Strange Ad-hoc

s.hellman · ‎11-14-2008

We have a WLC 4404 witch 1131 AP's. On a few of them one of the ordinary SSID's is also sent as an Ad-hoc-SSID !

If I connect to the Ad-hoc-SSID and look at the client info in the WLC, the only info is:

Client MAC: xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx

Client vendor: Intel

Port: 0

Mobility role: Unassociated

AP Type: Cisco AP

SSID: N/A

Association ID: 0

Reason Code: None

802.11 Authentication: OPENSYSTEM

Policy type: Unknown

Encryption Cipher: Unknown

EAP Type: Unknown

NAC State: Quarantine

All AP's are configured the same way.

Anyone seen this before?

Steffen Lindemann · ‎11-17-2008

My guess is that you are hit by "viral SSID" issue with Win XP SP2. Google search for the term to learn more about this.

The issue is that a client is setup in a wrong way, so the Win XP SP2 is setup to broadcast your SSID as ad-hoc. If a client near this computer sees it (and not your network) it will try to connect to the ad-hoc computer.

The only solution I found was to use GPO to push the profile to WZC and disable the clients possibilities to connect to ad-hoc network.

I never tried to look into the WLC for a status on hit clients, but I guess it could look like the one you are seeing (because of the similar SSID ??).

s.hellman · ‎11-25-2008

Well, it doesnt seems so. if I unplug the power to the accesspoint, the ad-hoc SSID dissapears.