Do not use static IP-Addresses for Ubiquiti Mesh APs which uplinks wirelessly

Last week I configured a new network consisting of several Ubiquiti Switches and APs, for the tennis club, where I am a member of it. Some of the APs are using wirelessly uplinks because we do not have a complete wired network in the building and outdoor area. To minimize costs, I decided to use the mesh approach to build up the network.

However, I am used to give static IP-Addresses to APs and other network components. Therefore, I configured all APs with static IP-Addresses and afterwards I was wondering why the APs which have a wireless uplink are not “meshing”.

After several hours of searching it turned out that the problem was the static IP-Addresses I gave to the APs which uplinks wirelessly. After switching to DHCP it worked.

Therefore, never give a static IP-Address to an AP which uplinks wirelessly, this currently won´t work!

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2 comments

  1. I know this is old. However, I thought I’d share anyway. I’ve found that when you assign static IPs to Unifi APs, you MUST include everything. This means the IP, correct subnet, correct gateway, and working dns servers. When meshing, the Unifi APs check for a connection to the gateway. If it doesn’t find the gateway. It starts looking for another AP to connect through. I had an awful couple of hours figuring this out. This was even before Unifi even called it meshing. Ubiquiti referred to it as Wireless Uplinks exclusively.

    I just finished an install at a church with where 2 of the 10 APs are meshed. The first is a new Mesh AP and the second is an old UAP I put back into service. All 10 of the APs have static IPs.

    Hope this helps.

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