AP7532 Client Bridge Not connecting to host

[Aaron_Becker]

I have 2 AP7532s and I'm trying to set up the 2nd to connect to an existing WiFi network. Ultimately, the 2nd 7532 would connect to a completely different WiFi network not associated with a 7532 (though it could be, I suppose).

The 2nd 7532 is not connecting to the original wifi network. I have Radio2 in bridge mode, with the SSID and PSK entered, but the radio does not show that it is connected and the host does not show the 2nd AP as a client. What critical step am I missing?

[ckelly]

That's certainly a potential cause for the client-bridge AP to not be able to find any candidate APs. If the channels it's searching on don't coincide with the candidate APs operating channels...well, they wouldn't be found - and you'd be seeing exactly what you were seeing.
Nice work noticing that detail though.

[Aaron_Becker]

Again, this could be due to my inexperience, but at one point I had some weird channel lists showing up in the general config (not in the profile for the AP) at the bottom of the running config under AP7532-XX-XX-XX-XX-XX-XX, and removing or changing them didn't help. I don't even know how I got them there, I'm guessing via the CLI before i correctly entered into the interface.

My only fear is that while I know my infrastructure AP is set to "smart" or "all channel" mode - I don't know which other infrastructure APs may be set to (and may not have access in the application I'm trying to bridge in). I could scan the environment, but I was hoping to steer away from this. Time will tell.

[ckelly]

Aaron B,
You're correct in that nothing needs to be done on the infrastructure AP side. When one of these APs is configured to operate in client-bridge mode, they are then behaving just like a wireless client device (granted, a much more expensive and better performing one...but the same behaviors). Just like any client, you tell it the SSID, you give it the authentication credentials, and it connects. Done.

As for as the channel setup, since the client-bridge is operating like a regular client, you simply want it to scan all the channels, just like a regular laptop/phone client, right? You *could* statically assign a single channel or subset of channels...but just know that you are then confining the client-bridge AP to only be able to discover other APs that operate on those same channels.

Aaron W,
Regarding the configuration in CLI - In the early days when the client-bridge feature was introduced, all of the configuration work was done in the CLI. Since that time though, an AP can be setup completely from the GUI. (diagnostics/queries are still run from the CLI though, for troubleshooting).

You say that you're GUI doesn't have these options....what version of WiNG is running on the AP? If it's older, that would explain it. There's also a history where only certain APs supported the client-bridge option based on the version of WiNG (APs that previously didn't officially support client-bridge mode were later supported after newer versions of WiNG were released).

FYI: Client-bridge supported started in WiNG-5.8.5. WiNG-5.9.3.0 is the current release. There have been various fixes for different client-bridge issues since the initial release.

[Aaron_Wright]

Thanks for that information!

I only started investigating how to set up a client bridge yesterday, but I've been wondering if anything needed to be configured on the "receiving" AP. None of the articles I've found mention that it's necessary.

I've had to do everything through ssh/command line because the web GUI plain doesn't have these options available and I don't know why.

Not a very user friendly configuration, that's for sure.