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Aruba IAP 635: How to use the 6GHz Band for Mesh?

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  • 1.  Aruba IAP 635: How to use the 6GHz Band for Mesh?

    Posted Aug 12, 2022 06:09 AM

    Hi,

    in default configuration the 6Ghz Band seems to be not used for anything.

    I guess it could be used for SSID with enabling "RF band 6Ghz" under advanced options --> 802.11

    But as there are not much end devices supporting this band, I would like to use this for the mesh network, so that mesh traffic and client traffic does not interfere each other.

    So does anyone knows, how to choose the 6Ghz for Mesh Traffic?

    Thanks and kind regards
    Robert





  • 2.  RE: Aruba IAP 635: How to use the 6GHz Band for Mesh?

    Posted Aug 18, 2022 08:53 AM
    If I'm correct, mesh is not yet supported on 6GHz on InstantOS/ArubaOS.

    ------------------------------
    Herman Robers
    ------------------------
    If you have urgent issues, always contact your Aruba partner, distributor, or Aruba TAC Support. Check https://www.arubanetworks.com/support-services/contact-support/ for how to contact Aruba TAC. Any opinions expressed here are solely my own and not necessarily that of Hewlett Packard Enterprise or Aruba Networks.

    In case your problem is solved, please invest the time to post a follow-up with the information on how you solved it. Others can benefit from that.
    ------------------------------



  • 3.  RE: Aruba IAP 635: How to use the 6GHz Band for Mesh?

    Posted Aug 19, 2022 04:27 AM

    Mesh doesn't support WPA3 - I did open an innovation request some longer time ago 

    Mesh - offer WPA3 encryption in addition to | Aruba Innovation Zone (arubanetworks.com)

    Maybe a good opportunity to get some additional votes for this.....




  • 4.  RE: Aruba IAP 635: How to use the 6GHz Band for Mesh?

    Posted Aug 19, 2022 04:55 AM

    @Jochem:

    You got my vote. Additionally I created a new idea (Aruba IAP Virtual Controller: Mesh on 6Ghz | Aruba Innovation Zone (arubanetworks.com)), which does only focus on Wifi6 and Mesh, independent of WPA3. But i added a link to your idea. Votes are welcome :-)

    Our WLAN clients do authenticate by WPA2-Enterprise / clearpass​ with client certificates




  • 5.  RE: Aruba IAP 635: How to use the 6GHz Band for Mesh?

    Posted Aug 19, 2022 05:06 AM

    6GHz band requires WPA3 - so I guess as soon as this will be support for MESH you can set it up utilizing 6GHz band (but just a guess) as the IAP-387 (the special p2p devices offering also 60GHz is designed for MESH)

    you go my vote as well ;) - just to be on the save side




  • 6.  RE: Aruba IAP 635: How to use the 6GHz Band for Mesh?

    Posted Aug 19, 2022 04:48 AM

    @Herman:

    Too bad :-(

    Then the 6Ghz Band will be unused for many years, as we do not own any device capable of Wifi 6e / 6 Ghz.

    Not really thinking it will help, as I did not seen any reaction from aruba to the ideas in the innovation zone..., but I created a innovation zone idea: Aruba IAP Virtual Controller: Mesh on 6Ghz | Aruba Innovation Zone (arubanetworks.com)





  • 7.  RE: Aruba IAP 635: How to use the 6GHz Band for Mesh?

    Posted Aug 19, 2022 10:06 AM

    Hi,

    I just received a mail regarding my innovation idea - I want to share here:

    Jerrod Howard commented
    19 Aug 13:57

    To Robert G below (or above me), we do support WPA3 mesh in 6Ghz today (we have to actually), so for your use case should you wish to reserve mesh for 6Ghz and provide dual-band Wi-Fi to clients, you could do that with (I think) 8.10 and the AP-635 (it might be 8.11 for most effectiveness). Mixing mesh and client access on 6Ghz would not be advised, both due to limit on BSSIDs but also the impact to mesh traffic.

    To the original OP, we do have enhacement requests in process to start offering WPA3 for mesh in all bands, but is going to take some time as we need to build it with support for transition mode in a few cases, which is what is taking longer to build. But we expect to have support for mesh in all bands using WPA3 long-term.




  • 8.  RE: Aruba IAP 635: How to use the 6GHz Band for Mesh?

    EMPLOYEE
    Posted Aug 19, 2022 01:26 PM
    That was my comment. A few extra bullets but will now try to figure out what I need to respond to where with all the extra threads :)

    1. Mesh will be suported in 6Ghz bands (8.11), I thought it was in 8.10 but I don't think it made it. 
    2. Mesh in 6Ghz *MUST* be WPA3, so mesh in 8.11 will support WPA3. 
    3. We are also looking at roadmap to add WPA3 mesh support to the 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz bands, but that will take longer to complete. I would work with your Aruba reps and/or partners to secure a roadmap update if you can provide the customer/deal/opp size, etc so we know the criticality. 

    I will get with the Mesh SW PLM to take ownership of the Innovation tickets


  • 9.  RE: Aruba IAP 635: How to use the 6GHz Band for Mesh?

    Posted 20 days ago

    reviving this thread. 

    Is there any update on 6Ghz mesh support on 635 with 8.11.xx firmware? I am on ArubaInstant_Norma_8.11.2.2_89329 and the mesh is still on 5GHz. Maybe I am missing a setting or something. 

    I even just kept one SSID active which is on 2.4/5/6 GHz but still the same. 




  • 10.  RE: Aruba IAP 635: How to use the 6GHz Band for Mesh?

    EMPLOYEE
    Posted 20 days ago

    it should be supported.



    ------------------------------
    If my post was useful accept solution and/or give kudos.
    Any opinions expressed here are solely my own and not necessarily that of HPE or Aruba.
    ------------------------------



  • 11.  RE: Aruba IAP 635: How to use the 6GHz Band for Mesh?

    Posted 20 days ago

    I see these options and I tried the following:

    Case 1: 

    • SSID only set to 2.4/5Ghz and on and off "Disable on 6Ghz mesh" but the mesh still goes over 5Ghz.

    Case 2:

    • SSID set to 2.4/5/6Ghz with "RF Band GHz" enabled and then on and off for "Disable on 6Ghz" but mesh is still 5Ghz.



  • 12.  RE: Aruba IAP 635: How to use the 6GHz Band for Mesh?

    Posted 20 days ago

    Hi,

    I am trying to do the same and I am on ArubaInstant_Norma_8.11.2.2_89329 and still the mesh ends up on 5ghz. I tried disabling the 6Ghz on the SSID but still not able to achieve it. 

    I was checking the commends on Aruba IAP Virtual Controller: Mesh on 6Ghz | Aruba Innovation Zone (arubanetworks.com) and wasn't sure how to do this - "To setup you would set up the mesh on 6Ghz radio profile".




  • 13.  RE: Aruba IAP 635: How to use the 6GHz Band for Mesh?

    EMPLOYEE
    Posted 19 days ago

    Unfortunately, and I apologize, but I no longer have any Aruba hardware in my home or lab that supports 6GHz, so I haven't been able to test. Not sure if mesh got pushed out to 8.12 but I would have to rely on others more technical (I've gotten dumber the longer I'm in PLM :))




  • 14.  RE: Aruba IAP 635: How to use the 6GHz Band for Mesh?

    Posted 19 days ago

    Thank you for your response. Do you recall by any chance any documentation or anything which could help me figure out "To setup you would set up the mesh on 6Ghz radio profile" comment of yours? Then I can play around with all the 8.xx versions..




  • 15.  RE: Aruba IAP 635: How to use the 6GHz Band for Mesh?

    EMPLOYEE
    Posted 19 days ago

    All I can suggest for AOS 8.x is the user guide, there are mesh profiles that get created where you define the mesh cluster ID and secret and there's an option to define the band to use in the MCR for mesh.




  • 16.  RE: Aruba IAP 635: How to use the 6GHz Band for Mesh?

    EMPLOYEE
    Posted 18 days ago

    To force the mesh to use the 6 GHz radio we need to apply mesh-band 6ghz in the configuration from CLI. I just confirmed this works on IAP 8.12.0.1 with 2x AP-635s.




  • 17.  RE: Aruba IAP 635: How to use the 6GHz Band for Mesh?

    Posted 18 days ago

    Thank you for confirming. Could you please share the commands which I need to execute via CLI ? 




  • 18.  RE: Aruba IAP 635: How to use the 6GHz Band for Mesh?

    EMPLOYEE
    Posted 18 days ago

    The CLI config needed to be applied is mesh-band 6ghz




  • 19.  RE: Aruba IAP 635: How to use the 6GHz Band for Mesh?

    Posted 18 days ago

    @schmelzle Thank you so much for helping me on this one. It worked. I tried on both 8.12.0.1_89864 SSR & 8.10.0.13_90226 LSR and it worked on both and I decided to stay on 8.10.xx version. 

    Here is what I did:

    1. I have 4 SSIDs and disabled 6Ghz on all of these and then set the authentication to WPA3. 
    2. Executed the below commands
    3. conf t
      mesh-band 6ghz
      end
      commit apply
    4. Reboot all the APs