SQM working on my dumb AP

Hello guys im a total noob at openwrt and networking in general,

what i have

Main Router : Newifi 3 d2
Dumb AP: TPLink wr840N

Other configuuration

Im running mwan3 on my WAN port and Lan port 1

What i have done:

I created another Vlan on my LAN port 4(which my dumb AP is connected)
tagged on CPU and untagged on the port.

and created a new interface which has the IP of 192.168.2.2 since my main router assigns 192.168.2.100-200.

and added sqm on the eth0.4(which is the new interface on LAN port 4)
i have also set the Dumb AP(TPLink wr840N on Access Point Mode) to DHCP server Disabled and set it into the static ip of 192.168.2.2

The problem is whenever i do the things above the devices that connects to the Dumb AP cannot obtain any IP,

so i reverted it all back to deleting my VLAN 4 and deleting the interface attached to it and untagging the LAN port 4 in my VLAN switch. which in this setup i cannot use SQM , and i do not want to SQM my whole LAN, just the LAN port 4 connected my Dumb AP,

If someone can point me to the right direction pls help me.

Other Info:
TPLINK router running on stock firmware

The problem is whenever i create

bumping this

@midnextlevel - A couple thoughts:

  • Please don't bump posts, especially so quickly after the initial post. Experts around the world (so it might take 24 hours) read all these new posts and respond if they know something about the situation.

To respond to your questions:

  1. You haven't explained why you're setting up a VLAN for a dumb AP. (The Dumb AP Howto recommends connecting LAN-to-LAN, and giving the dumb AP a static IP on the subnet of the main router.)
  2. You haven't explained why you don't want SQM for your main router. (Traffic originating on that router will have bad latency...)

My initial advice would be a) follow the Dumb AP Howto and b) install SQM on your main router to get things working first, then optimize if you find problems. Thanks.

It sounds like you want a guest network for the AP, and limit bandwidth on that network so that guests don't use up all your ISP bandwidth.

So first you should look at creating the guest network on the main router. A guest network has:

  • an IP range that is different from all your other networks.
  • its own DHCP server
  • firewall zone and rules to forward to the WAN (or other network connected to the Internet).
  • connection to at least one physical interface (like eth0.4 and VLAN 4 through the switch)
  • Optional stricter firewall rules to block malicious activity by guests.

Then once the guest network is working properly, SQM would be applied on its interface e.g. br-guest.

1.My Dumb AP(TL-w840n) has a static IP and connected to LAN to LAN and working as intended, Im setting up a VLAN for me to create another interface which i want SQM to be attached.

  1. I dont want SQM on my main router because its on my room and i dont want to have throttled speed, i want the Dumb AP to be somewhat manageable on bandwidth(example. i want the Dumb AP to be limited to a maximum of 15Mbits Download and Upload)

Well not typically a guest network ,

because i want all IP leases to be assigned by my main router
all i wanted is SQM to be attached into the LAN port 4 which connects to the Duumb AP

In that case put eth0.4 into the LAN kernel bridge-- do not create any new networks. Then attach SQM to eth0.4.

1 Like

care to elaborate on how to do this?

I'm going to suggest an alternate configuration that's wicked extremely simple to set up, and may well do everything you want.

  1. Set up your dumb AP as described in the Howto

  2. Install and configure SQM on your main router.

  3. Monitor your performance to see if it's "good enough." If it is, you're done.

Here's why:

  • Even though you say you're the only one "on the main router," traffic generated by other processes on your computer can crush your latency. SQM on the main router will take away a few percent from your raw bandwidth, but will protect you against bad latency caused by any traffic - yours or your guest's.
  • You say you want to limit the speed to those on the dumb AP ("guest network"). But with SQM installed, they'll get full bandwidth of the link when no one else is using it, but will share it when you have things to do. In many cases, this works very well.

So I recommend trying this to see if it works. You avoid all the hassle of VLANs, tricky configurations, etc. and can get it going this afternoon.

Let it run for a few days or a week. If it's working well enough, you can spend time on more productive things (instead of wrestling with router configurations.)

If it doesn't work, you'll have specific observations and symptoms to report back to the forum. And I will learn more about circumstances where my general advice isn't perfect :slight_smile:

well i have think of this, but my priority really is ishouuld have get the maximum bandwidth (regardless of circuumstances)

and i want a fix bandwidth on my AP really i have a maximum of 50 Mbps and 90 Mbps down/uup

and i want to limit the AP into 15/15

So, if your AP can run under OpenWrt, the simplest way is to hook up the AP via its WAN port to the primary router and instantiate sqm on the APs wan port.
That said, I agree with @richb-hanover-priv it might make sense to try sqm on the wan interface, the bandwidth sacrifice is relative minor (~10-15%) but the improved interactivity of the link might well be worth it. I have been running my 100/32 link shaped tp 49/31 for a long time as my router was not powerful enough to traffic shape the full 100/32 rate, but for my use case 49/31 with SQM was by far more usable than 100/40 without SQM, especially under load. Sure that is subjective and I can not guarantee that you will perceive things equally, but maybe you could try @richb-hanover-priv proposal for a few days, might not be the perfect fit for your request, but it might be better than the status quo and allow you more time to research your optimal solution.