3 C O M
®
C O N F I G U R I N G A W I R E L E S S D I S T R I B U T I O N S Y S T E M T E C H N I C A L B R I E F
3Com Corporation, Corporate Headquarters, 350 Campus Drive, Marlborough, MA 01752-3064
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Copyright © 2004 3Com Corporation. All rights reserved. 3Com, the 3Com logo, and OfficeConnect are registered trade-
marks of 3Com Corporation. Possible made practical is a trademark of 3Com Corporation. All other company and product
names may be trademarks of their respective companies. While every effort is made to ensure the information given is
accurate, 3Com does not accept liability for any errors or mistakes which may arise. Specifications and other information
in this document may be subject to change without notice.
Printed in the U.S. on recycled paper
104108-001 05/04
Security
Currently, the OfficeConnect Wireless
11a/b/g Access Point can support
secured WDS links in WEP mode. In
version 1.01, WEP keys must be the
same for both radios in the AP,
whether WEP or normal access, and
all APs in the system need to have
the same keys.
Spanning Tree Algorithm
As the OfficeConnect Wireless
11a/b/g Access Point doesn’t imple-
ment the Spanning Tree algorithm,
WDS links should be configured
appropriately to prevent loops in the
network.
Warnings
Pay special attention to avoid the
creation of network loops in the
network topology while configuring
WDS links. If a loop exists in the
network, data could be forwarded
and duplicated endlessly between
APs. This could crash networks.
Several abnormal loops likely created
in a WDS configuration are shown in
Figure 6.
Figure 6:
Loops in Wireless Networks with WDS links
