Ubiquiti Kit Query

Scream · 12 Apr 2015 at 17:17

I have several Ubiquiti Outdoor AP's broadcasting wifi all around the grounds of my property. I have a small building which I need to install an IP camera at to cover a back laneway.

I have no way of running a cable directly so I was wondering if Ubiquiti have something which I can stick up at the building and receive wifi from one of the existing AP's that I have up?

I know they have nano stations but I would prefer not having to stick two items up.

Caged · 12 Apr 2015 at 17:22

A PicoStation or a Bullet with an antenna will both work fine as clients.

Scream · 12 Apr 2015 at 18:06

So I get either of the above to connect to one of the AP's and bingo?

Steveocee · 12 Apr 2015 at 20:45

You want a nanostation, they can act as a station so will receive on one hand and have a secondary rj45 which you can enable PoE passthrough on to power a CCTV camera (or similar)

Scream · 12 Apr 2015 at 21:44

Ah right. Thanks for that.

Scream · 20 Sep 2015 at 22:30

Only got round to sorting this out today but have a problem. The Nanostation Loco connects to the Ubiquiti AP with fantastic signal and I can log into the Nanostation from anywhere on my network so I know it's connected fine.

I have my laptop connected directly into the Poe adapter that powers the Nanostation but I just can't get a connection. I have set a static IP on the laptop and even set it to automatic and still nothing.

I have looked at more guides and videos on YouTube and it should work but it isn't. I set the Nanostation to connect to another AP and signal is great but the laptop won't connect to the network.

I am just scratching my head now.

Steveocee · 21 Sep 2015 at 12:18

WDS on both?

Scream · 21 Sep 2015 at 22:48

WDS is on for the Nanostation but don't know for the Outdoor APs cause they use the UniFi controller so you have next to nothing in terms of settings you can make.

I set them up two years ago and you can't log in directly via a web browser to change settings like you can with a Nanostation, that I am aware of or remember.

Steveocee · 22 Sep 2015 at 06:32

Try logging into the nanostation loco and see if that can ping back. You need to identify where the connection breaks down.

Also Unifi AP can be confit edits in the CLI but it's probably not needed at this point on time.

Scream · 22 Sep 2015 at 16:19

I've logged into the Nanostation and using the Ping from its web interface, I can ping the router and other computers on the network.

I have connected 3 different computers directly to the Nanostation and if I set them to Automatically Obtain an IP address, it assigns itself a random address like 169.254.159.139 when it should be assigned 192.168.1.x

This seems to be the problem and assigning the computer a fixed IP still prevents network access. I just don't know why it's not assigning a correct IP for the network.

The Nanostation itself is assigned the IP 192.168.1.63 and I can log into it from any machine on the network so like I said, the link between the two Ubiquiti devices are working but this IP address assigning must be the issue.

Caged · 22 Sep 2015 at 20:39

Are you sure it's not running as a router? Manually address your PC in the same subnet as the rest of your LAN, plug it into the Nanostation and try and ping it. It sounds like it's acting as a CPE and doing routing at the moment.

Scream · 22 Sep 2015 at 21:39

The Nanostation can be pinged from any computer on the network but cannot ping the computer attached to the Nanostation and that computer can't ping the computers on the network.

The Nanostation is set as:

Network Mode: Bridge
Wireless Mode: Station WDS

Caged · 22 Sep 2015 at 21:53

Turn WDS off, bridge is the right setting. Try turning on routing and then flipping it back to bridge. It's not bridging for some reason.

Scream · 22 Sep 2015 at 22:57

Disabled WDS and bang it's going.

Why every guide I read and video I watched said to make sure it was on?

Many thanks for that. Always something simple that causes such a headache. Need to read into this WDS more.

Caged · 22 Sep 2015 at 23:17

WDS is if you've got two Ubiquiti Airmax devices talking to each other.

Steveocee · 23 Sep 2015 at 06:11

Steveocee said:
WDS on both?

Scream said:
Disabled WDS and bang it's going.

Why every guide I read and video I watched said to make sure it was on?

Many thanks for that. Always something simple that causes such a headache. Need to read into this WDS more.

From my findings WDS over a bridge works a bit like NAT. If you have WDS enabled the link is fully transparent (like plugging an ethernet between the 2). If you don't use WDS then the AP only ever sees the MAC address of the receiving client and never the devices behind it.

Using WDS isn't a problem but you must ensure its on both to work correctly.

Scream · 23 Sep 2015 at 11:23

Thanks for the help guys. There is always something new to learn about Ubiquiti stuff.

If you could log into the Outdoor AP's directly, you might have more control but unfortunately you can't.

Thanks again.

Caged · 23 Sep 2015 at 23:32

WDS passes the source MAC address through on the frame so the receiving device doesn't even know that it's gone across a hop. The device connected at the other end was an access point not in WDS mode (I'm not sure WDS is workable in anything other than a 1:1 relationship, but anyway), receiving frames with a sender MAC unrelated to any associated clients, so was presumably dropping them.

bremen1874 · 24 Sep 2015 at 00:23

Scream said:
If you could log into the Outdoor AP's directly, you might have more control but unfortunately you can't.

It doesn't really apply in this case, but you can login to their APs directly using a CLI/SSH connection. I've only used it once to recover an AP that refused to reconnect after an upgrade, but it is there.