Dear all OpenWRT gurus,
I wish you all a Happy New Year first of all ! I created this account just now, even if OpenWRT user since a couple of years. At the beginning of my journey I had some trouble configuring devices, but nothing I could not find browsing documentation and other topics/cases. Cutting it to the point I try to explain what my setup is and what I want to achieve:
SETUP consists of 4 Archer C6 V2 EU connected as below detailed:
I have two mesh 802.11s running between two Archer C6 V2 EU (one over the 5GHz radio and one on the 2.4GHz in order to extend the internet connection from ISP. Also I have another couple of same routers connected with a cable each to both the Mesh routers. These are Dumb APs which provide two 5GHz cells at each side of the mesh.
Dumb AP1 --- Mesh Router 1 ======== Mesh Router 2 --- Dumb AP2 (Mesh Router 1 is also connected to ISP and provides Internet access. On both mesh links between the two routers BATMAN-adv IV is running with VLANs on top for different services of Dumb APs (internet for a work devices subnet, personal devices subnet and guests). The two mesh links are using the BATMAN Bonding feature activated and works acceptable, despite the distance. I am running the 5GHz Mesh over channel 149 since it is a clear channel, but of course this limits my transmit power in Italy and RSL is about -78, -80 dB. With the 20MHz 2.4GHz mesh link aggregated I get a mesh throughput of about 50 Mbps. The Dumb APs radios operate in other two channels (36 - 142) range to avoid overlap on the mesh points and I don't have any configuration of 2.4GHz radios on the Dumb APs.
OBJECTIVE: is to increase mesh throughput by adding a 3rd link on the 2.4GHz radios of Dump APs (don't laugh, my WAN is VDSL with a max 80Mbps Downlink), which I would like to be able to transmit over the mesh links)
Problem (and here my assumptions may be incorrect but please also correct me if I'm wrong):
As I understand the bonding feature of BATMAN-adv works with multiple DIRECTLY connected mesh nodes, therefore trying to add the Dumb APs as mesh nodes wouldn't help and i must bond a new "hardIF" link to "bat0" on the two mesh routers already running batman. I configured the ethernet link (trunk ports) towards Dump APs over a new vlan (eth0.9) and attached eth0.9 as new hardif to my mesh cloud bat0 on both routers.
The question: is there is a way I can transparently transmit batman protocol through the directly connected hardif ports (on eth0.9 device) and communicate over a 3rd mesh link (configured on the dumb APs 2.4 GHz), so the routers mesh clouds bat0 would "think" they are directly connected ? And what would be the most simple configuration approach for a layer 2 transparent transmission ?
Note: I am aware of possible MTU issues which would downgrade the maximum packet size. I also read a lot about veth (which I don't think is what I need here) and topics about gre-tap and other tunneling methods. I think the gre-tap tunnel would be what I need but I thought of opening this topic to hear from you other more elegant solutions and some indications on what you think about the feasibility and configuration of batman-adv transmitted in another tunnel generally.
Thank you !