I am trying to bridge two AP650X's wireless using a hive. On either end is a computer plugged into eth1. I want them to communicate.

[stephen_a_mulle]

I've been racking my brain trying to get this going, and I am hoping someone can help me with this. I have one laptop hooked up to eth1 on one AP650X, and then another laptop hooked up to the other AP650X. I simply want to pass data between them using the AP650X's as a wireless bridge. I've mostly accomplished this using a hive, but I am running into a roadblock. Note that I don't have Hivemanager set up, and have been doing everything solely using CLI.

Initially, I had both eth1's set up as backhauls. I was always able to ping the other, wirelessly connected AP650X from one laptop. However, as soon as I connected the second laptop to eth1, I could no longer ping the other wirelessly connected AP. This brought me down the rabbit hole of figuring out how bridge-access works, how bridge-8021q works, etc. Ultimately, I believe the right determination was that one AP eth1 needed to be set up as a backhaul, but the other needed to be set up as bridge-access. So I put the second laptop connection into bridge-access mode, and it appears to "connect" fine, but I cannot ping the other laptop, nor can I ping the routers. The other laptop can not ping this laptop either. However, in this mode, connecting the second laptop no longer causes my first laptop from being able to ping the wirelessly connected router. So I feel like I am on the right track.

I am not doing anything with VLANs, I simply want this to be open communication.

Can anyone help me figure out my next steps? Is what I am trying to do even possible?

[john_m_readle]

Thanks for the update and recommendation! Glad you got your system working, will update here (for knowledge sake) in the event that we do get the 650X's set up in this config!

[stephen_a_mulle]

Hi,

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to figure it out. I was attempting to get this work completely offline with no success. What I did instead was switch to using Asus routers and make use of their AiMesh functionality. It did exactly what I needed it to do with significantly less effort.

[john_m_readle]

Sorry I do not have an answer, but have just started working on a very similar project, and was hoping to follow up and see if you have made any progress since your initial question?

I have been using the HiveManager for config, but similarly, could not get the laptops to ping each other. It looks like , at least from the hivemanager, that the WiFi 0 and WiFi 1 can be set to backhaul mesh link, but I do not see an option to specify that either Ethernet port can also be set to backhaul. Also is there a setting for "bridge mode" in the aerohive CLI? Because the manager only offers AP.

Are you attempting this setup completely offline or are you using the 650X's wired in to the internet?

Either way, I will be working on this project over the next few days and will share any useful info I find if you are still invested in the project.