Controllerless Networks

  I am reconfiguring an IAP-105 I picked up for use with surveying to use for a one off event coming up in a few weeks and I thought the process was fairly straightforward to configure a static channel on an IAP, basically just the configuration:

arm
a-channels 165

  The intent that arm would have only channel 165 to pick from and thus never stray from 165.  In practice, this configuration has the IAP start up on channel 44 and never go to 165.  Additionally if I add in other channels (but removing channel 44):

arm

a-channels 36,40,48,52,56,60,64,100,165

it ignores them as well.  Running an rf-summary shows:

Survey IAP-105# show ap arm rf-summary

Channel Summary
---------------
channel retry phy-err mac-err noise util(Qual) cov-idx(Total) intf_idx(Total)
------- ----- ------- ------- ----- ---------- -------------- ---------------
36 0 0 0 91 0/0/0/0/91 0/0(0) 0/0//0/0(0)
40 0 0 0 90 9/0/0/0/91 0/0(0) 0/0//0/0(0)
48 0 0 0 91 9/0/0/0/91 0/0(0) 0/0//0/0(0)
52 0 0 0 93 0/0/0/0/91 0/0(0) 0/0//0/0(0)
56 0 0 0 93 9/0/0/0/91 0/0(0) 0/11//0/0(11)
60 0 0 0 93 0/0/0/0/90 0/0(0) 33/0//0/0(33)
64 0 0 0 93 9/0/0/0/91 0/0(0) 16/11//0/0(27)
100 0 0 0 93 0/0/0/0/91 0/0(0) 0/0//0/0(0)
165 0 0 0 96 10/0/0/0/90 0/0(0) 0/3//0/0(3)
11 0 0 0 0 0/0/0/0/0 0/0(0) 0/0//0/0(0)

Columns:util(Qual): ch-util/rx/tx/ext-ch-util/quality

HT Channel Summary
------------------
channel_pair Pairwise_intf_index
------------ -------------------

Interface Name :wifi0
Current ARM Assignment :44/17
Covered channels a/g :0/0
Free channels a/g :9/0
ARM Edge State :disable
Last check channel/pwr :53m:49s/53m:49s
Last change channel/pwr :53m:49s/53m:49s
Next Check channel/pwr :0s/0s
Assignment Mode :Maintain

Interface Name :wifi1
Current ARM Assignment :1/17
Covered channels a/g :0/0
Free channels a/g :0/1
ARM Edge State :disable
Last check channel/pwr :53m:49s/53m:49s
Last change channel/pwr :53m:49s/53m:49s
Next Check channel/pwr :0s/0s
Assignment Mode :Maintain

Channel quality history:wifi0
36:Q: 91 91 91 91 0 0
:c: 0 0 0 0 0 0
:N: 91 91 91 91 0 0
:s: 0 0 0 0 100 100
:U: 9 9 9 9 0 0
40:Q: 91 91 91 91 91 91 91
:c: 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
:N: 90 90 90 90 90 90 90
:s: 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
:U: 9 9 9 9 9 9 9
48:Q: 91 91 91 91 91 0 0
:c: 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
:N: 91 91 91 91 91 0 0
:s: 0 0 0 0 0 100 100
:U: 9 9 9 9 9 0 0
52:Q: 91 91 91 100 91 91 0
:c: 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
:N: 93 93 93 93 93 93 0
:s: 0 0 0 0 0 0 100
:U: 9 9 9 0 9 9 0
56:Q: 91 91 91 91 91 91 0
:c: 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
:N: 93 93 93 92 93 93 0
:s: 0 0 0 0 0 0 100
:U: 9 9 9 9 9 9 0
60:Q: 90 90 90 100 90 90 0
:c: 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
:N: 93 93 93 93 93 93 0
:s: 0 0 0 0 0 0 100
:U: 10 10 10 0 10 10 0
64:Q: 91 91 91 91 91 91 0
:c: 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
:N: 93 93 93 93 93 93 0
:s: 0 0 0 0 0 0 100
:U: 9 9 9 9 9 9 0
100:Q: 91 91 91 90 90 0
:c: 0 0 0 0 0 0
:N: 93 93 93 93 93 0
:s: 0 0 0 0 0 100
:U: 9 9 9 10 10 0
165:Q: 90 90 90 90 0 0
:c: 0 0 0 0 0 0
:N: 96 96 96 96 0 0
:s: 0 0 0 0 100 100
:U: 10 10 10 10 0 0

Channel quality history:wifi1
11:Q: 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
:c: 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
:N: 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
:s: 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100
:U: 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

  I was able to override arm via the 'a-channel 165 18' command but I clearly missed something in the arm setup.  Can someone give me a hint as to where I went wrong?  Thanks!

- Kurtis

Attachment(s)

iap-techsupport.txt   201 KB 1 version

If you can, please get the tech support when you only have a single channel selected.  Your tech support says this:

arm
 wide-bands none
 a-channels 36,40,48,52,56,60,64,100,165
 g-channels 11
 min-tx-power 18
 max-tx-power 18
 band-steering-mode disable
 air-time-fairness-mode fair-access
 scanning

and your access point is on channel 165, which is what it should be doing:

Survey IAP-105# show aps



1 Access Point
--------------
Name            IP Address     Mode    Spectrum  Clients  Type         Mesh Role  Zone  Serial #   2.4 Channel  2.4 Power (dB)  2.4 Utilization (%)  2.4 Noise Floor (dBm)  5.0 Channel  5.0 Power (dB)  5.0 Utilization (%)  5.0 Noise Floor (dBm)  Need Antenna Config  From Port  Config Id  Config Csum  Ext SSID Active  Age     
----            ----------     ----    --------  -------  ----         ---------  ----  --------   -----------  --------------  -------------------  ---------------------  -----------  --------------  -------------------  ---------------------  -------------------  ---------  ---------  -----------  ---------------  ---     
Survey IAP-105  192.168.1.10*  access  disable   0        105(indoor)  N/A        -     BT0489915  -            -               -                    -                      165          18              0(good)              -96(good)              No                   none       3          22671        disable          31m:7s  
Survey IAP-105# show ap bss-table

Colin,

  Ah yes I forgot to change it back after mucking with it a bit - I changed it back to just channel 165 and rebooted and it stayed at 165!  Which is great, but I am a bit greedy and wanted to test it further so I changed the arm configuration to:

arm
a-channels 36

 and wrote memory and also did a 'commit apply' then watched to see if arm would move off 165 to 36 - and so far it hasn't moved. The only real difference is that I issued the 'a-channel 165 18' command before and that worked - it moved it immediately to 165 previously and I would imagine if I issued the same command for channel 36, it would work again but then that isn't really arm doing it.

  There doesn't appear to be a configuration directive for the 'a-channel' command nor a 'no' version of it to negate it.  Perhaps that is all this is - the IAP remembering the last manually set channel?  Just a thought.

- Kurtis

Attachment(s)

iap-techsupport ch 165 and 36.txt   195 KB 1 version

When you change the channel range, I believe you have to reboot for it to be fully in effect.  If you just want to set the channels and power on an access point statically, you would simply edit the access point from the GUI, go to radio and do below:

Colin,

  Ah, that makes sense.  Sure enough when I change it there and hit Ok, the change is near instant.

  I also changed it to ARM controlled and it followed the arm config as I originally expected it to.  Changing the channel there caused ARM to reflect the channel change very quickly as well.

  Where do the changes live for these settings (administrator set / ARM managed channels)?  I don't see them in 'show running-config', is there some other location they get stored?

  In any case, thanks for the help!

- Kurtis

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