Controllerless Networks

Is there a way to see, in either the GUI or the CLI, which AP a particular meshed AP is getting it's signal from?

The corrollary, of course, is, if we can determine which AP the signal is coming from, is there a way to specify a different AP as the master portal, if the automatically chosen AP is non-optimal?

We have a remote meshed AP (134) that has its antenna pointed back in the direction of a wired 134 that has its antenna pointed at the remote AP (a basic building-to-building setup).  However, in proximity of the wired 134 are also two 135s that we believe the remote 134 is attaching to from time to time, causing service degradation for the folks relying on the remote 134.  

We overcame this today by rebooting one of the 135s that is in question - and the remote AP stabilized nicely.  But it would be nice to know if we're right, or if there was a better way to tell the remote AP to favor one wired AP over another.

Thanks in advance.

-Kevin

Try this command in the cli:

show ap mesh neighbors

more info that might assist you:

http://community.arubanetworks.com/t5/Outdoor-WLAN-and-Mesh/Poor-RSSI-and-throughput-between-2-IAP-175-mesh/td-p/78116

Thanks for your quick reply.  The command provides the MAC address of the parent AP, which is great - except that we have renamed all our APs in the GUI, and there appears to be no way to get at the MAC addresses of the individual APs once they've been renamed?  

I was able to use AirWave to find the referenced MAC address, and did confirm that the remote AP is connecting to an AP that is further away - and inside a building - and with an antenna facing the other way - than the one we intend for it to connect to.  Is there any way to control where a remote AP in a mesh gets its signal from, or are we truly at the whims of the algorithm?  The location of this remote AP is particularly tough, because trucks move through from time to time, disrupting the "main" signal we'd like to use.  I'm sure the AP is just doing its job, and moving to the next-best signal it can find, but we'd prefer that it then move back to the stronger signal.  Is there a way to tune the AP itself to be more likely to "hop" to a different parent when it sees one that's stronger?

The results also raise the much more basic question of how the Aruba Instant APs measure RSSI.  Is lower or higher better?  I got an RSSI of 34 on the link we're questioning, and 17 on another Mesh link at another location.

The discussion you referenced is much more in-depth than I'm prepared to go right now, but I did grab the PDF and am considering doing IPERF tests on these links just to see how we're doing.

Thanks again.

-Kevin