Wireless Access

Hello all.

On my network I have some AP530s which are working quite well. Now I need to expand the network, and the AP530s are no longer available, so I have bought some MSM410s instead. My initial experience with those is that they are not really happy as autonomous APs, so I am considering buying an MSM765zl module for controlling the MSM410s.
Connecting the internet port and the LAN port/VLAN on the 765 looks okay, and the 765 will work as a DHCP server for the users on the MSM410s. But what about the AP530s? I already have a firewall with DHCP server supporting these APs in a VLAN.

Can/should I connect the internet port of the 765 module to this VLAN and make a new VLAN for the MSM410s?

Best regards,
Jens

You don't need to use the DHCP capabilities of the 765. The MSM concept is distributed. So user traffic will not flow through the controller. So in fact you can keep your current setup. Only guest traffic will be terminated via a tunnel from the AP to the controller.

In the controller you need to setup the AP configuration ideally for two different vlan's. One for management and one for production. So the same SSID and vlan you have setup for the 530's.

BTW remember that the MSM410 is a single radio and the 530 a dual radio. So if you want to use both 2.4Ghz (b/g) and 5Ghz (a/n) then I would recommend using the MSM422. Ofcourse if you need to support both bands you can use twice the MSM410 as well.

Hmm ... So I should leave the internet port disabled and setup two VLANs on the LAN port - my admin VLAN and the user VLAN. The user VLAN also goes to the DHCP server/gateway and both VLANs go to each AP?

Will the APs be able to discover the controller automatically in this scenario, or must they be pre-something?
The controller must also have a manual IP address in this scenario, right?

What I'd like is to take a brand new AP and just mount it and then it is configured from the controller - at the same time as keeping the old APs for as long as they last.

Or to put it in another way - the MSM410s should behave exactly like the AP530s, but just get their config from the 765zl.
I am using WPA2 with pre-shared key for security.

I've been reading tha manual some more, and it looks like I should disable access control and authentication on the 765zl controller and set the LAN port to my admin VLAN and the user VLAN and then use WPA2 with pre-shared key.
Then the wireless users with a correct key are allowed, and they get their IP address from the existing DHCP server.

Sietze Reitsma, I suppose that's what you meant? It was the guest access that threw me. I don't need that.

Thanks

APs will be discovered by the controller automatically. You can also provision the AP's before you deploy them. Provisioned AP's can be very easy to deploy in remote locations.

If you mix old APs and new controlled AP's in the same environment you need to check if the RF coverage will not cause problems, unless you use a completely different band. So if the 530 run on 2.4Ghz and you install the MSM410 on the 5Ghz band (802.11a/n) then it would not be a problem. Only managing both at the same time can be time consuming

Thanks, interference will not be a problem as the APs are very far apart or running with the 1-7-13 channel spacing. It works nicely.
I'm thinking I'll simply change to MSM410s as the AP530s die.