Wireless Access

What is the difference in usage between the ARM profile setting - "80MHz support" and the HT SSID profile setting - "80MHz channel usage".

The ARM profile is the master switch that will allow or disallow 80 mhz channel use on the radio of an access point.  The SSID profile will disallow advertising the VHT IE on an SSID.  You should only edit the one on the ARM profile.

ARM and HT profiles are different set of profiles and you can be using different combination of them on different occasions.

Based on the testing, it seems to be that, its an "AND" operation between both configuration. Even if one of them has 80 MHz channel turned off, the bssid will show that 80MHz is turned off.

ARM - 80 MHZ disabled, HT profile - 80 MHz enabled

(Master-UP) (config) #show ap bss-table

fm (forward mode): T-Tunnel, S-Split, D-Decrypt Tunnel, B-Bridge (s-standard, p-persistent, b-backup, a-always), n-anyspot

Aruba AP BSS Table
------------------
bss                ess      port  ip           phy    type  ch/EIRP/max-EIRP  cur-cl  ap name            in-t(s)  tot-t    mtu   acl-state  acl  fm
---                ---      ----  --           ---    ----  ----------------  ------  -------            -------  -----    ---   ---------  ---  --
18:64:72:19:75:40  empire1  N/A   10.20.25.42  g-HT   ap    11/21.5/21.5      0       18:64:72:c9:97:54  0        48m:55s  1500  -          2    Bs
18:64:72:19:75:50  empire1  N/A   10.20.25.42  a-VHT  ap    157+/22.5/22.5    0       18:64:72:c9:97:54  0        48m:43s  1500  -          2    Bs

Channel followed by "*" indicates channel selected due to unsupported configured channel.
"Spectrum" followed by "^" indicates Local Spectrum Override in effect.

Num APs:2
Num Associations:0

ARM - 80 MHZ enabled, HT profile  - 80 MHz enabled


(Master-UP) (config) #show ap bss-table

fm (forward mode): T-Tunnel, S-Split, D-Decrypt Tunnel, B-Bridge (s-standard, p-persistent, b-backup, a-always), n-anyspot

Aruba AP BSS Table
------------------
bss                ess      port  ip           phy    type  ch/EIRP/max-EIRP  cur-cl  ap name            in-t(s)  tot-t    mtu   acl-state  acl  fm
---                ---      ----  --           ---    ----  ----------------  ------  -------            -------  -----    ---   ---------  ---  --
18:64:72:19:75:40  empire1  N/A   10.20.25.42  g-HT   ap    11/21.5/21.5      0       18:64:72:c9:97:54  0        51m:24s  1500  -          2    Bs
18:64:72:19:75:50  empire1  N/A   10.20.25.42  a-VHT  ap    149E/22.5/22.5    0       18:64:72:c9:97:54  0        51m:12s  1500  -          2    Bs

Channel followed by "*" indicates channel selected due to unsupported configured channel.
"Spectrum" followed by "^" indicates Local Spectrum Override in effect.

Num APs:2
Num Associations:0

ARM - 80 MHZ enabled, HT profile - 80 MHz disabled

(Master-UP) (config) #show ap bss-table

fm (forward mode): T-Tunnel, S-Split, D-Decrypt Tunnel, B-Bridge (s-standard, p-persistent, b-backup, a-always), n-anyspot

Aruba AP BSS Table
------------------
bss                ess      port  ip           phy    type  ch/EIRP/max-EIRP  cur-cl  ap name            in-t(s)  tot-t    mtu   acl-state  acl  fm
---                ---      ----  --           ---    ----  ----------------  ------  -------            -------  -----    ---   ---------  ---  --
18:64:72:19:75:40  empire1  N/A   10.20.25.42  g-HT   ap    11/21.5/21.5      0       18:64:72:c9:97:54  0        53m:47s  1500  -          2    Bs
18:64:72:19:75:50  empire1  N/A   10.20.25.42  a-VHT  ap    149+/22.5/22.5    0       18:64:72:c9:97:54  0        53m:35s  1500  -          2    Bs

Channel followed by "*" indicates channel selected due to unsupported configured channel.
"Spectrum" followed by "^" indicates Local Spectrum Override in effect.

Num APs:2
Num Associations:0

(Master-UP) (config) #

Thank you for the explanation.

Looks like the ARM part has two sections for enabling VHT. One under "dot11a-radio-profile" and another one under "arm-profile". So the former one is more than just a channel-width setting? In other word, it needs to be enabled to allow 802.11ac and 802.11n operations?

You should realy only use the VHT setting under the ARM profile; ignore the one in the radio profile.    The VHT setting controls the VHT rates for that AP, and not channel width.  The 80mhz channel setting in the ARM profile determines whether you are using 80 mhz channels or not.  When it is on, you are using 80mhz channels.