Work smarter not harder, previously i was having to enable flex connect on each lightweight access point individually. Not so hard if there’s only a handful of WAPs. However you can make easy work of it by using the following command via the CLI. This wil convert all existing and any future access points to be in flex connect mode.
config ap autoconvert flexconnect enable
Recently I was required to convert Cisco 1142 access points from Autonomous IOS to Lightweight IOS with the addition of a Cisco 5508 Wireless LAN Controller. It was actually surprisingly easy once I got my head around it all.
It did take a bit of initial prep work to identify what was AP's were located where, and on what IP addresses. For the sake of clarity, I also setup DHCP reservations for the AP's so they would keep the same IP addresses via a DHCP reservation on the server. If I did have to troubleshoot issues with a particular AP after light weighting the IOS I then loose the hostname and any other details related with the old autonomous config. So I setup a spreadsheet with AP name, IP address & MAC address of each of the WAPs. In this case I had 16 which took probably around 15 minutes to get all this info using telnet with the CDP neighbours command.
Once I had all my Autonomous details, I then proceeded to create DHCP reservations on the server.
Then it was a case of configuring the Wireless LAN controller and plugging into the existing network along side the autonomous waps. The reason for setting this up along side the currently autonomously configured WAPs is, when the lightweight IOS is downloaded the controller will automatically identify the lightweight WAPs as having the correct IOS and then the controller will manage them centrally.
Once the controller is configured. A TFTP server will be required for the download of the lightweight IOS, set this up on a workstation on the network. TFTPD is my TFTP server of choice (Just be sure to disable DHCP server within TFTPD if you already have an existing DHCP server on your network!!) the lightweight IOS that I am using with the Cisco 1142 Access points is c1140-rcvk9w8-tar.124-21a.JA2
The lightweight image filename will always contain an rcv within the name.
Start by connecting to each autonomous WAP via telnet. Execute the following command. From the enable mode.
Archive Download-sw /overwrite /reload tftp://10.1.1.20/c1140-rcvk9w8-tar.124-21a.JA2.tar
Once executed, you should see something similar to the screenshot below. The command will delete the existing autonomous IOS and replace it with the LWAP IOS.
Once the process has finished copying the ios from your TFTP server, the WAP should reboot and the lightweight IOS will load. Then your WLC should pick up the fact that there is a new lightweight AP on the network and manage it.
From there you will then be able to identify the newly IOS'd lightweight WAPs from the list of devices via the MAC address that we recorded prior to changing the IOS.
Hope this helps!
Enable Multicast on Cisco 1142 Autonomous WAP's. log into the CLI and issue the following command
en
conf t
no ip igmp snooping
To enable the controller to send commands to the access point from its CLI, enter this command
debug ap enable your_access_point_name
To cause a specific access point to flash its LEDs for a specified number of seconds, enter this command:
debug ap command "led flash seconds" your_access_point_name
You can enter a value between 1 and 3600 seconds for the seconds parameter.
To disable LED flashing for a specific access point, enter this command:
debug ap command "led flash disable" your_access_point_name
Required:
Browse to your Autonomous IOS and rename the IOS from c1140-k9w7-mx.124-21a.JY to c1140-k9w7-tar.default for an 1142 WAP.
Set your Workstation IP address to 10.0.0.2 subnet 255.0.0.0 it is fine to leave the default gateway blank. start up your TFTP server, i use TFTPD available here. Set your "Current Directory" to the directory that your autonomous ios is stored in.
Plug a network cable from your computer either directly into the WAP or into the power injector switch port. *Note if you are not using a power injector you will require a 48VDC power cable to power the access point.
If you are using a power injector you will require an additional network cable to plug in from the injector to the WAP.
Once you plug the access point into power, the status light should start flashing. press and hold the mode button on the back until the status light turns red.
Once the status light turns red you can release the mode button and the access point should begin pulling across the IOS from your TFTP server.
If you have issues use a console cable to view the CLI to see for any errors. The access point will reboot once the IOS is copied across.
Recently I purchased a pair of ubiquiti nanobridge m5's to setup a point to point wireless bridge.
The setup was simple and the webGUI was well setup to be as simple or as advanced as you like. The distance was roughly 200m, which I know the buying the m5's was a little overkill but you never know. Anyway here is the result:
Root bridge
Remote bridge
