Raspberry Pi 3 B+ + Ubiquiti UAP Mesh

Installing and Using OpenWrt
1

Hi,

I'm going to travel a bit in next weeks, visiting family, but staying in a rv. I'm looking for an easy setup to extend family's wifis to the RV.

So first I bought an ubiquiti mesh UAP. 1st choice, if I can easily plug it in existing router + long cable, I'll be ok.

But now I wonder what I can do if no port are avail/no window to run cable outside/not entering their home because of covid. So I got the idea of installing a Pi 3B+ I have with openwrt.

I plugged the UAP wired in the Pi, and the Pi is a wifi client.

After playing around with bridge/relayd, everything works "almost" perfectly.
It works, but I have a lot of packet loss. Changed cables, it doesnt help.

Setup looks like that (from home, will be different on the road)

(macbook) -wifi-> (UAP mesh) -wired-> (Pi 3 B+) -wifi-> (UAP) -wired-> (USG) -internet-

Ping from (macbook) to USG (ubi controller) = ~30% packet loss
Ping from (UAP mesh) to USG (ubi controller) = ~30% packet loss
Ping from (Pi3) to USG (ubi controller) = 0% packet loss.

One weird thing I saw is if I put my wlan0 on the Pi in promic mode, everything works fine (no packet loss), until the Pi freeze.

Anyone have an idea?

2

The Pi internal wifi is not high performance at all.

A UAP-Mesh running OpenWrt can be configured as a wifi client and mounted on the outside of a RV it will readily connect to the wifi router inside any nearby house. Even better would be a CPE type device of the Nanostation series, since it can be directed at the house.

3

My plan is to keep the UAP-mesh with default config, as after my trip I'll join it to my actual network.

I was pointing to the Pi wifi too, but if I ssh to the Pi and ping my gw (over wifi) I have no packet loss.

I tried adding a usb edimax or a tp-link to replace the built-in wifi, but my pi no longer boot when attached (maybe the wlan order change, have to check that). Meanwhile I ordered a small gl.inet to have a B plan in case I'm not able to figure out the problem with my Pi.

4

My point is that any device with a little 1x1 antenna inside the RV is not going to be very good at linking to the wifi AP in the house.

The UAP run OpenWrt well and they are easy to flash back to stock later.

Pi not booting when a USB device is plugged in is likely a DC power shortage.

5

Maybe my planned setup is not clear (I speak french).
I want to place the Pi running openwrt somewhere outside the house, where signal is good, then unroll a long rj45 with a UAC Mesh at the end of it toward the rv (maybe not up to the rv, because at one place there is about 200foots between house and rv parking).