Legacy Open Mesh: Why does the Access Point have multiple MAC addresses?

Question

Why does the access point have multiple MAC addresses?

Environment

  • Datto access points

Answer

Each AP potentially has multiple interfaces, radios and ethernet ports active and available to use, therefore your AP(s) will have many different MAC addresses found on your LAN or broadcasting wirelessly.

CloudTrax only requires entering of the MAC on the bottom label for tracking purposes, but this address is actually only assigned to the primary ethernet port (eth0).

The OM-series has two ethernet ports (eth0 and eth1) -- the primary port is the one that's furthest away from the power adapter port. The MR-series has just one ethernet port.

For example, on an OM-series dual-band AP with 4 SSIDs active, the bottom label might show a MAC of AC:86:74:44:94:60 but if you're using the secondary ethernet port (eth1) your LAN will see it assigned a lease for AC:86:74:44:94:61.

Below is what this example AP's MAC addresses would look like:

Ethernet

  • eth0 (primary) AC:86:74:44:94:60
  • eth1 (secondary) AC:86:74:44:94:61

2.4GHz

  • SSID1 AC:86:74:44:94:62
  • SSID2 AC:86:74:44:94:63
  • SSID3 AC:86:74:44:94:64
  • SSID4 AC:86:74:44:94:65

5GHz

  • SSID1 AC:86:74:44:94:70
  • SSID2 AC:86:74:44:94:71
  • SSID3 AC:86:74:44:94:72
  • SSID4 AC:86:74:44:94:73

Note: If the AP's bottom label MAC ended with :D0 (instead of :60), the 5Gz SSIDs would be :E0-E4 (instead of :70-73). If you're using the MR-series with just a single ethernet port, the 2.4GHz SSID1 would be :61 instead of :62 since there's only one port.