]

I guess both APs must be openwrt ideally then, since most other firmware don't let you set 802.11r or such roaming settings?

[@OneMarcFifty]

Honestly- I don‘t know. It may be that modern APs have it on by default or maybe they call it differently...

[@keylock32]

Hi, I don't see wpad/or wpad-basic in software menu only wpad-mini, my old router is using 18.0.6.9 build and this is the latest and last update for it since it only have 4MB rom, how to install it?

[@OneMarcFifty]

@@keylock32 You will need wpad-basic or full wpad. Please check this article: forum.openwrt.org/t/cannot-install-package-wpad/49417/3 In 18.06 the option should then be visible in Luci. If it is not then you may add the directive in your /etc/config/wifi manually : option mobility_domain 'e612' #same for all APs option ieee80211r '1' option ft_psk_generate_local '1' see here: www.reddit.com/r/openwrt/comments/515oea/finally_got_80211r_roaming_working/

[@keylock32]

@@OneMarcFifty Unfortunately there's no free space left in software packages for wpad to be installed, even after removing lot's of opkg, it still doesn't do much, the left over space by default is only 64kB, Imanage to uninstall lot's of thing and get 250kB, and wpad requires 455kB, I gather the information the fast roaming mainly only for router which had 8MB Rom or bigger. I guess that's the main reason why they no longer supports 4/32 routers anymore. My old router is WR740N and I also had unused WA701ND I want to try this method unfortunately this is just hardware limitation, the option is showing up just fine for my main router Gl.Inet MT300Nv2

[@TheBelcherMan]

3 year old video, and still worth every second to watch. All the best.

[@kerembildik9997]

4 years ago, I moved from a small house, WiFi worked well. Then I moved to another house with 2 floors and that house had adsl. I only had 1 modem which our ISP provided. Then I changed our ISP and this ISP didn't provide a modem. I bought a modem, that didn't give much performance, then a repeater, another repeater, Powerline adapters, swithces etc. I recently bought Zyxel multy U 3 pack (because it was the cheapest mesh wifi) . I sold it today because the only way to change settings was a phone app. Which doesn't work without internet. It's a garbage. Tomorrow I'm going to buy a Xiaomi 4a giga version. I'll build a mesh network with 3 of them in the future. By the way, I appreciate so much for this tutorial. It'll help me a lot. Like your other videos did. Thank you.

[@himeshbhatia3445]

From start to end.. amazing.. just amazing. Wow. I am a professional programmer and my majors is ethical hacking and network security. I really wish I had a college professor like you. Long live your KZbin channel. Thank you for all the knowledge. ❤️

[@OneMarcFifty]

Many thanks for the praise Himesh ;-)

[@JamieBainbridge]

Absolute legend. I've been doing networking for over 20 years, provider stuff and software and support and training. Your videos are some of the best and clearest I've seen. I love your knowing grin explaining your setup then you bring us along on the journey so we can have it too.

[@hahahaharada]

Hey Marc I live in São Paulo, Brazil and all houses are made of concrete (bunker hahaha). I found your tutorial and reused two cheap and old devices to do just that! It worked! Mesh networking is still expensive around here and your help was amazing!!! Tks sir!

[@OneMarcFifty]

Muito obrigado e saudações da Alemanha! Glad to hear that you could use it ;-)

[@durgeshkshirsagar116]

Excellent video sir. I had done training on CCNA but now I am realising that it is just tip of the iceberg. Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge. Lots of respect to you.

[@OneMarcFifty]

Hi Durgesh, thank you very much. I am glad you like the videos ;-)

[@Mikesco3]

This video is really underrated!!! It has so much value packed into it.

[@anilgargsfo]

A very important video and made very well. OpenWRT is an amazing product but needs champions like you to make complex feature accessible to average Joe. Well done again.

[@OneMarcFifty]

Thank you very much !

[@anilgargsfo]

@முருகன் Glad to meet you, and what made you upset?

[@OneMarcFifty]

Hi Anil, the offending comment has been reported as spam - I value your feedback and I do not tolerate insults here.

[@cor-janb8870]

Amazing good, clear and helping video. Many thanks. I moved from 6 SSIDS to one SSID, used 40 Mhz channels enabled WMM and now its more easy, faster and roaming works perfect.

[@OneMarcFifty]

Many thanks for your feedback! I am sure glad this could help you simplify things ;-) 6 SSIDs sounds difficult to manage;-)

[@futurecactus]

I do home mesh Wi-Fi installs as a side business and I've found Deco to be the best bang for buck but I have a Unifi network in my own home. I'm also looking at providing rural internet solutions here in Australia where there's few options, I found a 4G router that runs Open-WRT that might be a good solution for some and that's why I'm here, I haven't configured WRT before so your channel is very helpful. Open-WRT looks very powerful but also much harder to configure than Unifi but that may just be because I'm used to it.

[@OneMarcFifty]

Hey, if you want a simple way to set up OpenWrt with 4 G then you might want to have a look at the Rooter project as well - it's an OpenWrt fork : www.ofmodemsandmen.com/

[@stevezphone]

I followed your steps and IT WORKS! Thank you very much for this video.

[@OneMarcFifty]

Yee-Haw ;-) Perfect, I am glad it helped ;-) Thanks for the feedback!

[@tip1810]

Thank you for the video! I have managed to setup the 802.11r on 22.03 OpenWrt and it works. Also, I have found the DAWN service package and installed it. The service improved client connection and network speed. But I don't know how the DAWN works. It would be nice you can write a comment about the service or (maybe) create a video about it.

[@WoMaNA4]

Hi Marc, well illustrated and explained! I want to clarifiy that using different ESSIDs for APs on each floor, e. g. WLAN-0, WLAN-1, WLAN-2 (which was my original intention) disables the roaming or FT feature. So all APs for roaming must have equal ESSID, pre-shared key and mobility domain. WLAN-EG (EG in Germany means "street level" floor ) made me think that your APs would use different ESSIDs for the floors they are located at. At 05:09 when you show the WIFI analyzer we can see that it is not the case. So friends from Germany do not think too much about what "EG" could mean ... just give all APs the same ESSID :-)

[@OneMarcFifty]

Awesome comment, many thanks - and... actually very well observed ;-) you are right that "EG" was intended to be the abbreviation for ground or street level. When I initially set up my Wi-Fi I had 3 of them: UG (basement), EG and OG (upstairs). But once I figured out that life is so much easier with just one of them I just arbitrarily kept EG. I was just too lazy to rename it because I would need to go to every single Wi-fi device in my home and change it....

[@rediculousman]

I am building a large wireless network for a large agricultural application. I'm using ubiquiti airmax gear, which works well but it is a terribly walled in ecosystem. I am toying with the idea to install OpenWRT on all the hardware to enable better integration with end devices and get rid of Airmax. You asked the question, so I thought I would give you an answer. Currently the longest distance to an end point I am sending data wirelessly is 68km!

[@OneMarcFifty]

Wow - 68 Km ? Is that without any relays in between ? What's the data rate over that distance ? Which frequency band ?

[@rediculousman]

@@OneMarcFifty I have one 35km P2P link that operates at approx 90Mb/s and then the final distance is from the access point to the station. That link is about 15Mb/s as I don't need that particular one to be very fast, I only used a mid range radio. It's in a remote area, so interference isn't an issue, but line of sight is. I am operating in the 5GHz band.

[@animry]

Saint Mark, I sold my soul to Google Mesh Wifi and it was so easy :) love your videos...

[@OneMarcFifty]

Thank you very much ;-) Always read the small print before you sign ;-)

[@leaolp]

Great video, Marc. I am a student of Computer Engineering from Brazil and I'm loving your channel. Just subscribed!

[@OneMarcFifty]

Hi, many thanks for subscribing ;-)

[@rangkara7201]

This is probably the best video on home wifi expansion

[@OneMarcFifty]

Many thanks for your kind feedback ;-) kzbin.info/door/G5Ph9Mm6UEQLJJ-kGIC2AQ

[@MCOrigging]

Marc, you are the MAN! These are incredible resources. Thank you for putting the time in on creating these

[@OneMarcFifty]

Hi Blake, many thanks for the kind feedback

[@lknhd]

I came accross your videos when learning about openwrt, thanks for the knowledge sharing, Really useful.

[@heckyes]

What a fantastic channel. So glad I stumbled upon it.

[@OneMarcFifty]

Hi, thank you very much - and I am glad that you found it ;-)

[@hiyoshi177]

thanks marc, i do it with an old aruba ap-105 running openwrt and my main router which is a linksys EA8500, that works fine for me, thanks, very helpful, good explanation.

[@OneMarcFifty]

Awesome- many thanks for sharing!!!

[@Yutaro-Yoshii]

I once tried re-purposing an old router as an access point in my home (tldr, didn't work). I kept the OEM firmware and just changed the password to match the main router/AP. But this didn't work because as mentioned in the video, devices hang onto the APs even when it gets faraway. Next we tried installing a mesh router with an attached repeated. This also did next to nothing to improve the connectivity. In the end, we ended up changing the provider and bought a big router/AP, and now everything works smoothly. The fight may have been long, but in the end, I got many spare network hardwares to play with (and do experiments installing openwrt etc), so I'm not complaining.

[@OneMarcFifty]

Many thanks for your feedback ;-)

[@ALIENPL-fy6vj]

Great video! I was looking for fast and cheap solution. Love it

[@OneMarcFifty]

Excellent! I am glad you like it!

[@JosselinduPLESSIS]

Hey there, amazing course: very clear and well structured, and most importantly, to the point. Thanks Marc

[@OneMarcFifty]

Hi Josselin, many thanks for your friendly feedback - much appreciated.

[@JohnWhittle]

Great video! Used this to setup my 3 GL Inet B1300s which were previously setup with mesh using the original firmware (which is based on openwrt 15). They each have a hardwired ethernet cable so I figured that I actually didn't need the mesh and it bothered me that they were using such and old version of openwrt. They're working great so far. I still may tweak the signal strengths but I'm happy with how it's working. Also, I will add that originally I wasn't able to put my 5GHz wifi channels side by side... after trying to use channel 52 I found it just wouldn't work. After setting my country (Canada) I was able to use channel 52 and set them all up side by side.

[@OneMarcFifty]

Hi John, you're pointing out one of the crucial settings here - the country code. This always needs to be set to the same value on all Wi-fi interfaces in order to have things like DFS work correctly.

[@bradkaral1188]

Between this and your video on choosing a suitable router, this tells us most of what we need to know. Now, if only the hardware info. on OpenWRT's site was easier to read/understand.

[@harrysunarjo]

i use eero, and the result is very nice, the local roaming is very fast also... seamlessly... BUT, you are doing good Job Bro... Like to see your content... cheers...

[@OneMarcFifty]

Many thanks Harry.

[@samuel.heinrich]

WMM is a requirement of the 802.11n standard (and above), disabling WMM basically puts you back on base rates of 802.11a/g (54mbit max)

[@OneMarcFifty]

Hi Samuel, many thanks for sharing.

[@bhalejos]

Just became a patreon, as token of appreciation.

[@OneMarcFifty]

Many thanks Bernie - it means a lot to me!

[@JaimeGonzalez-tt4kk]

Great video! I will add a second OpenWRT router to my home network to create a small mesh.

[@OneMarcFifty]

Awesome ;-) that and Adguard should keep you occupied for a while ;-)

[@flintthuang]

Using a pair of linksys E9450, solid router but with limited configurebility. Both support mesh, but been configured as bridge mode.

[@OneMarcFifty]

Many thanks for the feedback! Are you using OpenWrt ?

[@flintthuang]

@@OneMarcFifty no, not supported, and seems will not

[@pancakeflux]

I was going to go with a 'proper' mesh network but considering my requirements I think I'll do something closer to what you're doing. Thanks for sharing!

[@OneMarcFifty]

Thanks for the feedback! Let me know how it goes ;-)

[@pancakeflux]

@@OneMarcFifty It works! I just needed a simple 'dumb AP' so no need for fast transition etc. The openwrt wiki was good reference.

[@JB-tz9pi]

WiFi works pretty good. Its not a very big house. I am not using a mesh. i just have one access point. Modem > pfSense DIY router > SG300-10 10-Port switch > Netgear 7500R2 with OpenWRT as dumb AP. I been trying to create multiple WiFi networks over the one AP without success. I would like to have a guest network and an IOT network. I'm just not grasping it. I was fine one network but with kids bringing school hardware home and friends, i want to keep them off the LAN.

[@OneMarcFifty]

Thank you for your feed-back J B. It's going to be a tough call in your config scenario as your AP is "AP only" ("dumb") - hence you can't do the firewall stuff on the AP but in your case it's presumably going to happen on the pfSense. Now in order to mirror LAN/Guest etc. config from pfSense to OpenWrt you will have to use VLANs or multiple wires, i.e. define the firewall zones in pfSense, assign interfaces with different VLAN IDs to each zone, tag them out to the AP and from there map them to SSIDs. I will deliver two videos (Firewall with OpenWrt, Guest Wifi) that will cover these, but presumably not with pfSense. If you want to talk this through, feel free to join my discord server - I am doing Video chats Sundays at 9AM and 6PM Berlin time and we can go through it.

[@JB-tz9pi]

@@OneMarcFifty I finally got my setup working a few days or maybe a week after this. It took me a couple nights ticking my family off every time the internet dropped. I was so focused on OpenWRT and port 6 of my switch that I forgot about the trunk(port 9) between the router and the switch. I had to set it to be a member of those VLANs too but not tag it. I tagged it once and everything went down but the guest network. I became an expert on it that week for a few days and have since forgot what I did haha I did manage to set up anther AP that i will throw on the network soon. thanks for your help!

[@OneMarcFifty]

@@JB-tz9pi I know exactly what you mean - sometimes I need to check back on my own videos in order to see how I did stuff :-)

[@alexxx4434]

Hey, Mark, love your well made videos! Keep'em coming!

[@OneMarcFifty]

Glad you like them! More to come :-)

[@fiveangle]

Great content ! I've been frustrated by the lackluster speeds of iOS and Macintosh devices on most 3rd-party APs so have outfitted 3x of the long-discontinued TimeCapsule devices (which also allow dual-backup for all my Mac devices). The work you've done here likely provides a viable solution forward on more flexible APs. I just stumbled across your channel so look forward to enjoying your back catalog. auf Wiedersehen

[@OneMarcFifty]

Hi Dave, many thanks for the feedback ;-)

[@Autotrope]

I do believe from memory that WMM is a mandatory feature for wireless N and above and disabling it will force use of Wireless A or G.

[@OneMarcFifty]

Great, many thanks for sharing.

[@fernandopernasfreide557]

First of all, great videotutorial wi-fi roaming ! Just some things which i have found. First of all, latest cipher protocols, like wpa2-psk/wpa3-sae, doesn't support roaming. Also to improve the roaming there are to enable other protocols like 802.11k or 802.11v. you can found more information in the wiki section wireless of openwrt.

[@OneMarcFifty]

Hi Fernando, many thanks - yes, band steering (k/v) would make it complete ;-)

[@James_Knott]

Using 2 routers means you're using double NAT, which can make some things more difficult. It also means you'll break IPv6, if your ISP provideds it. I put my cable modem into bridge mode and use pfSense for my firewall/router.

[@OneMarcFifty]

Hi James - yes, very true. IPv6 was actually the reason for me to change this. My ISPs Router wouldn't do Prefix Delegation on the LAN side. Unfortunately I could not put it into bridge mode, so I had to buy a DSL modem. Since then I use a VIGOR 166 modem and it works like a charm.

[@Mentaloow]

You don't need double NAT.. you just need to configure OSPF or BGP.. then no need for NAT until your internet gateway.

[@James_Knott]

@@Mentaloow I doubt most users are capable of setting up OSPF or BGP, if they've even heard of them. I have my CCNA and never had a need to do that, though my router/firewall (pfSense) supports them and I also have a Cisco router here.

[@sujithnair1403]

Thanks a ton, mate! Worked like a charm. I used my existing WDR3600 and R6350 for the setup. Saved me from buying a mesh system. Keep up the great work!

[@OneMarcFifty]

Awesome, glad it worked ;-)

[@linuxmake]

Great, made my day. I thougt, that roaming among different AP is a standard.

Probably, I could figure it out myself, but I made a little googling, and your video is just the perfect time-saver for me! Thanks for your hard work! Also it should be good to non IT-guys as well! I will test it in my home as soon as I will have time to do that! ;)

[@OneMarcFifty]

Hi Vince, many thanks! Glad it could help !

[@michaelkopec.5814]

Great video, so basically on each AP , what i need to set is Same SSID Same Password Different channel (i am using same channel for all right now and its working somehow) for seamless transition over multiple APs. I have 4 btw.

[@OneMarcFifty]

Correct. Just make sure that on top you tick the 802.11r box and assign a mobility domain to each SSID (all GUEST the same mobility domain, all LAN the same MD but different from the GUEST one)

[@michaelkopec.5814]

@@OneMarcFifty Hi, i am not using OpenWrt, using 3 Netgear and 1 Linksys Wifi routers in AP mode and previously i had set wifi channels settings to auto, but then after watching your video, i set 1,6,11,8 channels for 2.4 ghz wireless network instead of auto. so far its working as expected, i am not looking for high speed switching, just automatically switching and no dead zones. Thank you, very informative.

[@25566]

wow i had openwrt but didn't know this was possible at all, now we can have mesh like systems for a fraction of the cost and no closed source software or stupid apps needed to keep it running!

[@OneMarcFifty]

Absolutely ;-) Best things in life are free ;-)

[@hrenes]

YES! great video, just where I was looking for. Thx, keep it for reviewing in my favourites.

[@OneMarcFifty]

Perfect, many thanks and glad you liked it ;-)

[@federicosirica3696]

Thank you! Good advices! I've also noticed that when I test the internet speed with iperf3 between 2 PCs on the LAN is important to specify the tcp window size (when using tcp for testing). If I don't set it to a larger value than the default one I can't reach full speed.

[@OneMarcFifty]

Oh - haven’t thought about that one. I wanted to make a video on MTU for a long time. I’ll keep that in mind when I finally get a chance to make it!

[@TheDarmach]

Solid and simple guide! Exactly what I needed! Thanks

[@OneMarcFifty]

Many thanks for the feedback - I am gad it could help.

[@aakashmaroti1891]

Correct me here if my understanding is wrong, 802.11r alone will only help me reconnect to an access point faster AFTER my signal has deteriorated significantly. Probably something like 802.11k or 802.11v or a controller or something else altogether is required for a seamless and timely handover.

[@OneMarcFifty]

The client will decide when to roam. 802.11r makes the roaming faster as it avoids key re-negotiations. 802.11k would accelerate further as it would maintain and publish a list of potential APs to roam to. Either way the device should start roaming before the signal gets really bad. But it depends on the client.

[@aakashmaroti1891]

@@OneMarcFifty Super! How hard will it be to get 802.11k also in the mix? additionally does it require some special hardware or are most wifi routers and clients compatible? Also, thanks a lot! This saved me a lot of unnecessary purchases!

[@bhalejos]

First of all, THANK YOU so much for your videos! Not only they’re instructional and precise, but also engaging, simple to follow, and the fact you include chapters is great for coming back to them for future reference and follow along. Now, to the topic at hand, yes, I’ve been using a mesh since I moved from a single all-in-one modem/router/switch/WiFiAP to a Google Nest set with two satellites. Then, as I was willing to upgrade from AC to AX speeds, I swapped to TP-link Deco set, with three X60 nodes. Their performance is OK (definitely an improvement over Google’s Nest’s) but I just HATE they can only be configured via a phone app, with just a flimsy, stripped-down web portal! I’ll see if OpenWRT or pfsense are compatible with the Decos and let you know how it goes. I do think I’ll try B.A.T.M.A.N. because I live in a rental property, where I simply can’t get wires in a proper fashion.

[@OneMarcFifty]

Hi Bernie, awesome feedback, many thanks. Let me know how you get along with this ;-)

[@glennperete]

my network: modem->switch with vlan->raspberry pi running openwrt (radio off/dhcp server/adblock/sqm)->2 other openwrt routers as access points. setup is working fine, but then again i only have 9mbps internet :)

[@OneMarcFifty]

Thanks for your feedback! Doh - sorry about the slow line ;-(

[@cheako91155]

I have DOCSIS(TV/cable ISP) and added starlink. I wanted to do TCP multipath and perhaps VPN bonding. Using a Marvell ESPRESSObin gave decent results, but better Linux drivers are needed. I tried to add an Intel Wifi card, but discover you can't operate those in AP mode. Then I tried an Atheros card, but it wasn't detected at the PCI layer. I've since given up and have been using Starlink's WiFi and only a few ethernet devices can use multi-home features, I'm honestly wishing to cut the cable but the family still want's it for TV.

[@OneMarcFifty]

Hi Mike, what you are trying to do is bridging a Wi-fi in STA mode. That's not trivial and is very hard to achieve. You would need to introduce a third device that is a guest on the Starlink and use that one as a second route.

[@cheako91155]

@@OneMarcFifty ESPRESSObin is connecting all 3 networks(that third device), I had hopped to bridge the local VLAN with a software WiFi access point so that WiFi devices would be able to use both ISP VLANs and not use either starlink or the cable modem's WiFi.

[@helmanfrow]

The only thing this configuration doesn't give you is centralized control over all the APs which is important if you need to have a separate kids' network that can be quickly and easily shut on and off. But I asked about this on the OpenWRT forum and someone suggested creating a separate network and SSID for the kids and managing access control using VLANs and firewall rules. It's a little complicated for the normie adults in the house but I'll give it a shot. The ideal solution would provide independent access control for individual devices, but that's hard to do outside of something like Unifi / Omada / etc.

[@itsmith32]

Thank you so much for your guide! I have bought Linksys EA7500V1 yesterday. And what I've noticed, that even this quite good router with ac and MU MIMO works almost the same as the cheap one from ISP. It's about just 55 Mbps even on 5 GHz on my xiaomi Mi 9 (it's sports ac) while I've got about 95 through the cable on the both routers. And what about the MESH - I've tried just Tenda shitboxes. They give about 30 Mbps from 300+ even when devices is very close to the shitbox, connected by the Ethernet.

[@OneMarcFifty]

Hey many thanks for the feedback and sharing your experience !

[@itsmith32]

By the way, OpenWRT firmware is much more better. Since installation I've increased wireless speed up to almost ISP maximum. Also it's allowing to use it with only 7 db signal power out of 100 which is much more better for the health.

[@dirkh5088]

Nice feature AddOn for a guest network: establish a wireguard client to a VPN service like azire, mullvad etc, and route the guest traffic over the VPN service. this must be done failsafe, so if VPN service is down any reason, guest network does not have WAN access. and of course, no access to other zones or router services.

[@pisanchez94]

I have the following scenario, I have a router that manages the entire lan with Mikrotik's RouterOS, it does not have WiFi (R1) and two access points with Open WRT, they are connected with cable, roaming works, or R1 must also necessarily run OpenWRT

[@JosiahLuscher]

For years I've been using a pair of raspberry Pi's with usb wifi dongles as access points. I would never be happy with a proprietary mesh... When I heard about batman-adv and 802.11s I knew I wanted it. - I spent a few years being confused by all the terminology and half baked and antiquated tutorials on the net. Unorginized, random, confusing, and poor documentation can really destroy even a persistant motivation. Finally I found someone who mentioned that a Pi will never be a good access point because it doesn't have built in networking hardware. Then I got an EspressoBIN but that was also challenging. One of he R,Pi's finally died. So I just recently got a couple Alfa WiFi access poits and after a few long days over two weekends I got OpenWrt loaded on them. I haven't setup 802.11s yet, I'm enjoying the improved WiFi so much. Also I don't want to experiment with the WiFi that I'm currently using. So I bought a pair of Ubiquity AP AC PRO Gen 2 access points and I'm working on getting OpenWrt loaded on them and I plan to test out 802.11s and batman-adv on them first.

[@OneMarcFifty]

Hi Josiah, many thanks for the feedback ! You might want to try the luci interface that I have submitted to the OpenWrt LuCI project: github.com/openwrt/luci/pull/5698

[@azamat-gerikelemetov8721]

18:30 - if you are on Windows, just consider using WSL - no need to buy USB stick.

[@kal6392]

Brilliant video sir. Very well explaination. Thank you.

[@OneMarcFifty]

Thank _you_ for watching, commenting and subscribing !!!!!

[@andrewbezzina87]

I think its important to mention that not all clients support 802.11r. I have been doing some research and found the for example all macbooks (except the latest with apple silicon) don't support it. I am afraid that this could cause issue for me if enable it, I just bought an Archer A7 to go with my C7 but now I am having second thoughts and wonder if going with mesh instead will be better. I wonder if anyone else has more experience regarding this.

[@OneMarcFifty]

Hi Andrew. A mesh is just a connection of Access points over Wi-Fi. the Fast Roaming is a feature that you can use over a mesh or over a wired solution like the one shown in this video. If you can use Wire then prefer it - it's better. Usually laptops, phones etc. have no problem if the AP provides Fast roaming. Some Micro Controller devices do however. For this I'd suggest using a separate IOT SSID without Fast Roaming.

[@andrewbezzina87]

@@OneMarcFifty thanks for the advice. Do you think it could be worth using different SSIDs on the 2 routers but on the same mobility domain to still have fast roaming but also the ability to force which router to connect too if the device does not transition automatically?

[@remkm1715]

@OneMarcFifty I was just looking for this. the moment i enable 802.11r Fast Transition My Macbook air M1 does NOT want to connect to the AP. I am in dire need for FT im my house though. love to hear solutions to try. love your channel. EDIT: changing security from WPA2/WPA3 to only WPA3 fixed this.. but that means old hardware might be excluded? edit2: WPA2 only also fixed it, while keeping older hardware happy too i guess :)

[@Phil-D83]

Using pfsense as my dhcp. Using two xaiomi ax3600s with the english firmware. Their Mesh settings do not work in ap mode in their firmware. Hopefully openwrt gets ported to it. No noticeable issues with hangovers,etc

[@OneMarcFifty]

Many thanks for the feedback Philip! It looks like many people are using pfsense as firewall etc. I might pick this up and show integration with OpenWrt Access points at some point.

[@freeman4006]

@@OneMarcFifty yes i also have my pfsense on firewall on routing tho i use openwrt

[@ties8544]

Marc, I just set up a wireless mesh (802.11). Downstairs I have the main router connected to modem. Upstairs the second one. Can set up this one a dump AP like you did (difference to your situation is that my routers/APs are connected wirelessly)

[@mytube007]

🤩Awesome A day ago i thought of implementing this setup in my home the next day I am seeing your video. it's really cool to see your plans getting excused by a techi with in a day on KZbin. Thank you for your videos and contents keep going 👍.

[@OneMarcFifty]

Perfect timing 😉

[@JamieBainbridge]

I've tried configuring multiple APs and 2.4/5GHz in the past but I didn't know about this roaming feature. In the past i found phones would switch to 2.4GHz then never switch back, even when right next to the AP. I'm going to try this with two OpenWrt APs.

[@tuanha2000vn]

Thank for the detailed guide that help a lot.

[@OneMarcFifty]

Awesome - glad it helped . Many thanks for the feedback!

[@markmarcacci5489]

Love the videos! I've got a main router Netgear R8000 running Shibby and 2 old WRT54G-TM's with Tomato-ND as APs for IoT devices. I let them do DHCP intentionally, double NAT, because the R8000 limits concurrent DHCP leases to 32 per radio (why do they do that??). Happy Holidays and thanks again for the great vids!

[@OneMarcFifty]

Thanks for sharing Mark! Yes, 32 addresses is a bit short isn't it ? Happy holidays to you as well !

[@fabiosteve2]

Hola Marc mil gracias, me funciono perfectamente sobre 2 tp-link archer a7 , excelente video

[@OneMarcFifty]

Hola Fabio, me alegro que te haya gustado el video. Gracias ;-)

[@marine1718]

I have almost same "house" as you i have my mikrotik as main router and 3 ap from unifi now i want to try xiaomi ax3600 for the price is very good device i want to flash open wrt and try it out all you have here!

[@OneMarcFifty]

Please let us know how this goes- afaik the AX3600 is marked as not supported by OpenWrt

[@Tgspartnership]

thank you for a clearly explained guide 🤓

[@OneMarcFifty]

Hi, thank you very much !

[@danrmejia]

Hi, me again. One think very important to notice is that WiFi performance with OpenWrt isn't the best, normally stock firmware would give the best speeds over WiFi at least on the devices I use. My current scenario is as follows: main router is an Archer C7 version 4 with OpenWrt 19.07 connected to my ISP modem and handling DHCP and another node as Dump AP (Xiaomi Redmi ac2100 flashed with a 21 snapshot). Archer gives me around 250 - 300 Mbits per second on the 5 GHz frequency, while the Xiaomi device would in every scenario go up to 200 Mbits tops on the same frequency. Unfortunately I didn't check speed before flashing it. Every test was performed with iperf3 against a wired machine using 3 different clients: acer laptop running linux, Samsung top tier cell phone and xiaomi middle range cell phone. Next scenario would be using another cheap Xiaomi device, AIoT Router AC2350, which is supported by OpenWrt but I am not eager yet to flash as 5 GHz channel is giving me almost 600 Mbits. I have already checked on its stock firmware, and despite being based on OpenWrt it doesn't have fast transition configuration, therefore the options I see are: a) have different hotspots names for both frequencies which would mean there be no transition or b) have the same name and same password and hope I'll get a better transition. What would you recommend?

[@OneMarcFifty]

I had noticed OK roaming speeds with the same SSID (roughly 2-4 seconds). You might want tobtweak the power so that devices are more willing to roam if you move from one AP to another

[@christianborss4850]

Excellent tutorial. Thank you for sharing!

[@micky1067]

Wie immer tolles Video Marc. Nicht gedacht das du in einem Bunker lebst... hahahahaha🤣

[@OneMarcFifty]

Äch sätz in meinem Bonker ;-)

[@micky1067]

@@OneMarcFifty Hahaha ..

[@BradleeEdmondson]

Great video! Can you explain more about why you chose FT over the air, as opposed to FT over DS?

[@OneMarcFifty]

Hi Bradlee, short answer: I didn't see any roaming improvement with FT/DS and it worked with FT/OTA ;-) Long answer: Initially I set this up for FT/DS but I couldn't see any improvements in roaming time. Checking the logs on the router I got error messages saying the preauthentication did not work. When I switched to FT/OTA all of a sudden things worked. Digging a bit deeper I could not find the corresponding parts of the source code as the relevant commits on git were more related to passing the parameters to hostapd. git.openwrt.org/?p=openwrt%2Fopenwrt.git&a=search&h=HEAD&st=commit&s=802.11r for example. In a nutshell, with FT/DS the necessary FT information would pass over the cable from the old to the new Access point while with OTA it is negotiated between the client and the new AP. I might dig a bit deeper into this in the future but unfortunately many articles on the web are very Cisco-ish so I think I would need to have a look into the hostapd/wpad source code in order to fully understand how this is meant to work rather than just try and error. I have a couple of ideas though such as FT/DS might not work properly if the 1st AP is already out of sight plus I would need to maybe Wireshark the communication between AP1, STA and AP2. But as I said - once it was working I did not really dig deeper.

[@BradleeEdmondson]

@@OneMarcFifty Awesome answer, thank you! I also found lots of the easily searchable content on this to be Cisco-specific, so I'm glad it's not just me. In any event, I switched over to FT-OTA and it seems like roams have been going fine in my small two-AP OpenWRT environment. Thanks!

[@TheZouil]

Dump access point simple a bridge between WiFi interface and LAN interface , doesn't matter what ip address u use to get to web luci interface u can even make separate port for the bridge with no IP at all. And all the AP routers can have the same IP. Not 100% sure but theoretically it should work.

[@OneMarcFifty]

Hi, do you mean have the same IP on both APs ? I doubt that this will work. I mean, you could port forward and have them on different ports of course or you could have an AP without an IP address at all - but how are you going to manage it ?

[@TheZouil]

@@OneMarcFifty take one port in separate VLAN let's make it 3 ,create an unmanaged interface on this port (withVLAN3) ,make a bridge wifi+this port ,done , you have 3 left to manage the device and u have dumpers AP on this device as well , it is not nesseery or even convinien to use but if should work

[@jibbdik8876]

Appreciate how you make your videos and how much time you put into them

[@OneMarcFifty]

Thank you very much !

[@grahamredfern8969]

Hello Mark. Great explanation. Could you explain how you positioned your APs especially the 70 / 8db and how you came by the information.

[@OneMarcFifty]

I positioned one of each on each floor of the house. I tried to position them in the middle of the house with all antennas upright in order to have a sphere covered parallel to the floor. The info is from reading whitepapers from Apple and Microsoft - I just googled for it 😉

[@alexxx4434]

Simple and effective, that's how I like it!

[@OneMarcFifty]

Glad you like it!

[@James_Knott]

Did I see ABGN in the AP config? Hopefully no one is running 802.11b these days, as that can really kill performance in the vicinity. A & G can also cause a small decrease, so don't enable anything slower than what you need. These days that is likely N, certainly on 2.4 GHz and possibly 5. The reason for this is the protection built into 802.11, to prevent collisions. Before transmitting data, a device has to reserve time. This is done at the slowest rate that the AP has heard or is configured for. With G & A, only the header is transmitted at the slower rate, but with B, an entire B frame has to be transmitted, so that B only devices can receive the reservation. Also, this affects everything on the same channel, not just the SSID.

[@OneMarcFifty]

Many thanks James - OpenWrt has that little tickbox „allow legacy b rates“ under the country code on the advanced setting tab - that should be unchecked.

[@James_Knott]

@@OneMarcFifty If OpenWRT supports it, I'd even turn off A & G, unless you need them, as they will cause a minor hit. Also, if you're using WPA encryption, a B only device couldn't even connect, even if B was enabled on the AP, as B devices generally don't support it.

[@ramosel]

Thank you, excellent tutorial. Before I dive in, I do not use a router/wifi combo. I run pfSense (on a Netgate appliance) as my router and all my wifi is on four dumbAP. Does this make any difference in how you configure the main router as in your example?

[@OneMarcFifty]

Not really. The roaming happens between the access points only. If the back end is OpenWrt or PFSense or OpnSense or anything else doesn't matter really.

[@ramosel]

@@OneMarcFifty Thanks Marc. I've now tested my .10 VLAN off the pfSense box and it works great with a ubiquity WAP Guest network using the WAP backhaul connection. So I know that's good. I'm still struggling to get a Guest network up on OpenWRT using the same connection... I'm missing something.

[@stephenbutler3105]

One more question. I noticed that you don't use the WAN port, and that the OpenWrt dump AP article seemed to indicate not to use it. Correct me if I am wrong, but this is simply because by default that port is not bridged with the LAN in the switch. I mean I believe there is nothing stopping us from using the WAN port in a dump AP configuration if we set it to untagged on VLAN 1. In my dumb APs I have deleted the WAN interfaces as I won't need them. The main router handles the WAN. So I assumed you can bring the port back into the LAN switch to provide another physical interface that could be used.

[@OneMarcFifty]

Your assumption is correct. It’s just a port on the switch like all others.

[@albert-janscholtalbers3529]

It works . It seems you only use LAN side of dumb ap. Do you have example to use WAN (Internet) as upstream, so on an R7800 you can use Internet, p1,p2,p3 and p4 and Wifi?

[@OneMarcFifty]

Hi, you can assign the wan port to any interface just like any other port. On some hardware in the switch menu, on some hardware with OpenWrt >=21 with DSA

[@lohphat]

Shouldn’t the antennas on each AP be oriented 90deg from each other so that they’re in different planes to prevent interference?

[@OneMarcFifty]

It really depends what plane in space you want to "illuminate" with Wifi. In my case each AP is on a different floor, so the planes will be the store of the house really. W/r to antennas on one single AP, they should all point to the same direction usually because either they are used to form a beam (in the case of MU-MIMO), and the interference between the antennas is actually used to achieve this. On older APs one antenna is set to receiving and one for sending.

[@SwordGreen]

Thank you man. Your video is really useful!

[@OneMarcFifty]

Thank you very much, glad you liked it ;-)

[@Blueyzachary]

My current home network is as follows: I have my Verizon 5G Home Internet Gateway acting as a router, and has wifi enabled with its own SSID. (It is acting as a router/AP because it is the only access point I own that supports 802.11ax, and is the only way I have been able to get native IPv6 working (due to a bug in the firmware in IP-Passthrough mode.)) Then, to one of the LAN ports, I have a CAT5e setup running through the walls with a cheap gigabit switch and 3 access points that are just old Linksys/Netgear 802.11ac routers running FreshTomato that provide the main SSID, as well as another SSID for IOT devices (but they’re all on the same LAN, as I undid all of my VLAN and subnetting work when switched back to the Verizon gateway being the router as well.) I don’t get the best internet speeds (~300mbps 🔽 ~10mbps 🔼), but the Wi-Fi is good-it stays pretty consistent throughout the house. I never use the Wi-Fi on the Verizon gateway except on devices that support 802.11ax when I am outside; the gateway is very high up in the house and line of sight when outside for the best 5G NSA connection.

[@joemajortech2657]

Academy article, good job really👍👍👍

[@OneMarcFifty]

Thank you very much !

[@karlfife]

Worth mentioning: 1: You've capped your WiFi to be less than your WAN speed. If you have LAN applications they would likely be negatively impacted by that setting, including induced jitter/latency (e.g a local media server or Wi-Fi cameras) . 2. What you're describing should not be called a "DMZ". You're either describing a router in Bridge-mode, which is a GREAT setup... but it is NOT demilitarized), alternatively you're creating a Double-NAT situation which can cause problems with some applications (bad). 🙂

[@OneMarcFifty]

Hi Karl - the DMZ situation was indeed a double NAT which in my case was not an issue as I do not port forward or the like. The cap of bandwidth was a trade-off with other factors. Internet speed here is max. 100 Mbps down anyway ;-) In the meanwhile my config has changed a lot (the video is older). I am now on 80 MHz channels with Wifi 5 Wave 2 devices plus a PPPOE config because I could not use IPv6 with the ISP router.

[@AngelSimeonov]

Hallo Marc. Danke Dir fur die schone video! I am a professional installer and i use mainly Ubiquiti for access points and PfSense as a router(in some cases i use Mikrotik as a router when its not possible to put such a big machine like an old PC in the rack). Never had a problem with this combination. But i am looking for new cheap solution i tried Tp-link deco system but i am not satisfaied there is not a fine tuning of the devices so you also cannot choose how to connect them one to each other over WiFi or cabel.

[@OneMarcFifty]

Hi Angel, yes - the videos I make are mainy aimed at the home user or SOHO. But with the new Mediatek Hardware (MT7615, MT7915) I think that's a game Changer for OpenWrt as Felix Fietkau (OpenWrt member) is also the main developer for the drivers.

[@is05140]

Thanks for your videos! nice an clear! Just one question: Does all the AP need to be wired to the router connected to the WAN? or can be in a mesh mode?

[@OneMarcFifty]

Hi Miquel. It could be wired or Mesh. However, if you do mesh you would need to tunnel the VLANs if you want to have multiple networks / SSIDs

[@tomeks666]

I have 1G ISP fiber with static public IP. I would like to have many hardwired APs in a large house. What are tradeoffs within the same budget? AC vs AX, mimo 2x2, 3x3, 4x4? Or just maximize number of APs sticking to the cheapest devices providing AC1200+1G eth+ openwrt?

[@OneMarcFifty]

Hi Tomek, first I'd ask myself the question what I would prefer and/or try to achieve. Is it better coverage of Wi-fi in the corners of the house ? Or is it maximizing the bandwidth for one user ? Or better usage for many clients ? First case - add a bunch of cheap APs and spread them everywhere. Second use case - go for a powerfull AX AP. Third use case - add a small number of AX APs. Plus of course see if everyone needs to be on the same SSID etc.

[@tomeks666]

@@OneMarcFiftymy experience so far is that even a relatively cheap AC1200 router can put through +900mbits as long as you are connected to it with 1g ethernet. At the same time it it hard to get speetest over 600 through wifi even standing 1 meter from the router on wireless. WLAN speed goes down very quickly with the distance. I would just like to get a feel of 1GB regardless of which part of the house I am in. For now I am testing many cheap access points connected with 1gb eth. I do not know what would happen if I used a powerful router instead, but aren't powerful routers constrained with the same transmit power limitations as the cheap once? What does it actually mean powerfull?

[@OneMarcFifty]

Usually people would describe a router to be more powerful if it has a stronger CPU. For your use case you would before anything else have a router with at least 4 antennas in the same band - so presumably a device with 6 or 8!antennas (preferably external)

[@vercolit]

Thank you! Works flawlessly

[@archie591]

@OneMarcFifty thanks for the tutorial again! I was wondering if there is a specific router feature I need to look for to ensure this setup will work with any openwrt router? thanks again!

[@OneMarcFifty]

It's not really a listed feature (like when you run iw list) - like the 802.11s or beamforming etc. From what I can say is that the "usual" well supported drivers such as Mediatek or Atheros would most probably support it, i.e. if you stick to MT7516, MT7915, ath10k and the like then you should be fine.

[@francocastilloAR]

13:36 Don't you also disable the IPv6 settings?

[@OneMarcFifty]

Hi Franco, I haven't explicitely disabled it - it really depends on whether you want to use IPV6 or not.

[@BurkPrael]

How do you find the time to reply to every comment!?!? This video is gold (as are all your videos)! Was about to shell out a fortune on mesh gear, but will try this instead.

[@OneMarcFifty]

Hi, I am happy that the video could help you ;-) w/r to time for replies: I have planned this in my schedule. I spend one hour per week to answer comments and three hours per week to answer questions on the discord server - I firmly believe that people prefer channels with a possibility to interact and communicate in the long run ;-) Thanks for the feedback !

[@amindavid11]

I was looking for this since the mesh systems are so expensive, CAn you also connect the routers via wifi instead of ethernet? How can I know if my router supports 802.11r? Thanks!

[@OneMarcFifty]

Hi Amin, it is possible to connect routers Wi-Fi only - that would be a Mesh. I am still thinking if I should do an episode on this or not - real Meshes ( I mean other than just repeaters) IMHO only make sense for many nodes. You can't use the suggested config here and just add a Wifi Backbone. That's not possible because you can't bridge Wifi in STA mode. w/r to the capabilities - if you run "iw list" in a termina and the capabilities list "mesh point" then you have good chances that 82.11r is supported, even if the two are not directly related - just an experience.

[@amindavid11]

@@OneMarcFifty running ethernet cables on my house is not an option unfortunately so I will have to wait for your next video :)

[@sozertsatel]

Thank you for the video. Could cover the topic of band-steering on OpenWrt 22.03 within one router. 2.4 ==> 5, 5 ==> 2.4 doesn't work. ((

[@OneMarcFifty]

Oh definitely - on my list for so long now. Just need to dig deeper into existing solutions such as usteer before I re-invent the wheel ;-)

[@sozertsatel]

@@OneMarcFifty Thank you very much, you are a very positive and interesting techno blogger. Everything is concise, clear, with an emphasis on everything important. A question arises in the head, and the answer is already in the video. I am from Ukraine and just started learning English. But I understand your comments almost completely. Keywords on the topic band-steering will be #usteer #down Thank you!

[@lanlonglian]

Hello, I am a viewer from China and my English may not be very good. Your openwrt instructional video helped me a lot, I understand how to go about using kvr protocol to make the router roam fast. On another note, your method for testing internet speed is amazing, iPerf is a very cool testing tool! Thank you very much for the video, very nice! Lastly, I'd like to know about 802.11s. It seems that accessing mesh through wireless is using 802.11s, is that the case?

[@OneMarcFifty]

Yes, it's part of the stack. You need to add something for routing though.

[@Bendini20_gaming]

Limiting speed of the radios will affect local file transfers which is kind of silly. Just because you ISP speed is below the spec of the AP, doesn't mean you don't get those speeds locally.

[@OneMarcFifty]

Well, it’s not exactly only the ISP speed. One of the APs can’t do AC plus the Qualcom CPU would max out at 300 MBits - furthermore I don’t do file transfers over Wifi

[@dymastro788]

Thankyou great video! So this is doable with standard routers firmware? When do I need the fast transition or only the dumb AP option?

[@OneMarcFifty]

Hi, this could be doable with stock firmware but it depends on a lot of factors (brand, model, etc...) - fast transition just accelerates roaming - simple AP operation would work as well, just roaming would be slower or not occuring if you want it to.

[@Duxa_]

Are there any dangers of loopback on a setup like this? It seems like its a spanning tree still?

[@OneMarcFifty]

Hi Andrei, not really - you would never be connected to two APs at the same time, nor would an AP connect to Wi-fi of another AP. Loopbacks happen when you have more than one way of getting from A to B which is not the case in this setup.

[@AuroraPixel6]

What a great tutorial! Thank you

[@OneMarcFifty]

Many thanks ;-)

[@bob_dubois]

great video (just like your other videos) but I'm afraid the 802.11r spec is not implemented on all mobile devices. Even a very recent Google Pixel 5 seems to have major issues with it. They don't even want to connect to the wifi altogether anymore. Switching off the fast roaming does work.

[@OneMarcFifty]

Hi Bob, that's curious! I have had issues with fast roaming on very old hardware (mainly 2.4 GHz) - now unfortunately I don't have a Google Pixel - but if that's true then that's a real pitty - I would really have assumed that recent hardware does support it well - keep me posted - if an upgrade fixes it or the like - anyhow thans for sharing!

[@yuchong1704]

Yes I do wonder if this will work for Android devices in general as I have a wifi Mesh system at home but my Lenovo tablet refuses to roam to the nearest and best AP. The workaround is to disable then re-enable wifi for it to get the best signal.