Setting up reclaimed UniFi devices as VLAN-trunked APs with multiple SSIDs. Some units have switches, some don't.
The management interface has eth0.blah as a device (so no bridge), takes DHCP and works fine.
For Wireless, I have tried creating unmanaged Interfaces in two ways, with Ethernet VLAN devices (eth0.blah) and with bridge devices (br-blah) that have eth0.blah as a sole bridge port. I believe both have worked to connect Wi-Fi to VLANs at one point, but it's still "converging", so to speak.
The VLAN/interface/WLAN are solely for APs and no other connections needing a bridge. Do I need to have a bridge device in the connection for any other reason? Does the Wireless network selection create a behind-the-scenes bridge?
A bridge is required anytime you want to connect a network to multiple physical interfaces. So Ethernet + WiFi (such as a dumb ap config), and/or multiple WiFi radios.
If your intent is to use the device as a dumb ap, a bridge is required with eth0.x as a member. Then the network interface will use the bridge and the WiFi ssid stanza will specify the network to which the ssid should be associated.
It is possible to place an IP address directly on a single wireless AP or client interface. Packets received on wireless are then processed by the kernel. But that's not the question that was asked.
Linking one or more APs to an Ethernet port will always require a kernel bridge. It does not appear that in that situation one is ever automatically created.
Note that a config device of type bridge will not actually create a bridge unless there is also a config interface referencing it. For dumb VLAN APs the interface should be of proto none. That means the kernel does not hold an IP address on the bridge (which prevents IP-based attempts to break in), it only converts from wired to wireless.
Like others said, the bridge is often only needed if you want to attach more interfaces to it.
So if you got just one interface it doesn't need to be attached to a bridge necessary.
But sometimes you want to hook a wireless device on a existing bridge shared with other lan/vlan dsa devices then if you use the bridge device on the network interface for example lan, you automaticly see the wireless device being added to the bridge
Often its also very usefull to have the keep up bridge checked in case it was down.
Thanks to everyone for helping. I created bridge devices, added VLANs as member devices, created OpenWRT Interfaces using the bridges and then selected the Interfaces as networks for the Wireless APs.
I still think it's possible to create Interfaces using the VLANs directly, but time has run out on the project and I'm delivering what works. Thanks again.
