One IAP Goes into Mesh AP Mode. Why???

[EricJ]

I have an IAP swarm of 20 access points.  They are managed by Airwave using a template.  One AP is showing in Airwave as a "Mesh AP", and users are complaining of slow wireless access in that area.  

What would cause a single AP in a swarm to become a mesh AP?  A "show run" on the mesh AP and a non-mesh AP in the cluster is identical.  I read something about going mesh if the network connection is bad, but I can see in the switch that it's up and has traffic going across it.

Thanks in advance.

[Craig Syme]

Has the IAP lost its L3 uplink?

[EricJ]

I don't think so.  On the network switch, I can see the port is "up" and is passing traffic.  On the AP itself, "show int" says eth0 and eth1 both show "line protocol down", but the default route points to the interface "br0", so I think they are bridged right now.  

I see this when running "show swarm state":

mesh auto eth0 bridging :yes

Only on the one Mesh AP... on all others that line says "no".  So, not sure why this one AP is acting differently. 

Quick question:

If an AP does lose its L3 connectivity, is default behavior to go into Mesh Mode?  I suppose the PoE copper pairs might be giving the AP power, but the data pairs are faulty?  But then why would I see packets on the network switch?  Very strange...

[Craig Syme]

Looks like my reply never got submitted! What version of code are you running? Do you have the Auto Mesh enabled?

https://www.arubanetworks.com/techdocs/Instant_83_WebHelp/Content/Instant_UG/mesh_network/Mesh_Network-Overview.htm

It looks like the AP has eth0 bridging as well which will cause it to function as a Mesh Point.

https://www.arubanetworks.com/techdocs/Instant_83_WebHelp/Content/Instant_UG/CustomizeIAPParams/ConfWiredBridging.htm

[EricJ]

I think this single AP is auto-meshing... but I don't think it's enabled on the VC config template.  

It let me enter the command "no enet0-bridging", but that didn't seem to change anything.  There is no mention of "enet0-bridging" in the config if I do a show run.

There's also no mention of "enhanced-mesh-role-detect" in the config, either.  I can't go into config mode to trying enabling/disabling this command, because I get the error: "WARNING: CLI is not supported on slave."

The version is:

ArubaOS (MODEL: 225), Version 6.5.4.11

[Craig Syme · Accepted solution]

Move the IAP to a known working switch port (i.e another IAP switch port in the same cluster) and see if the issue is resolved. I suspect there is a problem with the IAPs uplink.

[EricJ]

OK, thanks for the suggestion.  I'll give that a try later today.

So, from what I'm gathering, this would be default behavior for an AP with an uplink issue - to go into Mesh mode... right?

[EricJ]

Thanks for the tip.  I believe the data run is bad.  The wires providing PoE power are working, but the data pairs are not.  Is there a way to disable the behavior of auto-meshing if there's no Ethernet uplink?  I'd rather have it just stay down since we have good overlap coverage.

Thanks!