Wireless Access

Hello

 

We just recently setup our 3200XM controller on our network. We have multiple SSID's each assigned a Vlan, I have all the Apple TV's on one SSID, 31 of them.

 

So we can connect to the Apple TV's no problem from the other SSID's but the performance while watching say a youtube video when mirroring from an iPad is poor the video keeps skipping. But if your connected on the same SSID as the Apple TV there is no issue or latency.

#3200

Hi,

 

is the Apple TV VLAN is different from all SSID VLANs ?

 

is there any QoS options enabled on the SSIDs ?

 

what is the expected number of users connected to non-Apple TV SSID ?

 

is ARP to unicast enable for each VAP ?

 

is BC/MC per vlan interface/SSID enabled ?

 

is Drop Broadcast and Multicast optimization enabled in SSIDs ?

 

is there wired clients connected to same SSIDs VLAN ?

is the Apple TV VLAN is different from all SSID VLANs ? Yes

 

is there any QoS options enabled on the SSIDs ? No

 

what is the expected number of users connected to non-Apple TV SSID ? About a 100

 

is ARP to unicast enable for each VAP ? Yes

 

is BC/MC per vlan interface/SSID enabled ? BC/MC Rate Optimization?  No

 

is Drop Broadcast and Multicast optimization enabled in SSIDs ? No

 

is there wired clients connected to same SSIDs VLAN ? No

Do you have enable air time fairness?

do you ahve many g clients on the enviroment?

 

Try enabling all Abi is advising you!

 

How many SSIDs you got?

Try not having more than 3 as it impact the performance...

 

do you  have link aggregation between controller and the switch you plugging it?

 

If you dont maybe you are consuming more than the only giga you got in there and you getting a bottle neck.... and if you don thave QoS for streaming video it will be worse...

 

 

Also

Do you have this AP connected to a Gigabit port?

If you dont know you can always look at the AP, if the light of ehternet is AMBER it is connecting to 10/100...

Even if you know that your port is a gigabit ethernet port Check if that lights is not amber.... because if its is, then it syncronized to 100...

If so then you could have a bottle neck tehre...

Hi tattony,

 

Try enable (Drop Broadcast and Multicast) in VAP and enable (Broadcast-filter ARP) in Advanced-> Firewall tab. (this option should be enabled per controller)

 

I am afraid that if Apple TV is using Multicast, it would be dropped and quality became worst ! :S ... if that the case then undo the previous step and enable (Multicast automatic shaping) in Advanced->Firewall tab.

 

hope this would help.

Ok will do but I will have to wait until school lets out today I will keep you informed thanks for everyone's help.

Hello check if the AP is connected to a gigabit ethernet you can do it through the controlller

 

#show ap debug system-status ap-name Server_Room | begin Ethernet

 

Server_Room is the name of the AP just change it to the name of your AP

 

Check if its connected really at 1 gigabit speed

I do believe it is connected to a gigabit connection all lights are green we have 21 Access points and we have 6 SSID's

Yep if all lighs are green in all APS then they are connected to gigabit...

About the SSIDs aruba does not recommend having a bunch of SSIDs.... im attaching you a documentation about this so you can read it,  might not main issue but its countributing with the problem.

 

Check it out

Also are those Tvs connecting to 2.4ghz? or 5ghz? band?

Do you see if you got many timeouts? maybe they are connecting to the 2.4ghz...

Do you have Band steering on?

well it applies if you got a dual band AP like a 105 AP

I do have band steering on but we have a mixture of 93 and 105's. We started with the 93 AP's thinking of just doing an instant environment but we grew very quickly and were limited to 16 AP's on one network that's one of the reasons we went we a controller.

 

While I was writing this I thought I would check all SSID's and found that the  AppleTV SSID was the only one without band steering enabled.

Well check if they are connecting to the bando of 5ghz...

If you got too many users on the same band for example if you got a 105 with for example more than 25 users, then this will affect you...

For voice is recommended not more than 15 in one band... yours is video... so maybe it something around that...

Try the apple tv on the 5ghz band

This recommendation is per band... i mean you can have 25 users on one band and 25 more on 5ghz band....

 

You can check if the ap is overloaded on network access point, and check how many clients are attached to the APS look if the AP is not overloaded!

Just out of curiosity

Why do you have soo many SSIDs?

Do you need to give them different permitions to the internal network?

Beacuse if you do and you got Active directory and they are on Active directory the clients, then you can use derived roles and have one SSID and you can have the clients with differrent permitions depending on the AD group...

We have that many SSID's because of our iPad environment we needed multiple Subnets to accommodate all of our wireless clients. Also we wanted to put all the Apple TV's on one subnet. 

 

 

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@tattony wrote:

We have that many SSID's because of our iPad environment we needed multiple Subnets to accommodate all of our wireless clients. Also we wanted to put all the Apple TV's on one subnet. 

 

 

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if its just for subnet issue, you could have added multiple VLANS or VLAN pool for single SSID to accommudate all users.

Abi is right...

IF you dont need different permitions... then you can put vlan poolin... and do also named vlans

And for one SSID you can have like 4 vlans mapped to that single SSID.

 

 

In that enviroment maybe you can consider clear pass if you got no budget for that maybe just quickconnect(this is a new product)

 

Quick connect let you to autoconfigure the EAP PEAP  for example on this devices...

This mean that you can have those ipads with users of AD, and do derived roles....

You will not need to configure all the ipads manually as they willl autoconfigure themselft and its something you just need to do once... or at least the client... you dont need to touch anything on their ipads...

But then you will need to create all the users on AD or create another domain just for that with a separate AD....

 

You can ask for a demo license... and try it yourself...

 

Like i said its a new product

 

but i guess you can look on that on another time when you got no issues like you having now :)

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@tattony wrote:

We have that many SSID's because of our iPad environment we needed multiple Subnets to accommodate all of our wireless clients. Also we wanted to put all the Apple TV's on one subnet. 

 

 

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Tattony,

 

As an aside, Aruba has a verson of code that supports Airgroup.  Short summary Airgroup:

 

- Allows Bonjour (Apple) devices to see each other across subnets without needing Apple devices to be on the same layer2 subnet

- Allows you to Enable Broadcast Filter All to improve performance, but still forwards advertisements to and from devices.

 

If you have a login to the support site, we can point it out to you, depending on what controller platform you have right now.

 

 

Collin

Will that option will be on 6.2.x?

i mean like not having to installl a firmware  a speacial one to get that feature... just like with the vpn of the Instant to the controller.

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@cjoseph wrote:

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@tattony wrote:

We have that many SSID's because of our iPad environment we needed multiple Subnets to accommodate all of our wireless clients. Also we wanted to put all the Apple TV's on one subnet. 

 

 

---

Tattony,

 

As an aside, Aruba has a verson of code that supports Airgroup.  Short summary Airgroup:

 

- Allows Bonjour (Apple) devices to see each other across subnets without needing Apple devices to be on the same layer2 subnet

- Allows you to Enable Broadcast Filter All to improve performance, but still forwards advertisements to and from devices.

 

If you have a login to the support site, we can point it out to you, depending on what controller platform you have right now.

 

 

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This is the version we are using 6.1.3.4-AirGroup on controller 3200XM and yes I do have a login.

tattony,

 

have you tried this testing (using iPad with SSID other Apple-TV) while there is almost no one in the whole network (e.g after school hours) ? If yes, does the problem persist ?

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@Abi wrote:

tattony,

 

have you tried this testing (using iPad with SSID other Apple-TV) while there is almost no one in the whole network (e.g after school hours) ? If yes, does the problem persist ?

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Yes and yes.

mmmm doyou have too much interference on 2.4ghz band?

you can check it with

#show ap active ip-addr <ap ip address>

check:

 

•Channel Frame Retry Rate % is below 30%. If higher then too much interference.

•Channel Noise Floor is above 80. If Noise Floor is lower then too much non-802.11 interference

 

Check that for 2.4ghz band

As you mention you didnt have band steering on, maybe there is too much interference on the 2.4ghz and those equipment are connecting to that band.

 

If you got the 6.1.x firmware you can see this information on the dashboard i think

Channel Frame Retry Rate % is below 30%. If higher then too much interference. The highest one is 21%

 

 

•Channel Noise Floor is above 80. If Noise Floor is lower then too much non-802.11 interference -86

 

This is off topic but is there a way to name the AP's so I know where they are located you were able to do this in the instant environment?

Is this an instant enviroment?

you can do that on the controller and also on the instant...

Tell me which one you got  to help you

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@NightShade1 wrote:

Is this an instant enviroment?

you can do that on the controller and also on the instant...

Tell me which one you got  to help you

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No its not an instant environment.

Okay to name the APS on a controller enviroment

Go to configuration

Go to ap installation

Look on the AP you want to rename(guess you will just see mac addresses) that will be your issue...

Click the ap you want and click provision.

But you then provision it, with the correct name, if you see at the end of the provisining page you will see the name of the AP that you can change...

If you change it the AP will reboot... so if they are using it now you cannot do that.....

 

 

Is the controller doing the routing for the other SSID ? if not how routing between those SSIDs\VLANS is achived ?

 

 

Through our Cyberoam firewall.

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@Abi wrote:

Is the controller doing the routing for the other SSID ? if not how routing between those SSIDs\VLANS is achived ?

 

 

---

 

This might be it,   :S

 

it might take time for video packets to go from Apple Tv to controller to firewall then go though ACL (if any) then back to controller then client.

 

try use the controller as default gateway (Vlan routing) and check if problem still exist, or enable inter-vlan routing.

 

use trace route to check the packet path from client to Apple TV

Well if its on their network i mean they are not remote locations i dont htink thats the issue... unless like i said before the links between the Wireleess controller and the Switch has a bottle neck... or any part of the network, between a trunk of a switch that the packet need to pass...

 

If thats the issue, he can deploy the AP on campus bridge mode so the packets dont need pass through the controller  like with tunnel mode.  Or he can fix his bottle necks with Link Aggregations....

 

Cheers

Carlos

If you are already running the air group code, you should enable the "Drop Broadcasts and multicast" option on all your virtual APS to improve performance.

Carlos,

There is a plan to merge that functionality, but I am not sure of the timetable. It will certainly be announced.

Thank you for the information Collin!

When I go to enable "Drop broadcast and multicast" i get a warning saying Broadcast-filter arp should be enabled with this option. Otherwise ARP requests will be dropped.

 

Should I enabled that in the firewall?

yes, and it is per controller not a global config

Right I will enable it in the Statful-firewall on the controller.

Any update after dropping BC/MC ?

 

Ok I just tried it. It does seem a little bit better but streaming video from youtube still skips. The sound is fine its just the video where you notice the skipping.

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@tattony wrote:

When I go to enable "Drop broadcast and multicast" i get a warning saying Broadcast-filter arp should be enabled with this option. Otherwise ARP requests will be dropped.

 

Should I enabled that in the firewall?

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You need to enable "Broadcast Filter ARP" right across from it in the Virtual AP profile.

 

You also need to enable "Drop Broadcast and Multicast" in every other Virtual AP that you have....

 

Collin he has also like 6 SSIds and i remenber you saying that more than 4 or 3 will start dergrading the performance...

 

How about is just for testing he take out 2 of the SSIds? or 3 of them?

 

And also put in that role a rule of QoS that prioritize  video traffic?

 

I think that could help?

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@cjoseph wrote:

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@tattony wrote:

When I go to enable "Drop broadcast and multicast" i get a warning saying Broadcast-filter arp should be enabled with this option. Otherwise ARP requests will be dropped.

 

Should I enabled that in the firewall?

---

You need to enable "Broadcast Filter ARP" right across from it in the Virtual AP profile.

 

You also need to enable "Drop Broadcast and Multicast" in every other Virtual AP that you have....

 

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Ok not sure where you mean right accross I see convert Broadcast arp requests to unicast is checked

Great!  That was it.

Ok cool.

Did that improve the performance?

It appears to be the same sound is good but still get video jitter.

Well can you try putting one of those APs on an AP group which just has one SSID? just to see if the 6 SSID is impacting the throughput.  As far i have read before more than 3 ssid will start impacting the throughput... because of hte managment overhead.  In my deployments i have done... i never put more than 3... and most of them i mean like the 70% of my deployments got just 1 or 2... i manage the permition with the derived roles for different type of users...

Its a test it wont take you too much

Just do that and be sure that device is connected to THAT AP that just got that SSID

 

If noone is using the wireless network right now you can always delete the other ssids from the vap and then add them again...

can you please try using controller to route between those VLANs, inter-vlan routing is by default enabled, unless you disable it. however, you need to provide IP address (from the vlan subnet) to the controller's Vlan interfaces to be enable to route between them.

 

after configuring the ip address try connect the laptop to one vlan and make a traceroute to one of the Apple TVs to see if you will reach just by passing the controller or if you are going through FW gateway.

 

 

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@Abi wrote:

can you please try using controller to route between those VLANs, inter-vlan routing is by default enabled, unless you disable it. however, you need to provide IP address (from the vlan subnet) to the controller's Vlan interfaces to be enable to route between them.

 

This is already setup and I do have the IP address provided from the vlan to the controller.

 

 

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did it work?

Ran tracert and it looks like it going through the FW gateway.

Imean you still have the problem with the apple tv?

If you still do try what i told you

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@NightShade1 wrote:

Imean you still have the problem with the apple TV?

If you still do try what I told you

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Ok will do I will have to wait till 3pm PST to test it though and I will let you know.

 

I want to thank everyone for all their help its very much appreciated.

Thank you

just for testing, in DHCP use Controller IP for that vlan subnet as default-gateway.

Roger that :)

Any update of this?

Sorry ran into other issues here at the school I didnt have a chance to test will try again today.

Hi I never had a chance to do this but it appears that all is well so I'm not going to change anything at the moment.

 

One thing that I still have an issue with is load balancing. I have it enabled and still one AP will have 31 clients  and the other AP only 15ft away will have zero. Both AP's are 93'S I have spectrum load balance set to channel.