Wifi repeater and changing BSSIDs

Installing and Using OpenWrt Network and Wireless Configuration
#1

I have a "router" and a wifi "repeater" (using relayd), both running latest LEDE.

The repeater has one SSID running as AP, and another SSID running as STA and connected to the router. The AP SSID on the repeater shares name and password with the AP SSID on the router, so clients can easily connect to either the router or the repeater. So far, pretty much standard configuration.

The STA SSID on the repeater normally connects to the AP SSID on the router, but I guess it could also connect to the AP SSID on the repeater itself, and obviously I do not want that. So the STA SSID in the repeater is configured to connect to the specific BSSID of the AP SSID on the router.

However, the router has several SSIDs configured on the same radio, so the BSSIDs change on each reboot; when this happens, the repeater can no longer connect to the router.

Has anybody faced this issue before? How did you solve it? Thanks!

#2

You can configure the bssid (your remote AP's MAC address) on your repeater's STA interface, allowing it only to connect to that AP.

#3

It will not connect to itself. A STA interface will be unaware that an AP with the same SSID exists on the same radio.

If you expand the situation to a main router / AP and two repeaters, you do have to lock one or both of the repeaters to the main AP's BSSID to ensure that the repeaters do not connect in a loop with each other and leave their users without access to the Internet.

The assignment of BSSID to an AP should be deterministic through reboots unless you added or removed interfaces. Placing an option macaddr in /etc/config/wireless can be used to force a particular BSSID that will never change.

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#4

Many thanks for the info!