Peplink Balance 380 - Multiple site/VLANs

Product Discussion Peplink Balance
1

We have recently entered into the world of Peplink with the purchase of a Balance 380 and 6 APs to be installed across multiple sites.

Overall my goal is to have two VLANs at each site all using the same SSIDs. One VLAN for a private SSID and one VLAN for a public SSID. Here is an example:

SSID: ABC-PUBLIC at Building One will use VLAN 100 and Building Two will use VLAN 200
SSID: ABC-PRIVATE at Building One will be VLAN 101 and Building Two will use VLAN 201

I see that if I change anything on the APs the Balance changes the configuration on the AP back to the way it was prior to my changes. Where in the configuration of the Balance would I set it up the multiple VLAN for the same SSIDs or is there something I need to look into on the AP? Thanks!

2

If the Balance 380 is used to manage the 6 APs, the configuration changes should be done at the Balance 380. The Balance 380 will push the configuration to the 6 APs.

You are not allowed to have the same SSID with 2 different VLAN (i.e. ABC-PUBLIC with VLAN 100 and VLAN 200). Any particular reason for this?

3

Our goal is to ADD that ABC-PUBLIC SSID so the public and business partners can access the Internet. Right now we have a single SSID broadcast at each of our locations using APs that were each (manually) configured broadcasting ABC-PRIVATE and our internal users can just move from one site to another and connect to the same named SSID without a problem. Each of our buildings have its own IP addressing scheme and its Cisco router have sub-interfaces configured on them for the networks associated to that site.

So does that mean I’m going to have to route the VLANs across all of my locations that I want to replace or install new wireless at to get that second SSID advertised?

4

You can achieve your goal with the following:
APs Not Managed by Balance 380 WLC

  • Manually create SSID: ABC-PUBLIC & ABC-PRIVATE
  • ABC-PUBLIC at Building One will use VLAN 100 and Building Two will use VLAN 200
  • ABC-PRIVATE at Building One will be VLAN 101 and Building Two will use VLAN 201

APs Managed by Balance 380 WLC
As the same SSID cannot be assigned with different VLANs, there are 2 options:
Option 1

  • Create different SSIDs for Building One and Building Two.
  • Under WLC Wireless Networks setting, for Building One create SSID: ABC1-PUBLIC & ABC1-PRIVATE
  • Under WLC Wireless Networks setting, for Building Two create SSID: ABC2-PUBLIC & ABC2-PRIVATE
  • ABC1-PUBLIC at Building One will use VLAN 100 and ABC2-PUBLIC at Building Two will use VLAN 200
  • ABC1-PRIVATE at Building One will be VLAN 101 and ABC12-PRIVATE Building Two will use VLAN 201
  • Create 2 different AP Profiles. One for Building One and another one for Building Two.
  • In Building One AP Profile, select ABC1-PUBLIC and ABC1-PRIVATE in the profile and assign to Building One APs.
  • In Building Two AP Profile, select ABC2-PUBLIC and ABC2-PRIVATE in the profile and assign to Building Two APs.

Option 2

  • Under WLC Wireless Networks setting, create SSID: ABC-PUBLIC & ABC-PRIVATE
  • ABC-PUBLIC will use VLAN 100 and ABC-PRIVATE will use VLAN 101.
  • Create one AP Profile, select ABC-PUBLIC and ABC-PRIVATE in the profile and assign to all APs.
  • As Building Two is having different Layer 3 domain (separated by another Router), you may assign the same VLAN (VLAN 100 and VLAN 101 instead of using VLAN 200 and VLAN 201) for the wireless clients. (Just VLAN configuration changes at the Router)