Wireless Access

Hello,

I have followed the directions in the "Site Survey with Standalone AP Cookbook" v3.4 to provision an AP-124 as an RAP in bridge mode, always up. 

The AP seems to be coming up ok on it's own, broadcasts its SSID... however, in order to associate to the AP (either in Airmagnet or just using WZC... even tried other devices) it either has to be connected to the controller, or had to once be connected to the controller.

In other words - I can boot the AP up with no controller - radio lights come on - and I can see the SSID in the air, but can't associate. If I physically connect it to the controller, I can then associate. I can then even un-associate, disconnect the AP from the controller, and then re-associate no problem. But after booting up,  I cannot associate with the AP unless it has at least once been physically connected to the controller.

Controller is a 3200 running 6.1.2.8. I realize this software is much newer than when this document was written... perhaps I should just downgrade and give it a go?

I have a little more information here. I decided to capture the successful AND unsuccessful association attempts using wi-fi analyzer. I have found something interesting.

First of all, in the beacons in BOTH examples, the AP is advertising short slot time capability. However, when looking at the unsucsessful association response from the AP, it says "cannot support all requested capabilities in the Capability information field." Then when you look at the capabilities, short slot time is set to '0'. When you look at the sucsessful association response, however, short slot time is set to '1'.

So obviously, the radio is behaving different when connected to a controller (and subsequently disconnected) vs. when it has never been connected to a controller. The question is WHY. It should behave the same - I thought that was the point of an RAP set to "always."

Screen shots attached - first is the successful association, second is the not-so-successful one.

Please try it with NO encryption to sidestep any 802.11 issues.

Well, I opened up a case with the TAC. While I don't believe they totally understood what my issue was - they did provide a solution. There was no VLAN configured in the VAP - once I set it to '1' and reprovisioned the AP, it started working as it should. Very happy now!