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WiFi Mesh Topology

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Dorado811

New Around Here
It looks like all mesh wifi APs want to have the cable modem first connected to a Master WiFi Router, then to the other meshed wifi APs.
I want to set up all APs with wired Ethernet connections, for obvious reasons. This is what I see is required:

Modem/Gateway -> Mesh Wifi AP -> Other Wireless APs.

I have a 5-bedroom wired house and I want to set up an upstairs and downstairs WiFe 6 Meshed network. All Ethernet connections terminate at a small MDF at the back of the master bedroom closet. The Modem/Gateway is located also in this location at the MDF. Now, I cannot move the Modem out of the closet and I cant' put the WiFi Router in the closet, it will be useless. I am using eero 6 Pro Mesh Routers. When I connect the Ethernet ports to their switches, eventually the eero APs create what it looks like a broadcast storm bringing the network services down. Their solution is to connect the Gateway/Modem first to one of the eero routers. Working with their tech support it seems it is a problem with their STP implementation. I have searched this all over as it seems all Mesh WiFi routers require a topology where the Gateway/Modem has to be connected first to the WiFi Mesh device.

There are over 100 relatively new homes in my hood and all of them are wired with fiber and pre-wired with Cat5e cables completely. Hence, in my years working in Networking, network devices, wired or wireless, never imposed requirements on topology. This is a first.

My question is, does this topology is absolutely required for a WiFi 6 mesh network, or is it a poor implementation from the vendors?
My second question: Is there a Mesh WiFi 6 vendor that supports wired topology without restrictions as to the location of the Gateway?

-Dorado811
 
You generally need a single router to be connected to your cable modem. It doesn't have to be a wireless router, but it has to be a router, because it is going to provide your firewall against the big bad internet and also make your collection of devices look like just one device to the cable modem and ISP. You absolutely do not want a WiFi device acting as a plain AP to be connected directly to the internet, because you'll have no firewall and the first hacker to notice will probably pwn all your devices shortly. You can have all the APs you want lurking behind your router, though, and a lot of us do exactly that.

I could imagine that some cable ISPs would support several routers connected directly to their modem, each presenting a different IP address to the outside world ... but I bet it's not common. It'd complicate the ISP's life, and they are not excited about that on garden-variety consumer service.

None of these points are specific to "mesh", or even WiFi. It's just how you have to set up a home network.
 
My question is, does this topology is absolutely required for a WiFi 6 mesh network, or is it a poor implementation from the vendors?
My second question: Is there a Mesh WiFi 6 vendor that supports wired topology without restrictions as to the location of the Gateway?

The usual and necessary interconnection:

WAN/Internet <> your gateway/router/firewall <> your LAN/WLANs/intranet

Locate the gateway wherever you want, but it must be wired as the gateway/router/firewall between the WAN/Internet and your LAN/WLANs/intranet.

How your house is wired and what equipment you choose to use does not change this basic requirement.

OE
 
Basic wiring is required as the posters above indicate.

Be aware of the importance of the locations of the main/nodes too.

AiMesh Ideal Placement
 
You generally need a single router to be connected to your cable modem. It doesn't have to be a wireless router, but it has to be a router, because it is going to provide your firewall against the big bad internet and also make your collection of devices look like just one device to the cable modem and ISP. You absolutely do not want a WiFi device acting as a plain AP to be connected directly to the internet, because you'll have no firewall and the first hacker to notice will probably pwn all your devices shortly. You can have all the APs you want lurking behind your router, though, and a lot of us do exactly that.

I could imagine that some cable ISPs would support several routers connected directly to their modem, each presenting a different IP address to the outside world ... but I bet it's not common. It'd complicate the ISP's life, and they are not excited about that on garden-variety consumer service.

None of these points are specific to "mesh", or even WiFi. It's just how you have to set up a home network.
 
That is exactly what I have. The point is that the eero 6 Pro, when the two ethernet ports are connected to the main switch, they form a broadcast storm that brings down the performance to a bare minimum. Their technical support team says that the topology has to be:

Gateway/modem -> eero 6 - 1 -> Main Switch
eero 6 - 2 -> Main Switch

The eero6 -1 becomes the main Mesh WiFi router.

It seems that the WiFi mesh networks require this kind of topology which based on what I know about networking, it does not make sense it has to be that way. Both eero 6 WiFi routers should be able to connect directly to the main switch.
This seems to me that they suffer a form of broadcast storm perhaps from DHCP or L2 discovery protocol. They need to implement STP or RSTP correctly.

Does anyone knows of a Mesh WiFi router that does not require having a "Master Mesh Router"?

Thanks.
 
Does anyone knows of a Mesh WiFi router that does not require having a "Master Mesh Router"?

Does not compute.

Mesh is two or more routers/APs controlled by a single unit.


Your ISP needs to offer you two external IPs to connect two routers directly to it. Even then, you can't plug both into a (dumb) switch and expect it to work (when you plug in two routers in Router Mode to the switch).
 
Does not compute.

Mesh is two or more routers/APs controlled by a single unit.


Your ISP needs to offer you two external IPs to connect two routers directly to it. Even then, you can't plug both into a (dumb) switch and expect it to work (when you plug in two routers in Router Mode to the switch).
 
That is not entirely correct. A mesh wireless network is basically, two or more wireless APs using the same SSID and access key. There should be no requirement to have the Internet Access modem, gateway to be behind one of the WiFi mesh APs. For example, it should be possible to have multiple switches and WiFi APs connected to any of the switch ports. Connecting all APs to the switches allows the connecting device to switch between the APs transparently without affecting the service.

Allowing connecting the WiFi APs to switch ports creates what is called wired back-haul topology and it should work just like any other connected device.

Since the eero 6 Pro has this limited topology requirement I returned them and replaced them with the ASUS ZenWiFi AX6600 Tri-Band Mesh WiFi 6 System (XT8 2PK) kit.

I connected both of them to my switches and configured one of them as the main AP, and now both work fine. I get the maximum possible bandwidth on either one of the mesh WiFi APs. That is the correct way it should work and the AX6600 work fine without creating broadcast storms.

I have to say that eero 6 Pro do have a problem and I don't know if the engineers will be able to fix this problem soon.

-Dorado811
 

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