Same SSID At A Site Without A Controller?

[john.snock]

We have a 4404 controller here, and would like to set up a a small remote office with wireless using our controller. The issue is being able to keep the same SSID at the remote office as we have at the central office without having the latency of multiple hops for the remote office to get to it's local applications.

Are there any options that would let us use the same SSID but do central authentication and local switching? I've tried H-REAP, but it would not let us use the same SSID at both locations (we have to use the same SSID for policy\logistical reasons).

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[armonk_netdesk]

With autonomous AP you could use the same SSID

[jeromehenry_2]

Why would H-REAP not let you use the same SSID? It aims precisely at doing what you describe, connecting a small site without local controller with APs connected to a main office controller.

What exactly didn't work?

[john.snock]

I created a separate WALN for the remote office, and it came back with an error that it could not enable the WLAN because of the duplicate SSID.

If I don't create the remote office WLAN, it works but with multiple hops across the WAN, degrading performance for accessing local applications..

I thought H-REAP was the ticket, but we cannot get it to work. Cisco service requests have yielded nothing to this point.

[jeromehenry_2]

OK, I get it.

H-REAP is set to get its configuration from the controller, in connected mode, then survive a disconnection. If you just want to duplicate the connection without any connection to the controller, then autonomous mode is your friend. Setup the AP in autonomous mode and configure it to use the authentication mechanism you want... but it won't be linked to the controller.

[Scott Fella · Accepted solution]

John,

If you want to run H-REAP, the ssid you have running on the central site, just set that to local switching. You don't have to create any interfaces on the wlc. After you do that, go into the configuration of the remote ap you want to set to h-reap. Set the mode to H-REAP and apply, the ap will reboot. Once the ap comes back, you will get a tab (H-REAP). Click on that tab and set your native vlan and make sure the switch port the h-reap ap is connected to is set to trunk and native vlan x (which is your management.. vlan your ap ip address is on). Then hit apply and go to vlan mapping, here... your local switch ssids will show and you can set the local vlan on that ssid. The other ssid's if you have any will appear as centrally switched since you haven't enabled local switching.

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/tech/tk722/tk809/technologies_configuration_example09186a00807cc3b8.shtml

[john.snock]

fella5,

Thanks, that seems to have done the trick!

Also, thanks to all who took the time and made the effort to help. It is greatly appreciated.

[Scott Fella]

Glad to help!