User's Manual

Table Of Contents
Fortress ES-Series CLI Guide: Networking and Radio Configuration
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these are Radio 2. In a four-radio ES2440, Radio 2, Radio 3
and Radio 4 are all in this category.
In Fortress Mesh Points equipped with any number of radios,
the standard-equipment Radio 1 is a dual-band 802.11a/g (or
802.11a/g/n) radio. Radio 1’s 802.11g capability typically
indicates its use to provide wireless access to devices within
range.
You can configure the Mesh Point's network interfaces to meet
various deployment and security requirements. Ethernet port
configuration is covered in Section 3.9. Creating and
configuring radio interfaces are described in Section 3.3 and
Section 3.4.
3.2 Network Bridging
Each Mesh Point can maintain simultaneous network links with
up to 100 other Mesh Points, so that up to 101 directly linked
Fortress Mesh Points can be present on a given network. Many
more Mesh Points can belong to a more widely deployed mesh
network encompassing nodes linked indirectly through other
nodes.
Networked radios must:
use the same radio frequency band (Section 3.4)
be set to the same channel (Section 3.4)
The BSSs that comprise the network must:
be enabled for bridging (Section 3.4.9)
be configured with the same SSID (Section 3.4.9)
By default, the Mesh Point can manage bridging links and route
network traffic using Fortress’s FastPath Mesh (FP Mesh)
tactical mobile networking. Alternatively, Spanning Tree
Protocol (STP) can be used for mesh link management.
However, STP is being deprecated in this release and will no
longer be a configurable option in subsequent releases.
Fortress strongly recommends using FP Mesh.
Both protocols enable the deployment of self-forming, self-
healing secure networks, and both prevent bridging loops while
providing path redundancy.
STP prevents network loops by selectively shutting down some
mesh network links.
FastPath Mesh maintains the availability of every mesh
connection and additionally provides optimal path routing of
network traffic, along with independent IPv6 mesh addressing
and DNS (Domain Name System) distribution functions to
support the FP Mesh network and user controls to configure
and tune it.