What scenario do we use Tunnel Forwarding or Direct Forwarding in WLAN

Hello,

The following is the comparison of tunnel forwarding, direct forwarding, and soft GRE forwarding.

I hope this helps.

Hi User,

Packets transmitted on a WLAN include management packets (control packets) and data packets (service packets). Management packets are forwarded through Control And Provisioning of Wireless Access Points (CAPWAP) control tunnels. Data packets can be forwarded in tunnel, direct, or soft Generic Routing Encapsulation (GRE) mode, depending on whether they are forwarded through CAPWAP data tunnels. Tunnel mode is also called centralized mode, and direct mode is also called local mode.

In actual networking, the direct and tunnel forwarding modes are widely used. This document describes the differences between the two modes (for other forwarding modes, see Related Information) and provides instructions for changing the data forwarding mode from direct to tunnel based on configuration requirements.

Description of Tunnel Forwarding and Direct Forwarding

In tunnel forwarding mode, APs encapsulate user data packets over a CAPWAP data tunnel and send them to an AC. The AC then forwards these packets to an upper-layer network, as shown in Figure 1-1.

Figure 1-1 Tunnel forwarding

In direct forwarding mode, APs forward user data packets to an upper-layer network without encapsulating them over a CAPWAP data tunnel, as shown in Figure 1-2.

Figure 1-2 Direct forwarding

The tunnel or direct forwarding mode can be selected based on networking requirements. Table 1-1 compares the two forwarding modes.

Table 1-1 Comparing tunnel and direct forwarding modes

Changing the Forwarding Mode from Direct to Tunnel

The following describes how to change the forwarding mode from direct to tunnel to adapt to user requirement changes.

The configurations for the two forwarding modes are provided in this section, allowing you to change the forwarding mode as required.

For more information regading forward tunnelining pleae visit below link. hope this answer helps you.