Currently I run a setup with a RT-AX86U and RT-AX88U router in AP mode, with a hacked together VLAN setup as described here. I had some stability issues, mainly with the RT-AX86U, so when I saw the RT-BE88U's with their native VLAN support I figured lets upgrade to two of the same devices, then things should be running smoother, right? RIGHT? Yea, nah, nothing of that.
In my quest of getting things to work the way I intended to, I am learning quite a bit on the inner workings of these devices. I figured lets make a thread and dump some information in there, maybe it'll come handy to other users. If anyone has additional information, corrections, or clarifications, please post them and I'll update the main thread.
My goal is simple: Run the two RT-BE88U's in AP mode with AiMesh, with an upstream firewall providing the layer 3 connectivity. The uplink to the firewall is a trunk (dot1q) connection with no configuration on the untagged (native) VLAN. In my previous setup I managed to connect the two nodes to the firewall and have my trunk and AiMesh work on the same link connecting the individual device to my firewall. On my new setup I've not yet managed to get it to work. Currently I am running it as such: Firewall -> dot1q trunk -> AP1 -> AiMesh link via 10G LAN -> AP2.
[General things to know about the device]
Some things I've ran in to that I haven't figured out yet what they are used for.
[Miscellaneous]
[Interfaces]
Physical interface layout:
[VLANs]
In my quest of getting things to work the way I intended to, I am learning quite a bit on the inner workings of these devices. I figured lets make a thread and dump some information in there, maybe it'll come handy to other users. If anyone has additional information, corrections, or clarifications, please post them and I'll update the main thread.
My goal is simple: Run the two RT-BE88U's in AP mode with AiMesh, with an upstream firewall providing the layer 3 connectivity. The uplink to the firewall is a trunk (dot1q) connection with no configuration on the untagged (native) VLAN. In my previous setup I managed to connect the two nodes to the firewall and have my trunk and AiMesh work on the same link connecting the individual device to my firewall. On my new setup I've not yet managed to get it to work. Currently I am running it as such: Firewall -> dot1q trunk -> AP1 -> AiMesh link via 10G LAN -> AP2.
[General things to know about the device]
- You cannot assign a VLAN to the default SSID's in the GUI (I'll post the scripts for this later)
- Sub interfaces created for SSIDs are assigned to the incorrect bridge interfaces (tied to the VLAN), check this post on how to fix this manually
Some things I've ran in to that I haven't figured out yet what they are used for.
- On the 2.4Ghz radio a default subinterface wl0.4 exists allocated to the br0 bridge (brctl show), haven't figured out yet what this sub interface does. On the AiMesh node this interface is called wl0.5.
- The nvram shows 3 default configured VLANs with subnets that I have no idea about why they exist: 501>192.168.101.1/24, 502>192.168.102.1/24, 503>192.168.103.1/24
[Miscellaneous]
- In order to be able to run scripts on the AP you need to set 'nvram set jffs2_scripts=1'. According to the Wiki This needs to be set on AiMesh nodes, however it also needs to be set on AP mode when it is not yet part of AiMesh.
- Removing VLANs from the standard GUI secretly does not really remove them. You can still find your removed VLANs in the nvram, also after a reboot: nvram show all | grep -i vlan
- Removing VLANs does not always remove the created sub interfaces and those interfaces will magically get stuck inside a bridge of another VLAN
- In certain conditions STP (Spanning-tree protocol) does not work (or never works?), causing a broadcast storm when wired as a ring topology
- Each VLAN will get radio sub interfaces assigned, regardless of using them or not (option in the GUI to not assign an SSID and radios to them)
- Bizarrely when creating a MLO network it put one radio in one VLAN, and the other radio in another VLAN (probably related to this issue)
- Although you can select that a node should be an AiMesh node during the initial setup of the device, don't bother doing this, as it'll just cause it not to be detected on the main node. Just make sure the device has had a config reset and you should be good to go
- DHCP needs to be available in the untagged network during AiMesh setup time, it won't accept having a static IP set and then be added to an AiMesh setup
- Ethernet backhaul mode needs to be enabled, otherwise the newly joined wired AiMesh node won't connect to the main node.
- Running in AiMesh mode, sometimes when adding a new SSID+VLAN assigned to the SSID, it won't start broadcasting the SSID on the AiMesh node until it is rebooted
- When rebooting the main node, a reboot is also required on the AiMesh node, otherwise it stops passing traffic, even after the main node has come back online
- MLO appears not to be working on the AiMesh node. It's configured, the bridge is there, but it's simply not broadcasting the SSID from that node
[Interfaces]
Physical interface layout:
- eth0 -> 10G wan/lan (RJ45)
- eth1 -> LAN1
- eth2 -> LAN2
- eth3 -> LAN3
- eth4 -> LAN4
- eth5 -> LAN5
- eth6 -> LAN6
- eth7 -> LAN7
- eth8 -> LAN8
- eth9 -> 10G wan/lan (SFP+)
- wl0 -> 2.4Ghz radio (default part of br0, removing it from br0 doesn't seem to be having any effect on anything)
- wl1 -> 5Ghz radio (default part of br0, removing it from br0 doesn't seem to be having any effect on anything
- wl0.0 -> This sub interface is created after adding the first custom vlan/SSID and is added to br0, not sure why, possibly IOT network, not tested
- wl0.1.0 -> This sub interface is created on the AiMesh node after adding the first custom vlan/SSID and is added to br0, not sure why, possibly IOT network, not tested
- wl1.0 -> This sub interface is created after adding the first custom vlan/SSID and is added to br0, not sure why, possibly IOT network, not tested
- wl1.1.0 -> This sub interface is created on the AiMesh node after adding the first custom vlan/SSID and is added to br0, not sure why, possibly IOT network, not tested
- wl0.1 -> Default (main) SSID 2.4Ghz
- wl0.2 -> Default (main) SSID 2.4Ghz on AiMesh node
- wl1.1 -> Default (main) SSID 5Ghz
- wl1.2 -> Default (main) SSID 5Ghz on AiMesh node
- wl0.4 -> This default exists, no idea why.
- wl0.5 -> This default exists on AiMesh node, no idea why.
Code:
Bridge Main AP AiMesh node
br0 8000.60cf8401e930 8000.60cf8401e370
br2 8000.8c8742f70000 8000.8c1715f70000
br3 8000.8c8742f70000 8000.8c1715f70000
br4 8000.7acf8401e932 8000.9acf8401e374
br5 8000.7acf8401e933 8000.8c1715f70000[VLANs]
- When adding a VLAN a corresponding bridge interface is created (brctl show). The br interface will have the same ID as the VLAN ID. If a VLAN ID is changed, the bridge ID will also update. For example if you tag a vlan with ID 2, your br (bridge) interface will be named 'br2', if you assign a new ID to the VLAN, for example 6, the bridge ID will be renamed to 'br6'.
- The above is also true for the sub interfaces created. Things will however go super wonky when creating VLAN4 because of the unknown wl0.4 sub interface that exists by default. If you create VLAN 4, the sub interface for the 2.4Ghz radio will become wl0.5, and this will get confusing if you keep numbering upwards. If you can help it, avoid using VLAN 4 all together.
Last edited:
too funny.
