User's Manual

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Multiple FM units can be connected together through a network switch to form clusters of radios
if needed. The Fluidmesh proprietary routing proto-col will be run automatically on the cabled
segment of the network. Please note that the units must be operated in Mesh Point mode only to
activate the cluster feature.
5.2.2 Connecting and Configuring an Ethernet Edge-Device
The FM unit Ethernet ports can be used to connect all kinds of Ethernet edge devices (e.g. IP
Cameras, Video-Servers, Wi-Fi Access Points, etc.). Any Ethernet device can be configured either
manually or automatically through a DHCP server residing on the LAN network. The Fluidmesh
network is totally transparent so DHCP requests and responses are forwarded transparently across the
network.
A manual IP setting is recommended in any video-surveillance system where the cameras need to
have a fixed custom IP address to be accessed by the video-recording software.
5.2.3 VLAN Tagging (Software Plug-In Required)
Virtual LAN (VLAN) tagging (or IEEE 802.1q) is a networking standard allowing multiple switched
networks to transparently share the same physical hardware without the leakage of information
between networks. For example, consider a company with several departments. With VLAN tagging,
a separate private logical network is made available for each department while using only one
physical corporate network. Each VLAN is identified by a specific number called VLAN ID (VID)
which is also used for tagging packets belonging to the same VLAN. Because VLANs are based on
logical instead of physical connections, several types of VLANs exist based on the criteria adopted to
logically separate networks. The traditional VLAN scheme is port-based where each physical
Ethernet port is configured specifying membership in a VLAN. However, if there are requirements
that individuals or devices must be segregated regardless of their physical location, the MAC-based
VLANs can be used. In this case, the network is configured with an access list mapping individual
MAC addresses to VLAN membership. Other, less common, types of VLANs exist like the protocol
based VLANs, where the protocol type is used to separate networks. VLAN tagging is usually
supported by network switches with advanced capabilities. The wireless networks can be viewed as a
large distributed switch with VLAN support. Two different types of VLAN tagging mechanisms are
supported: port-based and mac-based VLANs. Fig 5.3 reports a network configuration example where
two VLANs are set up, i.e. using VID #2 and VID #3. Each VLAN uses a separate IP address class
and the devices belonging to the VLANs must be configured accordingly.
The Fluidmesh VLAN implementation is compatible with the specification of the IEEE 802.1q
standard and, thus, the Fluidmesh network can interoperate with other VLAN-aware network devices.
VLAN trunking between the Fluidmesh network and the Ethernet switches is also supported to enable
carrying VLAN membership information throughout the wireless and wired network segments.
The VLAN tagging can be enabled and configured through the Web interface as described in Section
7.11.1.
5.2.4 Multicast Streaming
To enable multicast video-streams from IP cameras or video-encoders, no multicast group setting
is required. Every multicast packet will be forwarded by the Mesh Point unit towards the closest
Mesh End unit. Please refer to Section 7.15 for additional details.