Hi Colin - there was no vlan. This little branch was connected to a 4-port, $6 switch from Amazon. I gave all devices 10.x.x.x addresses in the same range just to test.
After about 6 hours messing around with this thing I moved it onto our production network to see if traffic had any effect on it. As expected, nothing.
However on this procudtion network, the specific branch I'm on has a VLAN ID. So I added a new matching VLAN on the Aruba using the following CLI statements which I found on Google, and assigned it to port 0:
(host) (config) #vlan <id>
(host) (config) #interface gigabitethernet 0/0/0
(host) (config-if) #switchport access vlan <id>
I am on port 0 of the Aruba, so the 0/0/0 is accurate.
I displayed the VLANS to ensure the new one was there, and indeed it is and on the port I need it on, but still no communication. Can't ping in or out from Aruba, and the connected computer obviously cannot ping out to anything either.
I just don't get what the complication is with this device. I don't want to scrap this, but I can't spend 20 hours trying to ping something. Everything logical has been covered to the best of my knowledge (which is a bit sparse in this area).
Thanks in advance for any other thoughts!
-Dave