Omada Client Solutions - Archer Academy

Omada Client Solutions

This article series simulates real-world examples of network configurations completed with Omada equipment for home lab and/or business environments. Any similarities to real persons or organizations are purely coincidental.

 

Challenge

Omar is an IT administrator for Archer Academy, a school in the middle of a bustling city. The school administration has tasked him with setting up a network for the new eSports club on campus. The club needs a fast, reliable connection to ensure the best experience for all students. However, there’s one big problem: the only room available for the club to meet is across a busy main road, making it impossible to run physical cable.

 

Project Requirements:

• Students need to have an internet connection in the external building.
• The school administrators do not want to pay for an additional internet connection for the external building.
• There’s a clear line of sight between the main and the external building.
• Any teacher hosting the club in that room needs access to the school’s servers so that they can continue to work while the club is operating.

 

Solution:

After researching several different products, Omar decides to set up a Bridge Kit to get internet to that other building.

Omar provides this rough topology to the administration, who get the budget approved. He begins implementation as soon as the hardware comes in, following the steps in the installation guide for his model.

 

 

Technical Difficulties:

Once the bridge kit is set up, Omar decides to validate the process. He starts by placing a PC in the main building connected to the LAN ports of the Main Bridge AP. His first test is to ping the Client AP’s IP address to see if traffic goes across the Bridge successfully.

Note: The TP-Link Web interface is detected as insecure within web browsers because the certificate for the local management page is a self-signed certificate. For more information, please see the FAQ here: Why TP-Link HTTPS web interface is detected as unsecure by some web browsers?

Success! He can get a response from the Client AP.

Omar walks across the street and tests the other side, trying to ping the Main AP. Pings time out, no connectivity whatsoever. He tries accessing the web UI of the Client AP again...and fails.

Being the savvy IT admin he is, he starts to isolate the issue.

He checks his network adapter settings and finds they are set to obtain the IP address and DNS server addresses automatically. He checks the computer's network settings with ipconfig, and finds he is receiving an auto-assigned IP address. For testing, he sets the computer's IP address to a manual IP address in the main building's network, and the DNS server to his favorite public DNS.

Suddenly, he is able to ping the Main AP and the school servers just fine. It looks like it's an issue with DHCP on this side.

To find the source of the DHCP issue, he first checks the physical connections. Omar connects the ethernet cable he is using to a tester, which reports that the cable is properly crimped and can pass both power and data with no breaks in the cable. No issues in cabling.

Moving on, he swaps the generic network switch for an Omada SG2218…and pings go through just fine! It seems that the switch was not allowing DHCP packets to go through. Just for one last confirmation, he instead connects directly to the Client AP's LAN port, and is able to reach the main building's servers successfully.

 

Now the connection is passed successfully from the main building to the club building.

 

Conclusion:

To overcome the challenge of providing internet to the new building without running physical cables, Omar implemented a Bridge Kit. After initial setup, he validated connectivity by testing pings between the Main and Client APs. In doing so, he discovered a DHCP issue that caused IP assignment failures. Through troubleshooting, he identified a faulty network switch on the Client AP side. Once the problem switch was replaced, the internet setup for the new building was complete. 

Thanks to the clear documentation provided, Omar was able to easily fulfill Archer Academy's needs. Omada products are designed to work together to deliver dependable, scalable networking solutions. 

 

Want to learn more? Check out our Community Knowledgebase or the Frequently Asked Questions on our website.
Interested in checking out more Omada products for yourself? Please visit the Omada Store to find solutions that fit your needs.

 

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