PoE Access Point for ASA 5505?

[Andy White]

Hello,

I have a ASA 5505 at home and would like a cheap access point to plug into the PoE port of the ASA, can anyone suggest one?  Or is is better just to get a normal AP and plug in to the ASA and use an external power supply?

Thanks

[Leo Laohoo]

Or is is better just to get a normal AP and plug in to the ASA and use an external power supply?

I'd get a power injector or a power supply for your AP.

[Andy White]

What I mean is I have an ASA for my house and need to add a cheap WiFI solution and seeing I have a PoE port on the ASA 5505, what options do I have?  I see there are expensice APs from Cisco, but wondered if there are other solutions?

[Leo Laohoo]

Andy,

Not sure how much PoE can an ASA provide PoE.  A lot of APs require 15.4w and newer APs, like the 3700, require an "average" of 20.0w PoE.  You can operate the 3700 at 15.4w PoE but the number of in/out and spatial streams go down.

Cisco's PWR-INJ4 is made by a company called Phihong and this company makes a lot of mid-span PoE products.

Check out the POE36U-1AT.

[Scott Fella]

The ASA 5505 is the same hardware as the WLC 2504. Now will it power up the AP... Sure as long as the AP is 802.af. Will the ap communicate on the network. I have no clue as I never attempted to connect an AP to an ASA5505 direct. Like Leo mentioned get a power injector or an AC power cord and connect the AP to a switch.

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[Saurav Lodh]

Power Over Ethernet

Ethernet 0/6 and Ethernet 0/7 support PoE for devices such as IP phones  or wireless access points. If you install a non-PoE device or do not  connect to these switch ports, the adaptive security appliance does not  supply power to the switch ports.

If you shut down the switch port using the shutdown command, you disable power to the device. Power is restored when you enter no shutdown. See the "Configuring Switch Ports as Access Ports" section for more information about shutting down a switch port.

To view the status of PoE switch ports, including the type of device connected (Cisco or IEEE 802.3af), use the show power inline command.

**Souce ::

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/security/asa/asa72/configuration/guide/int5505.html#wp1056861

[Jacob Snyder]

The 5505 can power up any 802.3af AP. In production environments I've had issues with power dropping on the 2 POE ports.

If you are looking for an inexpensive Cisco AP, I would suggest the 1602 or the AP700. I'm not sure if the 700 is shipping yet, but it is the lowest cost of the Aironet APs.

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[sbhadrav@cisco.com]

Connect the network cable from the modem to port 0 (default outside port) on the ASA.
Connect your computer to one of the other ports on the ASA, which should be on the inside network by default. Ports 6 and 7 are Power over Ethernet (PoE) ports; I recommend reserving those ports for any devices that can use PoE.
Open a browser on your computer and go to 192.168.1.1, which is the default address for connecting to the ASA.
Click Run ASDM. (Another option is to click Run Startup Wizard and do this entire configuration in the wizard.)
Log in. There are no passwords configured yet, so just leave that blank.
Click Configuration at the top.
Click Device Setup.
Click Interfaces.
Edit the Inside Interface.
Make sure it is enabled.
Specify the internal address you want to use. By default this is 192.168.1.1, which you can leave it at.  This will indicate that you are using the 192.168.1.0/24 network as your inside network.
Click OK.
Edit the Outside Interface.
Choose DHCP. If you happen to have a fixed IP at home, please use that. Many ISPs require you to have a business account to get a static IP, though.
Make sure the interface is enabled.
Put a check mark next to the option Obtain Default Route Using DHCP. This saves you the step of configuring a static route, and it saves you the hassle of having to change the static route every time your IP changes.
Click OK.
Put a check next to Enable Traffic Between Two Or More Interfaces Which Are Configured With The Same Security Levels and next to Enable Traffic Between Two Or More Hosts Connected To The Same Interface.