Aruba Apps

I've had this app up on the Android store for quite a while but kept it rather quiet.  Following some prompting from Ken, there's now an iOS version as well.

It's a tool for installers to record relevant details and send them off to the network administrator where they can be used to confirm where each AP (by MAC or SN) was installed.  To help with this, there's a barcode reader function for capturing MAC and SN and a photo function for showing relevant shots of the installation.  The exact install location is shown by cross-hairs on a floorplan image, which can be imported from a photo album or email attachment.  A little GPS work tags it with latitude-longitude and a street address which is quite accurate in my experience but can be over-written.  Records are emailed at the end of a session in the form of images and a csv file for spreadsheets.

For those working with Aruba networks equipment and AirWave, some new features allow near-painless updating... the floorplan can be downloaded from AirWave and the install location marked, then - optionally - when the record is saved, the app will update AirWave directly with the x,y coordinates of the AP.

So far the apps seem to be behaving, but I don't have a large pool of Beta testers.  I have noticed that the barcode scanner on iOS is not performing well, but not sure why.

If you are interested in a tool like this, please give it a try and pass on your ideas to improve it?

Peter

Peter, 

Awesome App!! I am shocked there are no comments. This will save a ton of time during AP-Provisioing. I plan to use the resulting .CSV, massage it and import it into the CPSEC whitelist on the controller. This will allow us to populate all the AP information in the controller including Name and  AP-Group before the AP's are physically deployed. 

Couple comments.

- I dont see an easy way to clear the .CSV files created. I am using the Android version. I need to go into the App Manager and Clear the data which will delete all of it. Not a huge problem but might lead to confusion is dealing with several files. 

- Saving AP placement to AirWave works but has a couple issues. If I save the AP then change any data about the AP in the App.. say correct a type or add more information, it will save an additional AP in Airwave in the same location. In addition, it does not bring over the name of the AP into AirWave, that data still needs entered manually. For these reasons I will not use this function. 

The auto detection of the bar code for proper field placement is terrific. 

Thanks for developing this outstanding App. This will save my customers 100's of hours. 

Hello Airhead, it's always good to hear from someone who finds these apps useful.  

- Saving/deleting files.  You should not need to go into app manager, but it is a bit complicated.  I'm trying to avoid a situation where you accidentally drop the app into the background and lose hours of data.  So it starts a new file with a timestamp in the name when the app starts, or you use "clear data" in "settings". It then saves work in progress in the current file (I think every time you save a new AP).  My idea is that at the end of the install session you email the file (and you may want to do it earlier in case you run into email-attachment-size limits).  Once it's in your email system, it shouldn't matter if the device is off-line, the data will still be attached to the email.  I am in two minds as to whether to automatically delete data after it's been emailed, but I don't do that for now.  At the end of the installation session, go to "settings" and "clear data" and it will save the file to flash on the phone and start a new one next time you add a new AP.   If you email at multiple times through a session, you will get duplicate/overlapping information on the emails but I figured that was better than losing data.

Old files are cleaned up by deleting when they are 30 days old at the time the app starts.  But you can delete them manually if you wish... use the "manage files" button.  You may need to do this if you are taking lots of photos and hitting memory limits (which should be pretty large on most modern devices).

- Saving to AirWave... I can see why the situation you describe is a problem.  My issue is that there are two different types of http POST, depending on whether this is a new or existing AP in AirWave.  If the latter, it should just update the location... if the former, add some more info.  And I think it only downloads the list of existing APs when you pull the floorplan.  So getting the floorplan again _should_ get a new list of existing APs:  if you do that after adding a new one and before modifying it, I _think_ it should be clean.  But there are better ways to do it, like getting a fresh AP list every time an AP is saved.  I'll look into it.  

I don't think there is a way to add the name of a new AP into AirWave:  I'm using an existing API here and that's what it provides.  I'll ask around in AirWave-land next week and see if we can do anything with the AP name.

Best wishes,

Peter

Hi Peter,

I've done some testing on android and here is some feedback:

-The app closes all the time, when I for example load a floorplan and tick on the floorplan the app closes.

-The scanning of a mac/sn works very well.

Any possible reason for the app closing?

Hello Dennis,

It sounds like it's hitting a bug and crashing.  Is it offering you the option of sending a crash report (sometimes pw-rbutton + vol-up triggers it)?  I've looked on my Google dashboard and that shows isolated crashes on August 13, September 9 and September 21, would one of those be yours?

If none of these work, I will have to figure out what's going wrong some other way.  Do you get the same problem when working with AirWave floorplans and photo images (* pick image from album *)?

I do have a few changes and bugfixes coded, so I'll update the App Store with a new version soon, but I'm not confident any of those will fix a problem with ticking the location on the floorplan image.

Best wishes,

Peter

Hello again Dennis,

I looked over the code where you touch the floorplan to locate the AP.  It all looks reasonable to me, but that doesn't mean there isn't a bug lurking.

So I rolled up all the changes since v7, and published v9 a few minutes ago.  Please give it a try, and if it still crashes then I will look at the code again.

Thanks,

Peter

Hi Peter,

Thanks for your quick update!The app is not offering to send a crash report when it crashes nor with the power+volume up key combination. The new version makes no difference.

I haven't tried loading the map form Airwave, only an image from an album.

Here's what I do to reproduce the problem:

1. start app
2. add new ap
3. floorplan
4. pick image from album
5. I select an image(jpg)
6. image loads (screenshot1)
7. I touch the image (screenshot2)
8. I touch the image again and the app closes without an error.

My device is a OnePlus 3 running android 6.0.1

Let me know if you need more information.

Thanks,

Dennis

Hello again Dennis,

Thanks for your patience and help.  No doubt others are seeing the same problem but not reporting it, so it's important to fix.

I think we're hitting a bug in the code when you touch the floorplan.  So I went through that section and put in some lines to catch any crashes.  If you could go here 

https://play.google.com/apps/testing/com.arubanetworks.apinstallersapp

then it should download v10 for you, which is a Beta release.

With this new version, if it hits a bug and catches the error, it will print something in red at the bottom of the image.  So if you see more than one line there, please send me a screen capture and I'll see if I can figure it out.

Thanks Dennis, this is really helpful.  I wish Android gave us some better remote debugging tools.

Peter

Hi Peter,

There you go. Just in case you wonder: I did it in landscape so the error is completely readable.

Dennis

That is exactly what I was looking for!  Your local format for a decimal is "99,0" and the code is looking for "99.0".  Now I should be able to figure out how to fix it, but it might take a few days.  Thanks so much, Dennis,

Peter

You're welcome, looking forward to do more testing.

Hello again Dennis,

I found 3 places this had to be fixed, I think I've got them all now.

There's a new version v11 on the Play Store Beta site again.  Let me know if it works please?  

(I found if I change my language to Dutch, the old versions consistently failed and the new one works.  Now I have to check my other apps for the same bug.)

Thanks,

Peter

Hi Peter,

It works without crashing now and I've been able to try it out :)

Here is some feedback/wishes:

-It would be nice to have a zoom function for the floorplan.

-It would be nice to retain the quality of the floorplan image, right now it is reduced and almost unusable.

-When using the barcode scanner when I aim the redline for the mac address it sometimes scans the SN and the other way around.(I'm testing the sticker on a AP-205 on which the mac and SN are close to each other)

-When opening the floorplan and selecting the location the app is not to responsive.

I can't seem to get it to pull maps from Airwave on iOS.  I only get the option to use a picture on my camera roll.

Hello Perasite,

There are a number of things that have to go right in order to get the AirWave floorplans showing up on the AP-Installer app.  Forgive me if you've already gone through these.

- Needs a valid account on AirWave.  Pretty much any privilege level should work, all we are doing is downloading the floorplans (unless you want to use the upload function later).  But obviously username-password has to be correct in the app settings.

- AirWave address.  I've been back and forth on syntax checking, it should accept any of your.airwave.com, http://your.airwave.com or https://your.airwave.com, but it will change the former (2) to https:// (if that makes sense?).  It's safest to enter it as https://your.airwave.com.  The app should work with IPv4 addresses in this field, but not with IPv6.

- After that, it's just reachability.  Try a ping from the iPhone to the AirWave address to check, or try logging into the account from the browser on the phone.

- I've seen problems where the clocks (time or timezone) on the AirWave server and/or the client device are wrong.  This can cause the cookie to arrive with a timestamp that's already expired.  In this case the client won't even attempt to use the cookie and login will fail.

- I don't have great diagnostics on the AP-Installer app but if you have an Android device, try loading Aruba Utilities, set it up to point to the same AirWave server+account and after a few minutes, email me the logs at ctodeveloper@arubanetworks.gmail.com.  That should tell me what's going on.

Either way, do drop me a line at ctodeveloper@arubanetworks.gmail.com and I'll work with you to figure it out.

Thanks for your patience, it sometimes takes a while to figure these things out,

Peter T

Hi there!  Thanks so much for offering to help.

I tried to email the ctodeveloper@arubanetworks.gmail.com account but got a bounce back:

Delivery has failed to these recipients or groups:

ctodeveloper@arubanetworks.gmail.com
Your message wasn't delivered because the recipient's e-mail provider rejected it.

Diagnostic information for administrators:

Generating server: server-16.bemta-12.messagelabs.com

ctodeveloper@arubanetworks.gmail.com
#< #5.7.0 smtp; 551 5.7.0 recipient domain does not exist in DNS> #SMTP#

---

I have tried multiple valid accounts on AirWave.  I’ve tried the admin account, the root account used for ssh, and an admin level account under my name.  None of those allowed it to show floorplans from AirWave.

I used https://(IP ADDRESS).  Does it need to be a DNS name or is IP ok?

I can successfully ping the IP from my phone.

The clock on the AirWave server was 6 minutes off, so I reset it to the correct current time.

I don’t have easy access to an Android device, but I will locate one if we don’t find another solution.

sorry, typo.

ctodeveloper.arubanetworks@gmail.com