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No Fast Roaming with EAP620/EAP615 and Omada Controller 5.1.7

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No Fast Roaming with EAP620/EAP615 and Omada Controller 5.1.7

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No Fast Roaming with EAP620/EAP615 and Omada Controller 5.1.7
No Fast Roaming with EAP620/EAP615 and Omada Controller 5.1.7
2022-03-29 17:57:19 - last edited 2022-04-07 03:32:33
Model: EAP620 HD  
Hardware Version: V2
Firmware Version: 1.0.2

I'm using two EAP620 and one EAP615 with the Omada-Controller on a Linux Machine. In the controller I've enabled Fast Roaming together with AI and Dual-Band Reporting in WPA-Personal mode.

 

 

However Fast-Roaming does not seem to work. Also when I capture the beacon frames with Wireshark there is no 802.11k or 802.11v information being sent:

 

 

Do you have any hint on how to make this work?

 

 

 

 

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#1
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1 Accepted Solution
Re:No Fast Roaming with EAP620/EAP615 and Omada Controller 5.1.7-Solution
2022-03-30 03:57:35 - last edited 2022-04-07 03:32:33

Dear @chbmuc,

 

chbmuc wrote

However Fast-Roaming does not seem to work. Also when I capture the beacon frames with Wireshark there is no 802.11k or 802.11v information being sent:

 

The 802.11k and 802.11v protocol contain many function points, you may need to expand the collapsed frames to have a check.

 

For 802.11k, you may check whether there are function points such as Neighbor Report, Link Measurement.

 

 

For 802.11v, check whether there are function points like BSS Transition Management in Wireless Network Management (WNM).

 

 

If you see those function points above, it means the 802.11k and 802.11v information are being sent.

 

Kind note:

 

With 802.11k/V Fast Roaming enabled, we can use the 802.11k/V capable wireless client to capture the 802.11k/v packets via Wireshark.

To successfully capture the packets of 802.11k/v, please ensure the Wi-Fi is NOT configured with WPA3 encryption as its management frame is encrypted, we may fail to see the frame we need. WPA2 encryption is recommended.

Besides, the 802.11k Neighbor Reports packets can be captured when the SSID is associated each time. But 802.11v roaming packets are not easy to be captured since not each roaming contains 802.11v packets, that is, 802.11v doesn't happen when the client is actively roaming.

To view the 802.11k/V packets generated by the 802.11k/v capable clients and APs, you may filter the action packets via "wlan.fc.type_SubType == 0x000D".

For more details about the 802.11k/v Fast Roaming feature, please refer to the article below.

Fast Roaming Keeps Connection Consistent

>> Omada EAP Firmware Trial Available Here << *Try filtering posts on each forum by Label of [Early Access]*
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#3
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Re:No Fast Roaming with EAP620/EAP615 and Omada Controller 5.1.7
2022-03-29 20:38:01

  @chbmuc 

interesting. 
 

I'm using EAP660 HDs and ran into same issues. 
 

for me it looks like they're doing it via controller. And that's why they're not reporting/advertising it via APs. 
 

they could be the reason why they're not advertising it via APs?!

 

 Got another issue within settings. 
for me it doesn't look like that the APs do U-APSD right way. 
if it's enabled all my clients. (iPhone,...) do not show power save: enabled. 
they're all disabled. 
 

within UniFi system everything is working as it should....

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#2
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Re:No Fast Roaming with EAP620/EAP615 and Omada Controller 5.1.7-Solution
2022-03-30 03:57:35 - last edited 2022-04-07 03:32:33

Dear @chbmuc,

 

chbmuc wrote

However Fast-Roaming does not seem to work. Also when I capture the beacon frames with Wireshark there is no 802.11k or 802.11v information being sent:

 

The 802.11k and 802.11v protocol contain many function points, you may need to expand the collapsed frames to have a check.

 

For 802.11k, you may check whether there are function points such as Neighbor Report, Link Measurement.

 

 

For 802.11v, check whether there are function points like BSS Transition Management in Wireless Network Management (WNM).

 

 

If you see those function points above, it means the 802.11k and 802.11v information are being sent.

 

Kind note:

 

With 802.11k/V Fast Roaming enabled, we can use the 802.11k/V capable wireless client to capture the 802.11k/v packets via Wireshark.

To successfully capture the packets of 802.11k/v, please ensure the Wi-Fi is NOT configured with WPA3 encryption as its management frame is encrypted, we may fail to see the frame we need. WPA2 encryption is recommended.

Besides, the 802.11k Neighbor Reports packets can be captured when the SSID is associated each time. But 802.11v roaming packets are not easy to be captured since not each roaming contains 802.11v packets, that is, 802.11v doesn't happen when the client is actively roaming.

To view the 802.11k/V packets generated by the 802.11k/v capable clients and APs, you may filter the action packets via "wlan.fc.type_SubType == 0x000D".

For more details about the 802.11k/v Fast Roaming feature, please refer to the article below.

Fast Roaming Keeps Connection Consistent

>> Omada EAP Firmware Trial Available Here << *Try filtering posts on each forum by Label of [Early Access]*
Recommended Solution
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#3
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Re:No Fast Roaming with EAP620/EAP615 and Omada Controller 5.1.7
2022-03-31 06:04:32

@Fae Thank you for your profound response.

 

Link Measurement and Neighbor Report are enabled, so 802.11k should be fine. However I'm unable to find any Wireless Network Management (WNM) information. These are all the "Fixed parameters" that I have.

 

 

 

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#4
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Re:No Fast Roaming with EAP620/EAP615 and Omada Controller 5.1.7
2022-03-31 06:10:48

  @Spryde 

 

You are right "power save" is disabled on my clients as well. In the header "Automatic Power Save Delivery" is "Not Implemented".

 

As far as I can remember I've seen it enabled in one of the pervious versions.

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#5
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Re:No Fast Roaming with EAP620/EAP615 and Omada Controller 5.1.7
2022-03-31 17:05:35

Mayby also worth mentioning: "BSS Transition" is "Not supported"

 

 

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Re:No Fast Roaming with EAP620/EAP615 and Omada Controller 5.1.7
2022-04-07 18:37:05 - last edited 2022-04-07 18:38:21

  @Fae 

 

I think I found the sollution (there is a hint in the release notes for the EAP610 1.0.3 firmware):

 

The EAP615 does not seem to support AI Roaming. When I turn off AI Roaming in the Controller, the EAP615 starts to announce "BSS Transition" capabilities.

 

There is a workaround for the missing U-APSD as well. You have to do a full powercycle of your AP (see https://community.tp-link.com/en/business/forum/topic/542002?replyId=1060738).

 

I really hope that these issues get fixed in a firmware update soon.

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#7
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Re:No Fast Roaming with EAP620/EAP615 and Omada Controller 5.1.7
2022-04-08 02:50:41

Dear @chbmuc,

 

chbmuc wrote

I think I found the sollution (there is a hint in the release notes for the EAP610 1.0.3 firmware):

 

The EAP615 does not seem to support AI Roaming. When I turn off AI Roaming in the Controller, the EAP615 starts to announce "BSS Transition" capabilities.

 

The AI Roaming config in the Controller won't take effect neither affect the roaming performance on the EAP615-Wall 1.0.2 firmware since it doesn't support AI Roaming at all. For your test results, I think it may just happen to trigger the 802.11v roaming at that time so that you see the BSS Transition packets. Kind note that 802.11v roaming packets (BSS Transition) are not easy to be captured since not each roaming contains 802.11v packets (802.11v doesn't happen when the client is actively roaming).

 

There is a workaround for the missing U-APSD as well. You have to do a full powercycle of your AP (see https://community.tp-link.com/en/business/forum/topic/542002?replyId=1060738).

 

I noticed that topic earlier and tried some tests with my Android phone in the lab, but failed to reproduce the issue, unfortunately.

The Power Save turns to Enabled after a while (waited for few seconds and refreshed the page) once my Android phone is connected to the SSID of the EAP. Not sure if it has something to do with the client types or something we missed. Perhaps we may start a new thread to discuss this new topic.

>> Omada EAP Firmware Trial Available Here << *Try filtering posts on each forum by Label of [Early Access]*
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#8
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Re:No Fast Roaming with EAP620/EAP615 and Omada Controller 5.1.7
2022-04-08 03:48:10

Fae wrote

The AI Roaming config in the Controller won't take effect neither affect the roaming performance on the EAP615-Wall 1.0.2 firmware since it doesn't support AI Roaming at all. For your test results, I think it may just happen to trigger the 802.11v roaming at that time so that you see the BSS Transition packets. Kind note that 802.11v roaming packets (BSS Transition) are not easy to be captured since not each roaming contains 802.11v packets (802.11v doesn't happen when the client is actively roaming).

 

 

  @Fae 

Hi. What I don't understand is: Why no Roaming for the EAP615? At the product page you can find it in the same way as for other EAPs (660HD,670, 650...) 
https://www.tp-link.com/us/business-networking/omada-sdn-access-point/eap615-wall/ 

 

So are there any differences within EAPs and Roaming, we all don't know?

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#9
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Re:No Fast Roaming with EAP620/EAP615 and Omada Controller 5.1.7
2022-04-09 04:04:16 - last edited 2022-04-09 04:06:03

Dear @Spryde,

 

Spryde wrote

Hi. What I don't understand is: Why no Roaming for the EAP615? At the product page you can find it in the same way as for other EAPs (660HD,670, 650...) 
https://www.tp-link.com/us/business-networking/omada-sdn-access-point/eap615-wall/ 

So are there any differences within EAPs and Roaming, we all don't know?

 

I'm not saying that EAP615-Wall doesn't support Roaming. The EAP615-Wall 1.0.2 firmware supports 802.11k/V Fast Roaming, but just doesn't support AI Roaming. AI Roaming is a TP-Link self-developed AI algorithm based on 802.11k/V Fast Roaming, added in Controller v4.3.5 and above version, which requires to upgrade the EAP to the adapted firmware. Apparently EAP615-Wall 1.0.2 firmware doesn't support AI Roaming yet. So whether AI Roaming is enabled or disabled doesn't really make sense for the EAP615-Wall, nor will it affect the 802.11k/V Fast Roaming to take effect. The only concern is that capturing the 802.11v (BSS Transition) roaming packets is not as easy as capturing the 802.11k (Neighbor Report) packets.

>> Omada EAP Firmware Trial Available Here << *Try filtering posts on each forum by Label of [Early Access]*
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#10
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Re:No Fast Roaming with EAP620/EAP615 and Omada Controller 5.1.7
2022-04-09 05:20:40

  @Fae 

Thx for your feedback. It's hard to find out the differences concerning all the different roaming variants.

 

Where can you find an overview of which roaming-capabilities are fulfilled by which access point?

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