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Airgroup + Barco Clickshare - base units disappear after some time

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  • 1.  Airgroup + Barco Clickshare - base units disappear after some time

    Posted Aug 07, 2018 04:27 PM

    Been banging my head against this for a little while, figured I'd take a shot here before the bruise gets too bad...

     

    Network Details:

    -IAP-315 cluster running 6.5.4.8

    -Airgroup enabled (airplay + custom service mirrorop2s added)

    -Broadcast filter disabled

    -

    -CPPM 6.7.3 (registration enforced)

    -Aruba 2930M Switching running 16.04

    -Wireless client VLAN is 25

    -Clickshare base unit VLAN is 26 (VLAN is trunked to APs).

    -Currently firewall rules between the 2 VLANs is completely open. Firewalls are PA.

     

    Clickshare base units are in network integrated mode. This means the internal APs are turned off, and all services work over the ethernet port. The buttons use EAP-PEAP with an AD service account to connect to the secure WiFi and then find their base unit. This all works great.

     

    The base unit also has options to enable services over the wired port. Airplay as well as sharing via the Clickshare mobile app (which uses mirrorop2s) are enabled.

     

    I'll stick to Airplay for simplicity's sake. When I enable Airplay on the base units, Airgroup picks them up, they register to CPPM, the location sharing works great (done by Office floor), devices can Airplay and everything is happy.

     

    After I go away for the weekend, or even after a day, I'll come back to check the IAP cluster and Airgroup shows *nothing*. It's completely blank. I can get the devies to re-register into Airgroup using one of the following methods:

     

    -toggling support for Airplay on the base units Off and then On.

    -restarting/power cycling a base unit.

    -connecting my Mac laptop (wired) into the same VLAN as the base units - Mac sends mDNS discovery, the replies are all picked up by the APs and we're good again.

     

    The way I understand Airgroup to work is that it's pretty passive in the whole process; it basically just relays the multicast discover/advertisement messages between the VLANs, like a Bonjour gateway (ie. Avahi) would. So what's happening that the services would disappear? All power management features are turned off on the base units.

     

    I'm not familiar enough with mDNS records aging, and how they are renewed. Should these devices not advertise their services again once mDNS cache record times out? I've packet captured the wireless client side and I see the mDNS service discovery messages when the client connects, but I don't see replies coming back from the AP. None of the documentation I've scoured mentions any specific role settings to allow this type of traffic. It all looks pretty straightforward.

     

    Any suggestions? Happy to provide more info if needed.

     

    Tim

     

     



  • 2.  RE: Airgroup + Barco Clickshare - base units disappear after some time

    EMPLOYEE
    Posted Aug 07, 2018 05:36 PM

    Are there any other devices on VLAN 26, or just the Clickshare base stations?

     

    It sounds like the basestations do not continue to advertise their service(s) when they do not see mDNS queries, and since the client devices are on VLAN 25 and Airgroup handles their requests, the cache entry eventually times out and is purged from the VC.



  • 3.  RE: Airgroup + Barco Clickshare - base units disappear after some time

    Posted Aug 07, 2018 06:08 PM

    Hey Charlie! Thanks for the reply (@wifitimmah here)

     

    That's exactly what I'm thinking. Seems odd to me though that they wouldn't re-advertise their services after the cache times out. Before this issue I was completely new to Airgroup, so I've brought myself up to speed as part of the troubleshooting process.

     

    There are other devices in the same VLAN; TVs, microphones...it's basically an A/V VLAN for a new office. The TVs also support some services (I think DIAL), so I think I'll try enabling those and see if they are more persistent. Could be an issue with the Barco base stations over the wired port.



  • 4.  RE: Airgroup + Barco Clickshare - base units disappear after some time

    EMPLOYEE
    Posted Aug 08, 2018 10:37 AM

    As many times as I've run into the Clickshare setup, it's always used it's own wireless rather than having the base wired. I would definitely check if other A/V devices on the network are capable of supporting mDNS or DLNA discovery, and whether they behave different.

     

    Or, you could temporarily move the wired VLAN to the same VLAN as the wireless users, and packet capture to see if the base station continues to advertise itself when it sees the dongles sending queries for the service ... whether AirGroup handles those responses or not.



  • 5.  RE: Airgroup + Barco Clickshare - base units disappear after some time

    Posted Aug 15, 2018 03:37 PM

    So it's been some time.

     

    Barco has stopped responding to my support requests, and the base units do not renew their mDNS records after they expire. The other devices (DIAL enabled) on that VLAN all continue to stay visible permanently. Looks like if I want to make this work as well as maintain the VLAN segregation I'd need to use something like Avahi to actually reflect the multicast service queries into the base unit VLAN. This is not what I was hoping for, but sometimes that's the way she goes.

     

    Thanks for the responses Charlie.

     

    -Tim



  • 6.  RE: Airgroup + Barco Clickshare - base units disappear after some time

    EMPLOYEE
    Posted Aug 15, 2018 05:02 PM
    @timdaemon wrote:

    So it's been some time.

     

    Barco has stopped responding to my support requests, and the base units do not renew their mDNS records after they expire. The other devices (DIAL enabled) on that VLAN all continue to stay visible permanently. Looks like if I want to make this work as well as maintain the VLAN segregation I'd need to use something like Avahi to actually reflect the multicast service queries into the base unit VLAN. This is not what I was hoping for, but sometimes that's the way she goes.

     

    Thanks for the responses Charlie.

     

    -Tim

    Thanks for the follow-up on this, Tim. At least we confirmed the root cause, which could help find other options or work arounds for that problem.