Meru Networks AP110 Deployment Manual page 18

Gateway Nodes
A gateway node is an AP that uses a wired backhaul connection to the controller and can
support wireless backhaul connections from other nodes
Gateway nodes use beacons to advertise their backhaul capability over the air.
Mesh and Leaf Nodes
A mesh node is an AP that uses a wireless backhaul connection to the controller and can
support wireless backhaul connections from other nodes.
A leaf node is an AP that uses a wireless backhaul to connect to the controller but does not
support wireless backhaul from any other nodes.
The AP110 and AP1014i have built-in mesh capability but can be configured only as leaf APs
in the mesh cloud. This means that the APs have to be added to a mesh profile to enable the
mesh services. (Enabling mesh services on wireless interfaces allows an AP to do backhaul.)
Mesh and leaf nodes use beacons to advertise their backhaul capability over the air.
Mesh and leaf nodes provide only tunneled access. Bridged mode is currently not supported in
a mesh environment. Mesh and leaf nodes cannot be part of ESS profiles configured for
bridged mode.
Mesh and leaf APs automatically discover the best uplink node to connect to. The RSSI of the
parent node is used as the primary gauge. If the RSSI values of multiple parent nodes are
similar; the number of hops is used as the tiebreaker.
A mesh node monitors the uplink connection. In case of a link failure, if there is another parent
node available, the mesh node automatically switches to the new parent node without losing
connectivity to the controller and the stations associated to it.
The unused Ethernet port on a mesh node (mesh/leaf) can be used in a manner similar to an
Ethernet switch port. Users can plug their devices into this port and gain access to the
network.
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