Wireless Access

Hello all,

 

I am in the (last stages) of deploying the new Aruba Wireless network on our campus and now encountering the above issue and suspect it may have something to do with licensing.

 

I have read up a bit on the licencing and it's my understanding that the number of PEF licenses must match the number of AP licenses. The last few APs which I have added/rebooted to the network boot cycle every 10 minutes or so.

 

I run the command "show ap license-usage" on the controller with the following results:

 

AP Licenses
-----------
Type Number
---- ------
AP Licenses 77
PEF Licenses 0
Overall AP License Limit 0

AP Usage
--------
Type Count
---- -----
Active CAPs 77
Standby CAPs 0
RAPs 0
Remote-node APs 0
Tunneled nodes 0
Total APs 77

Remaining AP Capacity
---------------------
Type Number
---- ------
CAPs 0
RAPs 0

 

The command "show license verbose" shows that the AP and PEF licenses are the same at 112, enabled and set to never expire:

 

As I said the APs have been working fine until recently and the "PEF Licenses 0" is where i suspect the issue may be, but am not sure how/if this has anything to do with the AP boot cycling. Before raising a TAC case I just want to be sure about this and get some expert advice in case the issue might be something else.

 

Thanks in advance

Do you see any flags when you run the show licenses ?
When you install new licenses and enable a new module (in this case the firewall module) you need to reboot the controller for those licenses to take effect
Pardon typos sent from Mobile

when i run "show license" the only flag is E for enabled. as i said the APs have all been booting and working fine until the last few APs which I added to the network.

 

I tried rebooting existing APs which were working fine until i rebooted them and now they exhibit te same boot cycle problem as the new APs added to the network. I also tried a different AP and in all cases the System Status LED on the AP is constantly "Green-Blinking" and Radio Status LED is off even though on the controller it shows as active for about 10 mins until it reboots.

wrote:

I run the command "show ap license-usage" on the controller with the following results:

 

AP Licenses
-----------
Type Number
---- ------
AP Licenses 77
PEF Licenses 0
Overall AP License Limit 0

AP Usage
--------
Type Count
---- -----
Active CAPs 77
Standby CAPs 0
RAPs 0
Remote-node APs 0
Tunneled nodes 0
Total APs 77

Remaining AP Capacity
---------------------
Type Number
---- ------
CAPs 0
RAPs 0

 

The command "show license verbose" shows that the AP and PEF licenses are the same at 112, enabled and set to never expire:

 

As I said the APs have been working fine until recently and the "PEF Licenses 0" is where i suspect the issue may be, but am not sure how/if this has anything to do with the AP boot cycling. Before raising a TAC case I just want to be sure about this and get some expert advice in case the issue might be something else.

---

What firmware version are you running? Also, what controller model is this?

 

The output you posted indicates that there are 0 PEF licenses, as you noted, so if "show license verbose" is showing different then that could well be the problem.

The controller is 7205

The firmware is 6.5.4.0

 

According to the datasheet this controller should support 256 AP licenses.

 

Just so I understand how the licensing works... We purchased 112 AP licenses as well as 112 PEF licenses. Every time I add an AP to the network that's one of each of these licenses used up, correct? Why am I seeing two different license usage figures 77 and 112? Would we need to purchase more licenses to resolve this? If so, which type of license?

 

I have also done some reading that I also need yet a third RFProtect license for each AP, which we didnt purchase because we were told by our supplier this was an optional license

You shouldn't need RFprotect licenses if none are installed.  You are correct.

 

Please open a TAC case so that we can get to the bottom of your problem. Information to open a case is here:  http://www.arubanetworks.com/support-services/support-program/contact-support

 

You can type "show log system 50" to see if there are any messages about the reboots, or "show ap database" to see if the access points have flags.

 

You could be running into a bug.

Thanks Colin,

 

Before I open a TAC case I am wondering if it's worth to reboot the controller to see if that fixes the problem. I have an Active/standby setup using LMS redundancy however I am conscious that the APs will rebootstrap when they re-terminate to the backup LMS. The reason I haven't done this already is because if it is indeed a bug I'm concerned none of the APs will work after rebooting because it looks like the PEF licenses are set at 0. 

 

A further question to this would be if the failover occurs will the license limits transfer across to the BLMS? doing a "show ap license-usage" on the BLMS currently shows it as all 0 as follows (is this correct or is this potentially part of the same bug?): 

 

AP Licenses
-----------
Type Number
---- ------
AP Licenses 0
Overall AP License Limit 0

AP Usage
--------
Type Count
---- -----
Active CAPs 0
Standby CAPs 0
RAPs 0
Remote-node APs 0
Tunneled nodes 0
Total APs 0

Remaining AP Capacity
---------------------
Type Number
---- ------
CAPs 0
RAPs 0

I don't know, but you should open a case before you reboot, otherwise they will not catch the bug if that is what is in in this case.  Licenses should be active and should not require a reboot if you are just adding licenses.