Developer

Currently we have been Automating AP provisioning using CLI and having the CPSEC whitelist turned on. We would prestage typicall settings like AP Group Description and Name in the CPSEC whitelist then when the AP comes up it has all the right settings. Are Aruba SME's, and Aruba Sales Engineers have been telling us we should not be running CPSEC in our enviroments, Is there a way to do this same setup without CPSEC if its CLI or API that would allow us to prestage AP information before they hit the controllers. Or will APs need to hit the controllers first before we can Move their group and set names using API or CLI ap rename commands etc.

Right now we are using CPSEC so we don't use those commands, before when we used to I want to say the AP needed to be up in the controller (or atleast hit it once) for that command to work. Correct me if I am wrong.

Yes, the AP would just need to have appeared on the controller once for those commands to work.

There is no other way outside of CPSEC.  The issue with managing APS with CPSEC  whitelist is that is the only way you can change the name.  If you try to provision the AP with a group or name, it will revert back to the CPSEC whitelist name.  So if you provisioned some with the whitelist and some without, you will end up with the whitelist being enforced and the others being changed.  It can get confusing.

Long story short, there is no other way to do it outside of the CPSEC whitelist if you have CPSEC on and ap-rename and ap-regroup if CPSEC is off.