Mikrotik CAPsMAN Setup Tutorial

Summary

In this tutorial, ARNA Techs provides a step-by-step guide to setting up CAPsMAN by MikroTik, a centralized wireless network management system. The video is designed to simplify the setup process, especially for beginners, by focusing on the graphical user interface and avoiding complex configurations like certificates. Throughout the tutorial, viewers learn how to enable and configure CAPsMAN, create necessary channels and data paths, and set up security configurations. The tutorial concludes by showing how to manage access points and ensure the system is working correctly, aiming to make the setup as simple and clean as possible.

Highlights

• CAPsMAN allows centralized management of multiple MikroTik access points, reducing time and complexity. 🌐
• The tutorial guides through setting up CAPsMAN without dealing with certificate complexities. 🎓
• Creating channels for wireless networks involves manual frequency typing in MikroTik settings. 📡
• Provisioning rules can automatically configure all access points, streamlining network management. 🛠️
• A simple step-by-step setup is provided, making it easy for beginners to grasp CAPsMAN configuration. 📖

Key Takeaways

• CAPsMAN simplifies wireless network management by centralizing control of MikroTik access points. 😎
• Setting up CAPsMAN is straightforward with just a few configurations to follow, making it accessible for beginners. 👶
• Security configuration is crucial, allowing you to set passwords and authentication types for your network. 🛡️
• Provisioning rules in CAPsMAN automate configuration rollouts to access points, saving time and effort. 🔧
• The video tutorial focuses on simplicity, bypassing unnecessary complexities like certificates for easy setup. 🚀

Overview

This tutorial by ARNA Techs expertly guides users through setting up MikroTik's CAPsMAN, a centralized system for managing wireless networks. By centralizing the management of access points, network administrators can save time and reduce complexity especially when managing multiple devices. The tutorial aims to simplify this process by focusing on using the graphical user interface and avoiding the more intricate details often found in other guides.

Throughout the video, viewers are shown how to enable key functionalities within CAPsMAN, such as creating channels, data paths, and configuring security settings. An emphasis is placed on providing a setup that is as straightforward as possible, making it ideal for those new to network management. By using dynamic provisioning rules, the configuration process for individual access points is automated, allowing for a seamless rollout across the network.

The overall goal of the tutorial is to demystify the CAPsMAN setup process, making it accessible to beginners and experts alike. By stripping away unnecessary components like certificates, the video allows users to focus on successfully setting up and operating their network with the essential configurations. The clean and concise presentation makes adopting CAPsMAN an achievable task without hassle.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 01:00: Introduction to CAPsMAN The chapter provides an introduction to CAPsMAN, a controlled access point system manager developed by MikroTik. The tutorial is aimed at explaining the functionalities of CAPsMAN. CAPsMAN allows users to centralize the management of their wireless networks.
• 01:00 - 02:00: Understanding CAPsMAN Functionality This chapter explains the benefits of using MikroTik's CAPsMAN (Controlled Access Point Manager) functionality for network management. It highlights the efficiency and convenience gained by managing multiple access points from a single, central location. The setup is described as straightforward, requiring only a few basic configuration steps to start running. The chapter is based on research from various videos and documents, emphasizing the ease and effectiveness of CAPsMAN.
• 02:00 - 03:00: Setting Up CAPsMAN Manager This chapter provides a simplified, step-by-step guide for setting up a CAPsMAN Manager using the graphical user interface. It is intended to be beginner-friendly, avoiding complexity often found in other resources. The author will demonstrate the setup process with two MikroTik devices, where the device on the left will serve as the controller and the one on the right as the access point.
• 03:00 - 04:00: Configuring Channels and Data Paths The chapter titled 'Configuring Channels and Data Paths' focuses on managing and controlling wireless interfaces using capsman. It introduces readers to the concept of controlling the wireless interface through capsman and guides them on connecting to the capsman manager. The first step in the process is to access capsman and enable the manager, setting the stage for further configurations.
• 04:00 - 05:00: Security Configuration The chapter focuses on configuring security settings for a system, specifically without using certificates for simplicity. It highlights the functionality of capsman (centralized access point manager), stating that it operates effectively without the need for certificates. The transcript progresses to setting up channels in the 2 GHz spectrum, emphasizing the existence of only three non-overlapping channels in that range.
• 05:00 - 06:00: Provisioning Access Points The chapter discusses the process of provisioning access points without the use of a wizard, specifically with microtic devices. It involves manually entering frequencies and other settings. The narrator mentions using a 20 MHz setting and copying the configuration.
• 06:00 - 07:00: Enabling Wireless Interface In this chapter titled 'Enabling Wireless Interface', the process of defining data paths is discussed. Data paths specify the bridge where the connection should be. The speaker mentions using a singular bridge, the Orlan bridge, and hints that access points will be explained later.
• 07:00 - 08:00: Connecting Access Points The chapter 'Connecting Access Points' discusses the process and options available when connecting clients to a network bridge. It highlights two important features: local forwarding and client-to-client forwarding. Client-to-client forwarding is particularly useful for guest networks where privacy is a concern, allowing administrators to prevent guests from seeing each other on the network. Local forwarding is related to network management. The chapter likely provides insights and guidelines on how to effectively manage these connections and settings.
• 08:00 - 09:00: Final Steps and Monitoring The chapter titled 'Final Steps and Monitoring' discusses the process of accessing a point through the CapsMan manager, ensuring traffic is routed locally without utilizing the MikroTik CapsMan tunnel. The focus then shifts to the security configuration, detailing how to set a password and specify the authentication type.
• 09:00 - 11:00: Conclusion and Subscription Reminder The chapter concludes by explaining the final steps in setting up access points, highlighting a basic configuration overview. It mentions moving on to a configuration screen where all settings can be summarized, serving as a wrap-up to previous instructions. The chapter ties together the overall configuration process and potentially signals the conclusion of the guide or instructions provided in previous sections. The author seems to be wrapping up by ensuring that all necessary configurations are covered and summarized.

Mikrotik CAPsMAN Setup Tutorial Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 [Music] hello there and Welcome to our second winf flare video tutorial in this tutorial I am explaining the capsman functionality by microti well so what is capsman capsman is basically a controlled access point system manager made by microti which allows you to centralize your wireless network management with which um basically
• 00:30 - 01:00 spares you a lot of time when you have a uh many access points to manage so you have basically one central place where you manage all your uh microti access points inside your network and it's really easy to set up it basically needs only few basic uh options to be set for it to be running so when I was researching about caps mana on several video and and written docum M ments um
• 01:00 - 01:30 but in my opinion they were a little bit too complicated especially for beginners so I wanted to simplify it by showing you a stepbystep configuration through the graphical user interface which should be really easy to follow so in this tutorial I have my two micro ticks on the left side will be my controller and on the right side will be my access point um if the microti you are using as a a
• 01:30 - 02:00 controller has a wireless interface by its own you can control that wireless interface uh through capsman as well which is really neat and really nice all right so let's let's begin by connecting to our capsman manager uh and see what we have there so the first step is to go to capsman and enable the manager
• 02:00 - 02:30 functionality and I won't play with certificates for this tutorial I really want to keep it simple and the capsman functionality Works without certificates just fine so what I like to do next is to create the channels and in the 2 gz Spectrum we really only have three channels which are not overlapping so let's create the channels
• 02:30 - 03:00 microtic does not have a wizard in place so we have to type the frequencies and the other options manually and I will use the 20 mahz um to PGN um and that's about it so let's copy this
• 03:00 - 03:30 now I have my three channels defined let's go to the next step which is data paths and data path is basically it says where you want your uh connection to be on which bridge and I only have one and that's Orlan bridge and you will see later that the access points are
• 03:30 - 04:00 dynamically added to that bridge when you have clients connected to it and here are two interesting options as well it's called local forwarding and client to client forwarding client to client forwarding is especially useful when you have a guest Network and don't want to don't want your guests to see each other you want to disable this option right uh and local forwarding is uh basically uh the management of the
• 04:00 - 04:30 access point is made through the capsman manager but the traffic is rooted uh uh locally without using microx capsman tunnel all right uh so there is my first data path and now let's go to the security configuration uh where I can specify my password and the authentification type for
• 04:30 - 05:00 for uh for our access points to be rolled out so this is just the basic configuration and now let's go to the configuration screen where I can summarize all those settings
• 05:00 - 05:30 right um here I have three channels to choose from now uh my data path my security configuration the other options are not needed since they are automatically provided by our configuration files for each section and that's about it for the configuration now let's go to provisioning and provisioning is really
• 05:30 - 06:00 uh cool feature which allows us to automatically roll out the configuration to our access points uh you could create an Dynamic provisioning rule for your each of your access points by specifying the access points radio Mac inside uh this uh text Place uh or you can just create one rule which suits all which I will do for this
• 06:00 - 06:30 demonstration um so my master configuration is this and I do not have any slaves uh you could create for example a slave configuration for your guest Network and uh under name format you can choose uh the formatting of your access points which will be created dynamically so I will just choose create prefix and specify a prefix for my for my access points
• 06:30 - 07:00 so now I have my provisioning rule I have my configuration done I have specified my channels I specified a data path uh I have a security configuration the capsman manager is turned on so basically we have created uh or set every option needed for the manager to work now this microtic has a wireless interface on its own so let's enable capsman manager on our wireless
• 07:00 - 07:30 interface uh we need to click on the cap Tab and enable it and select the interface for wean if you have two or more Wireless interfaces you can add multiple I have only one on this microtic so I will choose the whe one and the Discover interface will be ethernet 2 which is the master port for my local network all all right and click apply
• 07:30 - 08:00 and in a several seconds the cap should be appear here under cap interfaces and there it is now this uh wireless interface is being controlled automatically by the the capsman manager so the remote cap is here and I can basically do several cool things here I can change the identity of my wireless access point I can upgrade create it automatically from here without the need
• 08:00 - 08:30 to connect to each access point individually and I can provision it if I don't have a dynamically enabled provisioning Rule now let's see what we need to do on an actual access point uh therefore I will connect on the right side to my H light uh which will suit as an access point for this demonstration and
• 08:30 - 09:00 the configuration is really simple uh the uh the capsman manager speaks to the access points through layer two so I really do not need to have an IP address on the access point or anything else but I will just uh for the demonstrations uh get myself an IP address from the hcp on the internet port three so my internet cable is connected to the ethernet port three on
• 09:00 - 09:30 the on the H light and now let's go to wireless to cap and enable the manager select the interface select the discovery interface and I really do not need to specify the capsman address uh because the the the access points Speaks Over layer to with the manager so click on apply and in several seconds second access point should appear here and here
• 09:30 - 10:00 it is right now I have two access points which are controlled by by the capsman uh Wireless manager and I am basically done I have two access points connected and under the registration table I can see my clients I can see uh how they behave what's their signal um um on which
• 10:00 - 10:30 access point they are connected to and take action if needed so I really hope this tutorial wasn't too hard to follow and I hope it explained properly the capsman functionality the capsman basic functionality we could go uh a little bit more into detail but for this tutorial I really wanted to keep it
• 10:30 - 11:00 simple and clean and get the capsman up and running with uh a minimum needed configuration all right if you like this tutorial please cons consider subscribing to our Channel it will really help us out thanks and bye-bye