Wireless Access

based on a security notice the client upgraded the mesh master to 8.5 ( now 8.6) in the fall and some (7) of the IAP365s were no longer seen by the virtual controller.    Since there was heavy snow and they were unable to go retrieve the disconnected APs at the time this was not done until spring.  They brought them into the wired network and expected them to upgrade but they did not -   when I ssh into the units that are still running 6.5.4.6 it says they can only be upgraded from the master .  But the master does not see them.    is there a way from CLI to force the dropped units to upgrade from the master?  or do I need to physically factory reset these 7 units and then add them back into the mesh cluster?

I would factory reset them, upgrade them to the proper version, and then join them to the cluster again since you have them. Also make sure that auto join is on in the VC. If not you will have to manually add them.

Thanks Dustin,

    I actually do not have possession of them and at the moment I do not have a way to get them given that I am on mandatory "stay at home"  I do have remote access to their network and that is how I am able to ssh into the disconnected unit. 

I see you can still SSH into those APs. If the setup is non-functional anyway and the only option at this moment is to go onsite to factory reset the APs, what you could try is to change the AP swarm-mode to standalone (CLI command: swarm-mode standalone), which fully disables the clustering. After that, you can try to upgrade the AP remotely and if it is on the right firmware put it back to cluster (swarm-mode cluster).

If the AP is remotely connected over a mesh, it may be tricky as the mesh-keys may get lost in the process in which case you don't have access at all. So that is the reason why you should only do this if there is no alternative and the setup can't be more broken than it is now.