WGB and U-WGB

~ Cisco AIR-AG1242AP access point: ~ 1) what's the difference between Workgroup Bridge and Universal Workgroup Bridge?

Standard "Aironet" Workgroup Bridge mode is a purely Cisco proprietary extension to 802.11 and only interoperates with Cisco APs. It permits for a WGB to have a large number of wired clients behind it.

Universal WGB is essentially a "MAC cloning" scheme, where the WGB will present its wired client's MAC as the radio MAC to the AP to which it associates. It only supports a single wired client, and (hopefully) should work with non-Cisco APs.

~ 2) is Universal Workgroup Bridge the same thing as the 'Wireless Distribution System' ~ (WDS)?

Nope, they have nothing to do with each other.

WDS is a scheme on the infrastructure side whereby an AP can act as a common authenticator (in the 802.1X sense) / key manager for a set of up to 60 infrastructure APs. The use of WDS in the infrastructure should be transparent to clients.

~ 3) trying to configure the above 1242AP as a wireless bridge to connect to an O2wireless ~ box router - the O2 help files refer to a 'Wireless Distribution System' being allowed to ~ connect but nothing about a wireless bridge. I need to clarify what a wireless ~ distribution system really is and whether it's compatible with WGB and U-WGB ~ Thanks for any pointers.

I suggest that you state with considerable detail exactly what you are trying to accomplish. Stuff like:

- what infrastructure you have (what make / model / software version of APs)

- what encryption/authentication/key management scheme you are or want to be using

- what kind of wired clients you intend to support behind your WGB etc.

Hth,

Aaron

Aaron thankyou for your really good information, I now understand things a little clearer. Now I understand why the only AP I've been able to bridge to is my other Cisco AP. But finally - thanks to your advice - I've managed to bridge my Cisco AP to a non-cisco AP using Universal Workgroup Bridge. A breakthrough at last. Many thanks again.

~ Aaron thankyou for your really good information, I now understand things a little clearer. ~ Now I understand why the only AP I've been able to bridge to is my other Cisco AP. But ~ finally - thanks to your advice - I've managed to bridge my Cisco AP to a non-cisco AP ~ using Universal Workgroup Bridge. A breakthrough at last. Many thanks again

Glad I could help. However, I need to post a correction to some misleading information in my previous post:

~ ~ 2) is Universal Workgroup Bridge the same thing as the 'Wireless Distribution System' ~ ~ (WDS)? ~ ~ Nope, they have nothing to do with each other. ~ ~ WDS is a scheme on the infrastructure side whereby an AP can act as a common authenticator ~ (in the 802.1X sense) / key manager for a set of up to 60 infrastructure APs. The use of ~ WDS in the infrastructure should be transparent to clients.

Unfortunately, the "WDS" acronym has two meanings. My posting quoted above was intended to refer to the (Cisco proprietary) Wireless DOMAIN Services (which we describe in

This has nothing to do with the Wireless DISTRIBUTION service "WDS" which term is used by other WLAN industry players. I.e. a scheme by which infrastucture side connectivity for the APs is provided wirelessly

Cheers,

Aaron