Controllerless Networks

I'm in a small office with only two IAP-305s. This morning I upgraded the firmware on the cluster from 6.5.4.11 to 8.3.0.6. After the upgrade finished, one of the IAPs, the one that is also the VC, is showing one of its LEDs solid amber - the other AP has two green LEDs.

In researching this, I learned that this is likely related to a PoE/LLDP configuration issue. The thing I don't understand is that both of the IAPs are connected on the same switch, an Aruba/HPE 5412R zl2, and the switch port configurations are the same. However, when I run a 'show power-over-ethernet brief' command on the switch, it shows that the IAP that's green is getting PoE by LLDP, while the one with the amber LED shows PoE by usage. I assume that's the difference, but I don't know why it happened. Both IAPs got the same firmware at the same time connected on the same switch. Anything I can do to correct this? Would power-cycling the IAP mayber clear it?

It wouldn't hurt to power cycle the IAP via the switch port (disable/enable poe). 

 

Also, I am unclear of the upgrade requirements/parameters from IAP 6.5.4.11 to 8.3.0.6. Someone can chime in if there are any intermediary steps in the controllerless model. 

Hi - I did try power-cycling the IAP but that didn't solve the problem. The thing that's odd is that, as I mentioned, there are only two IAPs in this small office, and the other IAP doesn't show this behavior; also, there was no such behavior prior to the firmware upgrade. My next step will be to try a different cable with a direct connection to the switch and see if that changes anything.

Are you able to log into the virtual controller of the working IAP?

Is the working IAP still sending out the wireless ssids it was configure to before the upgrade?

Is the non working IAP braodcasting an Instant or Setmeup said in the air?
Can you login and verify that both IAPs have the same firmware and one didn't get hung up?

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Hi, RYNO - I did a bit more experimentation with this and finally determined that the switch port is the culprit. I did this by reversing the connections of the two IAPs on the switch. When I plugged the 'normal' IAP into the port that the problem IAP was connected to, the problem followed; likewise, the one that was acting wrong worked normally when connected to the other IAPs switch port. 

From what I can determine, on the 5412R zl2 switch, there's an option at the port level to enable LLDP Detection. This was enabled on both the switch ports - but the one that was working correctly was able to use that setting so that the PoE 'Allocated By:' parameter set itself to LLDP, which is apparently necessary; on the broken port, the PoE 'Allocated By:' parameter was set to 'usage', and I was unable to change this, nor could I disable and then re-enable the LLDP Detection parameter - the command looked like it 'took', but the setting never changed. I eventually decided to try configuring a different port for the IAP, connected to it and that solved the problem. 

Why this behavior never manifested itself before, I don't know, unless there was a problem with that port that simply didn't show up until PoE device re-booted - that's just a guess.

Both IAPs working normally now - hoping that this was just a single port issue and won't recur when I go to upgrade the other 200 or so IAPs in the school district.