Controllerless Networks

Hi,

I have done research on this, but am struggling to find the correct answer.

I am setting up a second separate IAP instance running 8.5 from our legacy IAP-205 6.5 instance.

I took a spare IAP-305 (JX945A) on exactly the same 6.5 version and added it to its own VLAN. I have imported the 6.5 config from the first instance and upgraded (this took many hours) to 8.5.0.10 - this seems to work fine - clients connect etc.

I am now trying to add in some new (I)AP-375-RW (JZ172A). These can run instant as if I add them into their own separate VLAN and factory reset them, they will let me login to their own instant controller. I have upgraded each of these 375 APs to 8.5.0.10. 

The IAP-305 is set to be my master.

Sometimes (after many many hours) they will appear in my IAP-305 controller, but I am unable to save settings, and the radios are off (they are all sitting next to each other at the moment, so maybe the controller is doing that to stop interference)?

Are these supposed to be compatible with an instant controller? Do I need to use a 375 as the master with only 375 access points?

Thanks.

Best practice would be to set a bigger AP as the preferred master because it has more resources.

Different models of APs should work together as long as they are capable of running the same version of IAP code.

Make sure that all of the IAPs are also set up to use the same regulatory domain, as this is a cluster requirement.

Hi Dustin,

Thanks for your reply.

I have now dropped the 305 from the equation and am just using a pair of 375. I uploaded the config (it rebooted and didn't come back online for at least 7 hours until I finished my working day - it's back this morning) to the 375 and it has correctly set itself as the master. Radios are on and it's serving clients. The second 375 is in the console, but checking on SSH it's not picking up the config although it knows who the master is.

I set the first AP that was working to be the prefrred master with the slider and rebooted. It came back up, but is now down again - it must be having a problem but I'm not sure how to debug it and since it's remote I'll need to wait for it to come online again.

Just to finish this thread, I was able to get the 'master' AP plugged in with a console cable.

I found that when it was going offline, the netmask was set to 255.255.255.255 and the gateway would disappear.

I ended up wiping both access points and setting up a new instance where the master was joined by the secondary AP.

I upgraded them to firmware 8.7.

Removed the line virtual-controller-ip x.x.x.x from my config

Made sure the virtual controller key in the config I was going to upload matched the one from the blank instance config.

Re-uploaded my config.

Now everything seems to work correctly.