cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 
cancel
23898
Views
0
Helpful
33
Replies

Aironet 1140: from lwap to autonomous AP

Carlo Zaina
Level 1
Level 1

Just this: is it possible to downgrade a 1140 from lwap to autonomous AP?

33 Replies 33

I successfully converted an 1140 to an Autonomous AP. So far, so good.

Hi Robert,

can you please share the experience so far with your 1142N that you downgraded to Autonomous?

I have 15 of these guys and a controller was not purchased and upper management said there is no more budged, thus I am stuck with these APs and no controller.

I'd like to convert all these 1142N units to Autonomous and then deploy them into a 3560G PoE switch for a branch that needs wireless network.

Can you advise? My main concern is roaming, meaning that the users will be walking around the building, so everytime they hit another spot, I'd like the APs to provide them with seamless roaming so they won't experience any manual reconnect

thanks

I know the ? was directed at Robert, but...

I have converted (6) of our 1142's to Autonomous now and used them to replace some older AP's. Our laptops have the necessary profiles installed to join the wireless and are configured to log on automatically. We use a WDS architecture for authentication, so roaming between many access points, is virtually seemless, and very rarely requires anything from the user. These AP's in autonomous mode, appear to behave just like all the other Cisco AP's I've worked with...

Brett,

I actually meant to ask just about anyone :) so thank you very much for the quick response.

Your input is great news. So far I have converted one of my 1142N APs to autonomous, so now based on your input and I will go ahead and convert all of them and test.

Is there anything else I need to know while I set this up?

I've had problems in the past with the 1130 where WEP was enabled and many laptops, especially the MACs, were having lots of problems connecting to the wireless networks.

thanks

I confirm.

I am working with 2 1141 downgraded to Autonomous: they works perfectly. Users connects and roams seamlessly.

I've set up a network with WPA2-PSK to test and no trouble. The clients connecting in the past to 1130s now connect to 1140s, without noticing the change, as long as the WPA settings are unchanged.

Next step would be using dot1x, but this require carefull planning :)

more info..

We have both Cisco clients and Intel Clients using the wireless. Both types are configured with the same profiles as before... nothing has changed except the AP's. I replaced 6 of them 1 week ago, and nobody has reported any problems... in fact, nobody noticed they were replaced. All our clients are configured to log on automatically, so the users do not need to do anything except log onto thier PC when they start Windows. P.S. I do not recommend using the Windows Wireless Client. Use the software that came with your client adapters...

I agree with blarkins: as long as you can use the software coming with your NIC. Intel, Cisco, whatever.

I've also Macintosh (they are the only enjoying the 802.11n so far) and Linux laptops connecting and no trouble: just type in the password and you are connected. The OSI layer 1 is simply a detail :)

Sorry to have been absent from this thread.

I had no problems with the 1142 I converted, but it was just for testing. It is now back to being a LAP.

For the best roaming and protection, I would recommend using WPA2/AES. If you have a RADIUS server, go the 802.1X route. If you do not have a RADIUS server, use WPA2/AES with a strong PSK.

WPA2 supports Pre-authentication, which should minimize your roaming problems (provided all AP's support the same SSID with the same authentication/encryption).

Great information guys.

I will start converting the other 1142Ns tomorrow and then perform the test. What will you say are the main advantages to using these devices with the Controller? The way I will be deploying them will be by using a using where all the APs will be connecting to (wired).

Controller gives you centralized management, that's the main advantage. You haven't to configure manually each AP, update each AP's config if you make a change in the overall configuration. Also installing becomes simpler: once the AP can reach the controller, it downloads the configuration and is ready to operate.

I found the controller most useful if you wish to migrate to a new encryption key or create a new Wireless LAN spanning across many APs.

The controller then does give you lots of advantages. I read about it and it is just like you advised. Thank you for that info.

As for the deployment of the 1142N APs converted to Autonomous, I've configured only one so far and none of my laptops are able to see the SSID. Any help?

Disregard. I had not checked the "Broadcast SSID in Beacon" option.

I do have a concern though. I have 2 latops connected to this single AP. One that support abg which I am able to see it under the Radio0-802.11N2.4GHz interface. The second laptop supports N, and I see it under Radio1-802.11N5GHz. However, both laptops are connected at 54Mbps speeds. I was under the impression that my N laptop was going to connect at higher speed. Can you advise?

While 802.11b/g works only in the 2.4 GHz spectrum and 802.11a works only in the 5 GHz, 802.11N works on both he frequencies, so you could be connected to dotradio 0 or dotradio 1 interface.

As first try, i would disable the 5 Ghz radio: i've noticed, on a 1130 abg, that a couple of clients, with Cisco PCI wireless card, being in range, were used to connect with 802.11A , achieving a 18-24 Mbps link speed. Disabled the 802.11A, they connected with a link speed near 36-48 Mbit in the 2.4 GHz frequency.

I've used so far only AP with 802.11N 2.4 GHZ (also on ISR Routers) and the laptops were able to reach 200 Mbps, without any particular configuration (i use only CLI to configure).

As second option, you could raise the minimum speed rate allowed, above the 54 Mbps, but keep in mind that doing so, your abg laptop will be unable to connect since it can't transmit at those bit rates. This can be useful only to debugging/evaluate the AP's performances.

In the end, it's a design issue, however: do you want the best throughput or the best coverage?

Keep your "basic" rates set to: 1.0 , 2.0 , 5.5 , 11.0 Mb/sec, but make sure that all your other rates are "enabled". (both 802.11g rates and the MCS rates)The MCS rates will be the ones that give you throughput beyond the regular 802.11g rates.

You must have WMM enabled, and you must be using either open auth/no encryption or WPA2/AES in order to achieve full 802.11n speeds.

Getting Started

Find answers to your questions by entering keywords or phrases in the Search bar above. New here? Use these resources to familiarize yourself with the community: