Shulou(Shulou.com)06/01 Report--

CISCO Mobility Express（ME）

ME mode wireless network is a good choice for small and medium-sized enterprises.

For ME wireless solutions, it consists of at least one 802.11ac Wave 2 Cisco Aironet Series AP with a built-in software-based Wireless Controller (WLC) to manage other APs in the network. It is important to note that to deploy ME wireless networks, there is no wireless controller of any kind other than Cisco Mobility Express controllers.

① Concept of AP in ME wireless network:

-Master AP: An AP that acts as a WLC is called a Master AP; in addition to acting as a WLC, the Master AP also acts as an AP, serving subordinate APs.

Subordinate AP: Other APs in the Cisco Mobility Express network managed by this master AP are called subordinate APs.

The following AP models are the APs currently supporting ME wireless networks:

Master APs

Subordinate APs

Cisco Aironet 1560 Series

Cisco Aironet 1815i

Cisco Aironet 1815w

Cisco Aironet 1830 Series

Cisco Aironet 1850 Series

Cisco Aironet 2800 Series

Cisco Aironet 3800 Series

Cisco Aironet 700i Series

Cisco Aironet 700w Series

Cisco Aironet 1600 Series

Cisco Aironet 1700 Series

Cisco Aironet 1810W Series

Cisco Aironet 2600 Series

Cisco Aironet 2700 Series

Cisco Aironet 3500 Series

Cisco Aironet 3600 Series

Cisco Aironet 3700 Series

Among them, Master AP can also be used as Subordinate AP, Master AP can be converted to LAP, LAP can also be converted to Master AP, and the conversion method will be introduced later.

Primary APs in Cisco Mobility Express networks vary in the maximum number of APs and clients supported:

② AP corresponding to product model, default image carried after delivery

Equipment as Master AP:

-ME Mirrors: AP carrying this type of mirror by default, PID ending with "C", e.g. AIR-AP3802I-F-K9C

-CAPWAP mirror: also known as LAP mirror, you can use CAPWAP protocol to join WLC, general device PID does not end with "C"

Converting from CAPWAP Lightweight AP to Cisco Mobility Express Software.

Equipment that acts only as a Subordinate AP:

-CAPWAP Mirrors: These APs can only be added as LAP as WLC, no ME functionality

③ Other considerations for deploying ME wireless networks:

- The first AP created should be an ME capable AP, so that it becomes the Master AP and ensures that it is the Master AP that issues the Cisco AirProvision SSID.

-ME provides an internal DHCP Server, and an external DHCP Server can also be used.

- Initialize installation by wirelessly connecting to the SSID "Cisco AirProvision," default IP is 192.168.1.1, password is "password." You can use the CLI Initial Configuration Wizard.

- Browser support recommendations:

Microsoft Windows

Internet Explorer 10 and later

Mozilla Firefox 33 and later

Google Chrome 38 and later

Apple Mac OS

Safari 7 and later

Mozilla Firefox 33 and later

Google Chrome 38 and later

- Configure switch interfaces to connect to APs. All APs, including Master APs, must be guaranteed to be in the same L2 broadcast domain, and management traffic must be untagged. The switch port to which the Master AP is connected can be a Trunk port or an Access port, and the Trunk Native VLAN must be configured for management traffic. Data traffic must also be trunked using the appropriate VLAN for local switching.

Configure the Master AP connection SW interface example as follows:

Interface GigabitEthernet1/0/37

description » Connected to Master AP «

switchport trunk native vlan 122

switchport trunk allowed vlan 10,20,122

switchport mode trunk

- With Cisco Network Plug and Play (PnP) solutions, you can automatically configure primary APs from a remote Cisco Application Policy Infrastructure Controller Enterprise Module (APIC-EM) server. PnP is activated only at initial setup on day 0 of Cisco Mobility Express network deployment. If there are multiple APs supporting Cisco Mobility Express on Day 0 in a Cisco Mobility Express network, a primary AP is elected between them via VRRP. The selected master AP then receives its provisioning parameters from the APIC-EM server via PnP in one of the following ways:

Via Cisco cloud redirect to APIC-EM

Via DHCP option 43

Via DNS discovery

In addition, if there are multiple primary APs, the following rules are used for election order:

a. User-defined

Minimum client load

c. Lowest MAC address

2. Confirm AP mirror image

Confirm by showing version:

Type ①

AP Image Type:MOBILITY EXPRESS IMAGE

AP Configuration:MOBILITY EXPRESS CAPABLE

This means that this is the mirror image of ME, in which case AP can act as either WLC or LAP.

Type ②

AP Image Type:MOBILITY EXPRESS IMAGE

AP Configuration:NOT MOBILITY EXPRESS CAPABLE

This means that AP has ME mirror, but it is running in LAP mode. This AP cannot be used as ME controller, and cannot participate in the election of Master AP. It can be used as Subordinate AP.

Type ③

The AP Image Type and AP Configurationfields are not present in the output

Description is a mirror image of CAPWAP.

3, LAP to ME mode conversion

Prerequisites:

① Mirror file

②TFTP Server（tftpd32）

Ensure that no other controllers exist on the network.

Command: ap-type mobility-express tftp:///

You can also use mirror files of.ZIP.

4, ME mode AP converted to LAP

① Connect to AP via console, Telnet, or SSH

② Log in ME AP console

③ Enter apciscoshell in ME AP console to enter AP Console

④ Default login user password: Cisco, Cisco, case-sensitive, if the previous ME AP modified the user name password, the modified user and password should be used.

5 Enter enable mode

Input ap-type capwap

If you want to convert multiple APs running Mobility Express mirroring from Mobility Express controller to CAPWAP mode simultaneously, execute the following command:

(Cisco Controller) > config ap unifiedmode

Note: Parameters and are the name and IP address of the WLC to which the AP needs to migrate, respectively.

The above command converts all APs to AP configuration: NOT MOBILITY EXPRESS CAPABLE. AP reloads and then resumes in native mode.

In addition, enter LAP Mirror by swiping Mirror directly with the following command:

archive download-sw /reload tftp:// tftp server /ap1g4-k9w8-tar.153-3.JC.tar

Note:

a. After the device is converted to ME image, AP will boot into LAP mode after restarting. After a few minutes, AP will automatically load into WLC system. After that, every time AP is restarted, it is the same process.

b. AP-TYPE CAPWAP executed on the command line during LAP load into WLC mode will give an error indicating that it takes time to initialize CAPWAP.

c. Do not use archive download-sw for mirror conversion during LAP entry into WLC, it will be broken by the process entering WLC.

For more information:

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/wireless/access_point/mob_exp/86/user_guide/b_ME_User_Guide_86/ctrlr_cli.html

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