I have a Zonedirector 1000 and 7363 access points that I want to mesh together.

I plug the zonedirector into my switch and one of the access poitns into this switch. I then turn the access points on in various points in the building, should they mesh together automatically?

in the ZD under > Configure > Access Points > expand one of the APs and at the bottom in the advanced options do you have ‘Mesh Mode’ and four radio buttons?

You need to first connect the AP to be connected via Mesh to the Zone Director via Wire and allow it to join, upgrade (if necessary), provision (configure) and connect as a Root AP. This will program the AP with the Mesh values needed to find a Root and then the Zone Director. Once the AP has been configured and connected as a Root, then you can disconnect the Ethernet and it should recognize that the Zone Director is no longer reachable via its Ethernet interface and it will then bring up its Mesh uplink interface and look for a root. If a Mesh AP is reset to factory defaults, or the Mesh configuration is changed on the Zone Director or Access Point then you will need to re-provision the AP as a Root again by connecting it to the wired Zone Director network. It will take a few minutes after disconnecting the Ethernet from the AP to determine that the Zone Director is not available. You can speed up the transition by power cycling or rebooting (not factory resetting) the AP.

@dom
I have these options >
Auto (Mesh role is automatically assigned) <— this is selected
Root AP (Only runs as a root AP)
Mesh AP (Only runs as a mesh AP)
Disable

Uplink Selection Smart (Mesh APs will automatically select the best uplink) <—— this is selected
Manual (Only selected APs can be used for uplink)

@ajpmiami

Ok I have access points working via mesh, they are set to Auto (rather than root mode or auto mode) 1 of the 3 access points is diconnected, do they disconnect if they’re not needed? Or is there a fault somewhere. This particular access point is within a 10metre range from the the zonedirector and other access points.

It is best to leave the Mesh Mode in auto, so that a mesh AP can become a Root AP if needed without reconfiguration. Ruckus support often suggest configuring Root AP’s as Root only to prevent temporary loops if a Root AP has connectivity problems on the wired network (this should not happen, but is dependent on the customers infrastructure). It is also good to leave the Uplink Selection to Smart, so that the Mesh AP selects the best Root AP/ path to the network, and can find a redundant connection if this one fails. It is suggested for use specifc Uplink selected AP’s when a fixed Mesh topology is required, forcing a particular Mesh to a particular Root AP. This is good if there are many Root AP’s available to many Mesh AP’s and you want to balance the Mesh AP’s across different Root AP’s.

Mesh AP’s should always connect to a Root AP, or other Mesh AP as long as the signal is strong enough. They do not turn off due to traffic requirements but should always be available. If a Mesh AP is not connecting, first make sure it is set to Auto mode, and has not Uplink Selection limits. You can check the near Root AP to see if the Mesh AP appears in the Neighbor list (click on the MAC IP of the Root AP in Monitor::Access Points to get details). When in doubt reconnect it to the Zone Director network to re-provision it as Root to make sure the Mesh Parameters are correct.

Please note, AP’s can only Mesh to other AP’s with the same type of Radio. 802.11g only AP’s, 2942 and 2741 can Mesh, 802.11bn only AP’s 7942 and 7343 can mesh. Dual Radio AP’s, 7962, 7762, 7363 always use the 5GHz radio to Mesh and only these models can mesh together. When checking neighbor list make sure that if you are using Dual Radio AP’s that the Root AP can see the Mesh AP on the 5GHz radio and not just the 2.4GHz radio.

The minimal power for a reasonable Mesh connection is RSSI of 20dB (less may work but the speed will be low and the link could be intermittent). For a reliable link it is better to have some margin, so I would try to design for RSSI of 30dB signal strength between Mesh and Root AP’s.