TP-Link - EAP - Configuring A Standalone Access Point - Advanced Features

Fallback IP

With the fallback IP configured, if the EAP fails to get an IP address from a DHCP server within 10 seconds, the fallback IP will work as the IP address of the EAP. After that, however, the EAP will keep trying to obtain an IP address from the DHCP server until it succeeds.

DHCP Fallback IP

Specify a fallback IP address for the EAP. Make sure that this IP address is not being used by any other device in the same LAN.

DHCP Fallback IP MASK

Specify the network mask of the fallback IP.

DHCP Fallback Gateway

Specify the network gateway.

IP Address

Specify a static IP address for the EAP.

IP Mask

Specify the network mask.

Gateway

Specify the network gateway.

Note:

•For a dual-band EAP, there are two bands: 2.4GHz and 5GHz. The wireless parameters are separately set on each band. You can click  to select a band and configure the wireless parameters on this band.

•The following figures take 2.4GHz as an example.

2.4GHz Wireless Radio/5GHz Wireless Radio

Check the box to enable 2.4GHz/5GHz Wireless Radio. By default, it is enabled.

Only when this option is enabled will the wireless radio on 2.4GHz/5GHz band works.

Wireless Mode

Select the protocol standard for the wireless network.

For 2.4GHz network, we recommend that you select 802.11b/g/n. In this way, clients supporting any one of these modes can access your wireless network.

For 5GHz network, we recommend that you select 802.11n/ac or 802.11a/n/ac. In this way, clients supporting any one of these modes can access your wireless network.

Channel Width

Select the channel width.

According to IEEE 802.11n standard, using a higher bandwidth can increase wireless throughput. However, you may choose a lower bandwidth due to the following reasons:

To increase the available number of channels within the limited total bandwidth.

To avoid interference from overlapping channels occupied by other devices in the environment.

Lower bandwidth can concentrate higher transmit power, increasing stability of wireless links over long distances.

Channel Limit

Check the box to enable the Channel Limit function. With this function enabled, the wireless frequency 5150MHz~5350MHz will be disabled. This function can influence the available options in Channel.

This feature is only available for 5GHz wireless configuration of EAP225-Outdoor.

Channel

Select the channel used by the EAP. For example, 1/2412MHz means that the channel is 1 and the frequency is 2412MHz.

By default, the channel is automatically selected, and we recommend that you keep the default setting.

Tx Power (EIRP)

Specify the transmit power value.

If this value is set to be larger than the maximum transmit power that is allowed by the local regulation, the regulated maximum transmit power will be applied in the actual situation.

Note: In most cases, it is unnecessary to use the maximum transmit power. Specifying a larger transmit power than needed may cause interference to the neighborhood. Also it consumes more power and reduces longevity of the device.

Note:

If there are SSIDs already in the list, you can also click  to edit the specific SSID.

SSID

Specify a name for the wireless network.

Wireless VLAN

ID

Set a VLAN ID for the wireless network. It supports maximum 8 VLANs per frequency band.

With this feature, the EAP can work together with the switches supporting 802.1Q VLAN. The EAP adds different VLAN tags to the clients which are connected to the corresponding wireless network. The clients in different VLANs cannot directly communicate with each other.

VLAN 0 means that the EAP does not add any VLAN tag to the clients which are connected to this wireless network.

Note: Clients connected to the EAP via Ethernet cable do not belong to any VLAN. Thus wired client can communicate with all the wireless clients despite the VLAN settings.

SSID Broadcast

With the option enabled, EAP will broadcast the SSID to the nearby hosts, so that those hosts can find the wireless network identified by this SSID. If this option is disabled, users must enter the SSID manually to connect to the EAP.

Security Mode

Select the security mode of the wireless network. There are four options:

None: Clients can access the wireless network without authentication.

WEP/WPA-Enterprise/WPA-PSK: Clients need to pass the authentication before accessing the wireless network. For network security, we recommend that you encrypt your wireless network. The following sections will introduce how to configure these security modes.

Portal

With this option enabled, the Portal configuration will be applied to this wireless network.

Portal provides authentication service for the clients who just need temporary access to the wireless network, such as the customers in a shopping mall or in a restaurant. Portal also provides a way for vendors and companies to put their advertisements on the authentication page.

SSID Isolation

With this option enabled, the devices connected to the same SSID cannot communicate with each other.

Note:

WEP is not supported in 802.11n mode or 802.11ac mode. If WEP is applied in 802.11n, 802.11 ac or 802.11n/ac mixed mode, the clients may not be able to access the wireless network. If WEP is applied in 802.11b/g/n mode (2.4GHz) or 802.11a/n (5GHz), the EAP may work at a low transmission rate.

Type

Select the authentication type for WEP.

Auto: The EAP can select Open System or Shared Key automatically based on the wireless capability and request of the clients.

Open System: Clients can pass the authentication and associate with the wireless network without password. However, correct password is necessary for data transmission.

Shared Key: Clients have to input the correct password to pass the authentication, otherwise the clients cannot associate with the wireless network or transmit data.

Key Selected

Select one key to specify. You can configure four keys at most.

WEP Key Format

Select ASCII or Hexadecimal as the WEP key format.

ASCII: With this format selected, the WEP key can be any combination of keyboard characters of the specified length.

Hexadecimal: With this format selected, the WEP key can be any combination of hexadecimal digits (0-9, a-f, A-F) with the specified length.

Key Type

Select the WEP key length for encryption.

64Bit: Enter 10 hexadecimal digits or 5 ASCII characters.

128Bit: Enter 26 hexadecimal digits or 13 ASCII characters.

152Bit: Enter 32 hexadecimal digits or 16 ASCII characters.

Key Value

Enter the WEP keys. The length and valid characters are determined by the key format and key type.

Version

Select the version of WPA-Enterprise.

Auto: The EAP will automatically choose the version used by each client device.

WPA/WPA2: They’re two versions of WPA security mode. WPA2 is an update of WPA. Compared with WPA, WPA2 introduces AES algorithm and CCMP encryption. Theoretically, WPA2 is securer than WPA.

Encryption

Select the Encryption type.

Auto: The default setting is Auto and the EAP will select TKIP or AES automatically based on the client device’s request.

TKIP: Temporal Key Integrity Protocol. TKIP is not supported in 802.11n mode, 802.11ac mode or 802.11n/ac mixed mode. If TKIP is applied in 802.11n, 802.11 ac or 802.11n/ac mixed mode, the clients may not be able to access the wireless network. If TKIP is applied in 11b/g/n mode (2.4GHz) or 11a/n mode(5GHz), the device may work at a low transmission rate.

AES: Advanced Encryption Standard. It is securer than TKIP.

RADIUS Server IP

Enter the IP address of the Radius Server.

RADIUS Port

Enter the port number of the Radius Server.

RADIUS Password

Enter the shared secret key of the Radius server.

Group Key Update

Period

Specify an update period of the encryption key. The update period instructs how often the EAP should change the encryption key. 0 means that the encryption key does not change at anytime.

Version

Select the version of WPA-Enterprise.

Auto: The EAP will automatically choose the version used by each client device.

WPA-PSK/WPA2-PSK: They’re two versions of WPA-PSK security mode. WPA2-PSK is an update of WPA-PSK. Compared with WPA, Theoretically, WPA2 is securer than WPA.

Encryption

Select the Encryption type.

Auto: The default setting is Auto and the EAP will select TKIP or AES automatically based on the client device’s request.

TKIP: Temporal Key Integrity Protocol. TKIP is not supported in 802.11n mode, 802.11ac mode or 802.11n/ac mixed mode. If TKIP is applied in 802.11n, 802.11 ac or 802.11n/ac mixed mode, the clients may not be able to access the wireless network. If TKIP is applied in 11b/g/n mode (2.4GHz) or 11a/n mode(5GHz), the device may work at a low transmission rate.

AES: Advanced Encryption Standard. It is securer than TKIP.

Wireless

Password

Configure the wireless password with ASCII or Hexadecimal characters.

For ASCII, the length should be between 8 and 63 and the valid characters contain numbers, letters (case-sensitive) and common punctuations.

For Hexadecimal, the length should be between 8 and 64, and the valid characters contain: 0-9, a-f, A-F.

Group Key Update Period

Specify an update period of the encryption key. The update period instructs how often the EAP should change the encryption key. 0 means that the encryption key does not change at anytime.

Beacon Interval

Beacons are transmitted periodically by the EAP device to announce the presence of a wireless network for the clients. Beacon Interval determines the time interval of the beacons sent by the EAP device.

You can specify a value between 40 and 100ms. The default is 100ms.

DTIM Period

The DTIM (Delivery Traffic Indication Message) is contained in some Beacon frames. It indicates whether the EAP device has buffered data for client devices. The DTIM Period indicates how often the clients served by this EAP device should check for buffered data still on the EAP device awaiting pickup.

You can specify the value between 1-255 Beacon Intervals. The default value is 1, indicating that clients check for buffered data at every beacon. An excessive DTIM interval may reduce the performance of multicast applications, so we recommend you keep the default value.

RTS Threshold

RTS/CTS (Request to Send/Clear to Send) is used to improve the data transmission efficiency of the network with hidden nodes, especially when there are lots of large packets to be transmitted.

When the size of a data packet is larger than the RTS Threshold, the RTS/CTS mechanism will be activated. With this mechanism activated, before sending a data packet, the client will send an RTS packet to the EAP to request data transmitting. And then the EAP will send CTS packet to inform other clients to delay their data transmitting. In this way, packet collisions can be avoided.

For a busy network with hidden nodes, a low threshold value will help reduce interference and packet collisions. But for a not-so-busy network, a too low threshold value will cause bandwidth wasting and reduce the data throughput. The recommended and default value is 2347 bytes.

Fragmentation Threshold

The fragmentation function can limit the size of packets transmitted over the network. If the size of a packet exceeds the Fragmentation Threshold, the fragmentation function is activated and the packet will be fragmented into several packets.

Fragmentation helps improve network performance if properly configured. However, a too low fragmentation threshold may result in poor wireless performance caused by the extra work of dividing up and reassembling of frames and increased message traffic. The recommended and default value is 2346 bytes.

Airtime Fairness

EAP225_V3, EAP225-Outdoor_V1, EAP245_V3, EAP320 and EAP330 support this feature.

With this option enabled, each client connected to the EAP can get the same amount of time to transmit data, avoiding low-data-rate clients to occupy too much network bandwidth.

Compared with the relatively new client devices, some legacy client devices support slower wireless rate. If they communicate with the same EAP, the slower clients take more time to transmit and receive data compared with the faster clients. As a result, the overall wireless throughput of the network decreases. So under such circumstance, we recommend that you enable this feature to ensure the data transmission time for the faster clients. In this way, the network overall throughput can be improved.

For EAP225_V3 and EAP225-Outdoor_V1, with this option enabled, 50 wireless clients can connect to the EAP at most in 2.4GHz band.

Authentication Timeout

Specify the value of authentication timeout.

A client’s authentication will expire after the authentication timeout and the client needs to log in to the authentication page again to access the network.

Options include 1 Hour, 8 Hours, 24 Hours, 7 Days, and Custom. With Custom selected, you can customize the time in days, hours, and minutes.

Redirect

With this function configured, the newly authenticated client will be redirected to the specific URL.

Redirect URL

With Redirect enabled, you also need to enter the URL in this field. The newly authenticated client will be redirected to this URL.

Portal Customization

Configure the authentication page. Local Web Portal is the only available option in this authentication type. Enter the title and term of use in the two boxes.

The EAP uses its built-in web server to provide this authentication page for clients. To pass the authentication, clients only need to check the box of I accept the Term of Use and click the Login button.

Authentication Timeout

Specify the value of authentication timeout.

A client’s authentication will expire after the authentication timeout and the client needs to log in to the authentication page again to access the network.

Options include 1 Hour, 8 Hours, 24 Hours, 7 Days, and Custom. With Custom selected, you can customize the time in days, hours, and minutes.

Password

Specify a password for authentication.

Redirect

With this function configured, the newly authenticated client will be redirected to the specific URL.

Redirect URL

With Redirect enabled, you also need to enter the URL in this field. The newly authenticated client will be redirected to this URL.

Portal Customization

Configure the authentication page. Local Web Portal is the only available option is this authentication type. Enter the title and term of use in the two boxes.

The EAP uses its built-in web server to provide this authentication page for clients. To pass the authentication, clients need to provide the correct password in the Password field, check the box of I accept the Term of Use and click the Login button.

RADIUS Server IP

Enter the IP address of RADIUS server.

Port

Enter the port of the RADIUS server.

RADIUS Password

Enter the password of the RADIUS server.

Authentication Timeout

Specify the value of authentication timeout.

A client’s authentication will expire after the authentication timeout and the client needs to log in to the authentication page again to access the network.

Options include 1 Hour, 8 Hours, 24 Hours, 7 Days, and Custom. With Custom selected, you can customize the time in days, hours, and minutes.

Redirect

With this function configured, the newly authenticated client will be redirected to the specific URL.

Redirect URL

With Redirect enabled, you also need to enter the URL in this field. The newly authenticated client will be redirected to this URL.

Portal Customization

Configure the authentication page. There are two options: Local Web Portal and External Web Portal.

Local Web Portal

Enter the title and term of use in the two boxes. The EAP uses its built-in web server to provide this authentication page for clients. To pass the authentication, clients need to provide the correct username and password in the Username and Password fields, check the box of I accept the Term of Use and click the Login button.

External Web Portal

With External Web Portal configured, the authentication page will be provided by the web portal server built on the network. To configure External Web Portal, you need to complete the following configurations:

1. Build an external web portal server on your network and make sure that it is reachable by the EAP.

2. On this configuration page, enter the URL of the authentication page provided by the external portal server.

3. Add the external web portal server to the Free Authentication Policy list. In this way, clients can access the web portal server before authenticated. For details about how to configure

Policy Name

Specify a name for the policy.

Source IP Range

Specify an IP range with the subnet and mask length. The clients in this IP range can access the network without authentication.

Leaving the field empty means that clients with any IP address can access the specific resources.

Destination IP Range

Specify an IP range with the subnet and mask length. The devices in this IP range can be accessed by the clients without authentication.

Leaving the field empty means that all devices in the LAN can be accessed by the specific clients.

Source MAC Address

Specify the MAC address of the client, who can access the specific resources without authentication.

Leaving the field empty means that clients with any MAC address can access the specific resources.

Destination Port

Specify the port number of the service. When using this service, the clients can access the specific resources without authentication.

Leaving the field empty means that clients can access the specific resources no matter what service they are using.

Status

Check the box to enable the policy.

Tips

When External Web Portal is configured in the portal configuration, you should set the IP address and subnet mask of the external web server as the Destination IP Range. As for Source IP Range, Source MAC Address and Destination Port, you can simply keep them as empty or configure them according to your actual needs.

Tips

You can add up to eight time range items for one profile. If there are several time range items in one profile, the time range of this profile is the sum of all of these time ranges.

Tips

If 802.11n only mode is selected in 2.4GHz (or 802.11n only, 802.11ac only, or 802.11 n/ac mixed mode selected in 5GHz), the WMM should be enabled. If WMM is disabled, the 802.11n only mode cannot be selected in 2.4GHz (or 802.11n only, 802.11ac only, or 802.11 n/ac mixed mode in 5GHz).

Queue

Displays the transmission queue. By default, the priority from high to low is Data 0, Data 1, Data 2, and Data 3. The priority may be changed if you reset the EDCA parameters.

Data 0 (Voice): Highest priority queue, minimum delay. Timesensitive data such as VoIP and streaming media are automatically sent to this queue.

Data 1 (Video): High priority queue, minimum delay. Time-sensitive video data is automatically sent to this queue.

Data 2 (Best Effort): Medium priority queue, medium throughput and delay. Most traditional IP data is sent to this queue.

Data 3 (Background): Lowest priority queue, high throughput. Bulk data that requires maximum throughput and is not time-sensitive is sent to this queue (FTP data, for example).

Arbitration Inter- Frame Space

A wait time for data frames. The wait time is measured in slots. Valid values are from 0 to 15.

Minimum Contention Window

A list to the algorithm that determines the initial random backoff wait time (window) for retry of a transmission.

This value cannot be higher than the value of Maximum Contention Window.

Maximum Contention Window

The upper limit (in milliseconds) for the doubling of the random backoff value. This doubling continues until either the data frame is sent or the Maximum Contention Window size is reached.

This value must be higher than the value of Minimum Contention Window.

Maximum Burst

Maximum Burst specifies the maximum burst length allowed for packet bursts on the wireless network. A packet burst is a collection of multiple frames transmitted without header information. The decreased overhead results in higher throughput and better performance.

Queue

Displays the transmission queue. By default, the priority from high to low is Data 0, Data 1, Data 2, and Data 3. The priority may be changed if you reset the EDCA parameters.

Data 0 (Voice): Highest priority queue, minimum delay. Timesensitive data such as VoIP and streaming media are automatically sent to this queue.

Data 1 (Video): High priority queue, minimum delay. Time-sensitive video data is automatically sent to this queue.

Data 2 (Best Effort): Medium priority queue, medium throughput and delay. Most traditional IP data is sent to this queue.

Data 3 (Background): Lowest priority queue, high throughput. Bulk data that requires maximum throughput and is not time-sensitive is sent to this queue (FTP data, for example).

Arbitration Inter- Frame Space

A wait time for data frames. The wait time is measured in slots. Valid values are from 0 to 15.

Minimum Contention Window

A list to the algorithm that determines the initial random backoff wait time (window) for retry of a transmission.

This value cannot be higher than the value of Maximum Contention Window.

Maximum Contention Window

The upper limit (in milliseconds) for the doubling of the random backoff value. This doubling continues until either the data frame is sent or the Maximum Contention Window size is reached.

This value must be higher than the value of Minimum Contention Window.

TXOP Limit

The TXOP Limit is a station EDCA parameter and only applies to traffic flowing from the client station to the EAP device.

The Transmission Opportunity (TXOP) is an interval of time, in milliseconds, when a WME (Wireless Multimedia Extensions) client station has the right to initiate transmissions onto the wireless medium (WM) towards the EAP device. The valid values are multiples of 32 between 0 and 8192.

No Acknowledgement

With this option enabled, the EAP would not acknowledge frames with QosNoAck. No Acknowledgement is recommended if VoIP phones access the network through the EAP device.

Unscheduled Automatic Power Save Delivery

As a power management method, it can greatly improve the energy-saving capacity of clients.

Tips

The Rogue AP Detection feature is only used for collecting information of the nearby wireless network and does not impact the detected APs, no matter what operations you have executed in this feature.

MAC

Displays the MAC address of the AP.

SSID

Displays the SSID of the AP.

Band

Displays the frequency band the AP is working on.

Channel

Displays the channel the AP is using.

Security

Displays whether the security mode is enabled on the AP.

Beacon Interval

Displays the Beacon Interval value of the EAP.

Beacon frames are sent periodically by the AP to announce to the stations the presence of a wireless network. Beacon Interval determines the time interval of the beacon frames sent by the AP device.

Signal

Displays the signal strength of the AP.