DECO Wireless Woes

😒

I picked up a set of TP-Link DECO Wireless access points last year – but ever since, I’ve been having some wireless woes. I talked a bit about them in my home network post. They seemed to be working pretty great – but I just found out I had my network configured all wrong this whole time!

How it Was

When I initially set up my new access points, I thought it was really straightforward. I plugged the main unit into my office switch, and the satellite units in the living room and master bedroom. Each of those plugged into their own switch, and all three were on one VLAN – seemed logical at the time. Things worked, but I often found that the DECO network would fall-back to wireless backhaul, which totally defeated the purpose of networking them together over the wired network. (Backhaul is how the units talk to each other.)

The Epiphany

Fast forward a year – I don’t even know what started me down the rabbit-hole, but I found this forum post which talks about using the DECO over Cisco switches. Specifically, AndRam talks about how you need the main DECO wired into two of its ports in a couple of their replies – and that’s when I realized, I had configured things wrong!

How it is now

I needed to create a new VLAN to carry just the backhaul chatter between the DECO units. So I logged into my office switch first, created the VLAN, named it, and set up the trunk to the garage switch to allow it to pass. I then chose a port and configured it to access that VLAN, and plugged it into a second port on the main unit. Afterward, I logged into both of the Netgear switches that the satellite units connect into and switched their ports to use that same VLAN. While there I also added the new VLAN to each of their respective trunk ports as well. Finally, I got into my garage switch, added the VLAN there and set up the trunks to allow it.

A short reboot later and everything went green! Here’s hoping my DECO wireless woes are finally over – that annoying orange blinking on the switchport, and the incessant failover to wireless backhaul days should be over!