Single MAC-address on WiFi interface in client mode (station mode) with both radio frequencies

Teltonika Networks
1

Hello,

I’m using a RUTX11 and/or RUTX10 inside a mobile system to connect to a WiFi network (client mode a.k.a. sta mode) which has both 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz radios. The WiFi network SSID and password are the same for both radios (new feature in latest firmware - but not sure if this is full band-steering?). As the plan is to have many such mobile systems I need to be able to have a centralized place to manage IP addresses to the router (RUTX) of the mobile systems. Therefor I have to use DHCP to get a reserved DHCP lease on the WiFi client (RUTX), e.g. IP-MAC binding.

We update the firmware to RUTX_R_00.07.06.10 which has support for both radios on a single wireless network and it supports wireless WAN. With this firmware it now uses a software managed MAC address (02:1E:42:…:…:…) to connect to the network, which is ok and better for security. The problem is that this MAC is not stable, sometimes it picks the software managed MAC address for the 2.4Ghz radio and sometimes it picks the one from the 5Ghz radio. This means in my DHCP server I still have to specify both MACs and use two IP addresses, which is not what I want. We want to have a single IP for each mobile system.

Overwriting the MAC address of the Network - WAN - Wifi0 interface would solve it but this field is ignored, and the software managed MACs are still forwarded though the DHCP server.

Is there a way to either an overwrite function for the MAC on the wifi0 or a feature to select which of the two radios should be used for the software managed MAC?

product: RUTX10 and RUTX11
firmware: RUTX_R_00.07.06.10

Kind regards,
Elias

2

Instead, it seems that when overriding WiFI MAC address, the setting is saved in the router’s /etc/config/network file and ignored.

It should be saved in /etc/config/wireless file.

Try changing the MAC address via CLI/SSH. The commands should look similar:

  • uci set wireless.1.macaddr=‘00:11:22:33:44:55’’
  • uci commit
  • reload_config

Replace the MAC accordingly.

Alternatively, you can edit the configuration file with a text editor, for example:

  • vi /etc/config/wireless

and add the option below under WiFi client (station) interface settings, in my case it was under section config wifi-iface '1'(double-check with cat /etc/config/wireless command) by pressing i letter to start editing:

  • option macaddr ‘<MAC_address>’

Exit editing by pressing ESC, enter :wq and press Enter, then execute

  • reload_config
1 Like
3

Thank you for this workaround! I tested with a random MAC and I saw that it took the correct reservation. Just to make sure: would it be a bad idea to use one of the software managed MAC addresses from either the radios to use as the override value? As I already have IP-MAC bindings for all these.

The solutions does point out two bugs in the web UI:

  • Override WiFi MAC address is ignored
  • wifi WAN interface uses software managed MAC address of either radios instead of own software managed MAC (e.g. MAC of virtual interface which bridges radios)
4

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