Mikrotik Hotspot setup Topics about the wireless hardware

[albius]

I would like to know the placement and function of a mikrotik device. I will running Cisco Aeronet 1600 APs with a wireless LAN Controller. My intention is to have no authentication on the APs, and the controller just to control radios. What I don't know is where to place the mikrotik router, should I make it my default gateway one port in the LAN the other to the Adsl interface (Nating), in such a scenario where should the HS Network Manager be placed on the LAN or WAN side of the Mikrotik router for it to work properly. And the Mikrotik HS Network configuration file should be placed on which interface, LAN or WAN? Please advice on the proper network device placement.

[HSNMSupport]

Hi Albius,

attached you can find a couple of schema where you can get informations you requested. 

[albius]

On schema1, how would you go with a placement of a (VMWare) virtual mikrotik router, would you still place it at where Mikrotik is?

[HSNMSupport]

It is better to use the mikrotik hw model, anyway if you want to use the virtual appliance you can use it in the same way of the hw model (obviously it must have at least two interfaces)
Best regards

[albius]

It is better to use the mikrotik hw model, anyway if you want to use the virtual appliance you can use it in the same way of the hw model (obviously it must have at least two interfaces)
Best regards

Thanks, will try it and give feedback.

[albius]

May be I am a bit stuck with network parameters for the APs.[font="Calibri",sans-serif]My LAN network is 10.110.10.0, I have a Cisco router at 10.110.10.1 doing inter-vlan routing, HSMN is at 172.16.8.0 network. Both these networks go through 172.16.8.1 Fortigate firewall doing NATing to the outside world. Both the DHCP server and access points (APs) are on 10.110.10.0 network, the DHCP server is running Windows Server 2012. The HSNM script bridged 10.110.10.0 network to 172.16.8.0 network. It loaded successfully, but when I connect to access points I don’t get a HSNM portal thus can’t get authenticated. With the above, should the DHCP server be Mikrotik or any other, secondly which network setting should be on the APs the 10.110.10.0 network or the 172.16.8.0 network, cause I don't know what should be the default gateway for APs, whether Miktrotik or ADSL router.[/font] 

[HSNMSupport]

Hi Albius
The HSNM script provided to configure a Mikrotik gateway doesn't bridge the WAN and HOTSPOT network but simply NAT the HOTSPOT network to the WAN network.
In your scenario, where the Internet gateway is the 172.168.8.1, you have to set on the WAN interface of the HSNM gateway an IP of the 172.168.8.0/24 network then you have to choose a network (for example 10.50.50.0/24) for the HOTSPOT interface and move your APs to that network; you can leave your LAN network (10.110.10.0/24) and its devices (PC, notebook, printer, ecc.) as they are.

P.S.-> on HOTSPOT network HSNM add a DHCP server that provide IP address for the devices connected to your AP.
NOTE ->  Remember to enable the "same network of appliance" checkbox on the HSNM gateway configuration because, in your case the HSNM is on the same network (172.168.8.0) of the Mikrotik gateway
Best regards

[albius]

I would like to know where I add the DHCP server, I only see the DHCP pool oh HSNM.

[HSNMSupport]

Hi Albius,

you only see field to set hotspot DHCP pool because HSNM automatically generate the config.rsc file with the DHCP server configuration to add to the Mikrotik.

Regards.