Advice for multi-AP, multi-SSID setup?

[Omniver]

I just moved from a decade on dd-wrt over to Merlin (384.7 beta) on a new RT-ACS5300 - ease of setup ron Merlin really blew me away! I run three SSIDs (main, guest, and IOT), main on 2.4/5 and guest/IOT only on 2.4. I want to add a second AP which can handle all SSIDs and allow roaming as appropriate. House fully wired, so backhaul is preferred.

Any advice on the best way to accomplish this?

 

[dlandiss]

I just moved from a decade on dd-wrt over to Merlin (384.7 beta) on a new RT-ACS5300 - ease of setup ron Merlin really blew me away! I run three SSIDs (main, guest, and IOT), main on 2.4/5 and guest/IOT only on 2.4. I want to add a second AP which can handle all SSIDs and allow roaming as appropriate. House fully wired, so backhaul is preferred.

Any advice on the best way to accomplish this?

As best I can tell it makes no difference whether an access point uses the same SSIDs or different.

Many users prefer "same" in the belief that it makes roaming easier. I have not seen any difference.

We prefer "different" for ease of troubleshooting.

 

[Omniver]

I guess what I'm asking is if it at all feasible to add another ASUS router in some configuration onto the wired LAN and get both main and guest networks? Is there a way for the AP to tag the wired traffic in a way for the main router to know what network it belongs to and treat it accordingly

I know AIMesh isn't supported, nor would I think it would benefit me as I'm not really needing a true mesh, but is that a better option?

Trying to figure out what can and cannot be done before I buy another router.

Thanks,
-J

 

[CaptainSTX]

I just moved from a decade on dd-wrt over to Merlin (384.7 beta) on a new RT-ACS5300 - ease of setup ron Merlin really blew me away! I run three SSIDs (main, guest, and IOT), main on 2.4/5 and guest/IOT only on 2.4. I want to add a second AP which can handle all SSIDs and allow roaming as appropriate. House fully wired, so backhaul is preferred.

Any advice on the best way to accomplish this?

Just be aware that regardless if you use the same or different SSIDs on that devices that connect to the AP on either the IoT or Guest SSID will not be isolated from devices connected to the primary SSIDs on either the Router or the AP unless you can create some custom scripts or iptables to do so.

 

[grifo]

I guess what I'm asking is if it at all feasible to add another ASUS router in some configuration onto the wired LAN and get both main and guest networks? Is there a way for the AP to tag the wired traffic in a way for the main router to know what network it belongs to and treat it accordingly

I know AIMesh isn't supported, nor would I think it would benefit me as I'm not really needing a true mesh, but is that a better option?

Trying to figure out what can and cannot be done before I buy another router.

Thanks,
-J

It can be done using scripts, check out this thread, you also need to find threads specific to the configuration of vlans with info on iptables rules and dhcp config that have to be added.

The second router can be configued in AP mode and it will tag the traffic according to the ssid, again using a script.

 

[agilani]

i believe yazifi does some of this.... so if you use yazifi and a second repeater, you can accomplish most of this. Something like this

use yazifi to create a guest network on different subnet
then connect repeater to guest ssid for iot devices

you'd have to play around with it a bit to get it setup the way you like it