Controllerless Networks

Hi Guys,

I have a customer want to use WiFi as backhaul link to connect 2 LANs together. The diagram is as below.

Requirements:

- HPE 5510HI is core switch, HPE 5130HI is access switch (at another location).

- HPE5130HI will uplink to 5510HI switch with 802.1Q vlan trunking.

- 5510HI switch will do Intervlan routing for VLAN10 and VLAN20.

- When user connected their laptops to HPE 5130HI access switch, user will be assigned to VLAN10 or VLAN20 depend on configuration on HPE 5130HI switch.

May i know if our Aruba IAP can be used as WiFi backhaul for this setup (with 802.1Q supported over WiFi backhaul).

Please consult the knowledgebase article here:  http://community.arubanetworks.com/t5/Controller-less-WLANs/How-can-we-verify-if-the-traffic-for-multiple-vlans-is/ta-p/267170

I tested it out with the latest firmware version 6.4.4.6-4.2.4.0_55341 and it works perfectly.

However, i have some more questions hopefully you guys can help to answer.

1. For this setup, any limitations of this WIFI Mesh as uplink for Wired LAN(example, limited number of MAC Address to certain numbers, ...)?

2. Is there any way that we can "view" the current bandwidth of WIFI Mesh link?

Below is some output:

IAP-Master# show aps

2 Access Points
---------------
Name IP Address Mode Spectrum Clients Type Mesh Role Zone Serial # 2.4 Channel 2.4 Power (dB) 2.4 Utilization (%) 2.4 Noise Floor (dBm) 5.0 Channel 5.0 Power (dB) 5.0 Utilization (%) 5.0 Noise Floor (dBm) Need Antenna Config From Port Config Id Config Csum Ext SSID Active Age
---- ---------- ---- -------- ------- ---- --------- ---- -------- ----------- -------------- ------------------- --------------------- ----------- -------------- ------------------- --------------------- ------------------- --------- --------- ----------- --------------- ---
IAP-Master 192.168.2.40* access disable 0 225(indoor) Portal - CT0789683 1 20 18(good) -97(good) 116E 22 3(good) -97(good) No eth0 2 53725 disable 19h:16m:35s
IAP-Slave 192.168.2.3 access disable 0 225(indoor) Point - CT0789753 6 20 56(ok) -97(good) 116E 22 3(good) -95(good) No none 2 53725 disable 41m:6s
IAP-Master# show ap mesh link

Neighbor list
-------------
MAC Portal Channel Age Hops Cost Relation Flags RSSI Rate Tx/Rx A-Req A-Resp A-Fail HT-Details Cluster ID
--- ------ ------- --- ---- ---- ----------------- ----- ---- ---------- ----- ------ ------ ---------- ----------
84:d4:7e:e1:aa:30 84:d4:7e:e1:a1:71 116E 0 1 1.00 C 41m:26s VLK 81 6/6 1 1 0 VHT-80MHz-3ss 1837eea8f0cbb880cffb1ace78548ed

Total count: 1, Children: 1
Relation: P = Parent; C = Child; N = Neighbor; B = Blacklisted-neighbor
Flags: R = Recovery-mode; S = Sub-threshold link; D = Reselection backoff; F = Auth-failure; H = High Throughput; V = Very High Throughput, L = Legacy allowed
K = Connected; U = Upgrading; G = Descendant-upgrading; Z = Config pending; Y = Assoc-resp/Auth pending
a = SAE Accepted; b = SAE Blacklisted-neighbour; e = SAE Enabled; u = portal-unreachable; o = opensystem

Thanks,

Ha,

So my guess would be that the MAC address limit is the same as the APs (which last I read was 4096 MAC addresses). in most cases, mesh links aren't carrying that many MAC addresses and to my recollection I've never seen a MAC table exhausted on a mesh link. In most cases where a mesh link is backhauling a large number of devices it's over a routed link.

Crazily enough, there's not an easy to identify mechanism or command that shows the actual bandwidth consumed (something I keep asking for heh). However, while I haven't cheked on IAP but within AOS you can run some commands to see what the interface utilization is, which is indirectly the backhaul bandwidth consumption. I will see if I can dig it out of the IAP CLI tomorrow.

Hi Howard,

Thank you for your information, 

Actually, my question is more about how to see "raw bandwidth" on the Mesh Link. Something similar with what we see from our WiFi link from laptop, as below:

Btw, i think bandwidth utilization can be seen from VC homepage, as below (please correct me if i'm wrong).

If you are wanting to see the mesh link rate, then from the CLI you can run "show ap mesh link" to see the RSSI (which is the SNR) of the mesh link within the IAP you are logged in to.  There is no display within the GUI of what the mesh link rate is at this time. 

#####

274-portal# show ap mesh link

Neighbor list
-------------
MAC                Portal             Channel  Age  Hops  Cost  Relation                 Flags  RSSI  Rate Tx/Rx  A-Req  A-Resp  A-Fail  HT-Details        Cluster ID
---                ------             -------  ---  ----  ----  -----------------        -----  ----  ----------  -----  ------  ------  ----------        ----------
94:b4:0f:31:50:70  94:b4:0f:2c:9e:51  157+     0    1     5.00  C 49s                    VLK    82    600/6       1      1       0       VHT-40MHzsgi-3ss  ab43b1cc73de9632d61ff80ab38a265