The first thing we should know about Aruba Access Points its that they can work in different modes(depending on how you buy it)
- If you buy an Aruba Instant AP it can work as a stand alone AP or a controllerless solution which does not need a physical controller
- If you buy normal APs which are not Aruba Instant then the APS are thin APS and ahts what we are going to talk here.
What are thin APs?
Its an AP that contains a minimal configuration, most of the config is located on the controller.
To boot correctly the AP need a few things otherwise you wont be able to provision it. When i say provision i mean configure this thin AP.
Here is the requirements(be sure the AP got them all so it can successfully communicate with the controller)
- IP Address, DNS, Defauilt Gateway, network mask
- Controllers(IP or DNS Name)
Now how do we get the IP address and the controller address?
You can do it statically by setting it at the APBOOT with a console cable connected directly to the console port of the AP
Here is how you do it:
To set him the ip address:
1. setenv ipaddr
To set him the network mask
2. setenv netmask
To set him the Gateway
3. setenv gatewayip
4. setenv master
This command is to set from which controller he wil download the firmare if he needs to download, and also from which controller he will download the configuration
5. setenv serverip
After doing all this you need to save the config with this command:
6. saveenv
Now if you donig it dynamically
The process is like this:
- DHCP Request(he will get the IP address of the AP by DHCP and also he will try to get the master IP by DHCP if it configured with the option 43
- If not he will try to multicast by ADP(aruba Discovery protocol) to find the controller IP
- If not he will try to broadcast ADP to find the controller ip address
- if not he will try to send dns query to aruba-master to see if the dns server knows the ip of aruba-master
Example of AP Provisioning went you got the record of aruba-master on the DNS server and you are distributing DHCP on the port that you will connect the AP.
The first thing you need is to create the statically A record on your DNS server
Like this
Now with this entry the AP will be able to find the controller with the DNS
For example when you connect a AP to the network and the DHCP server send him the ip address, netmask, default gateway and DNS Server, he will ask the DNS server who is aruba-master and in this case the DNS will asnwer its 172.16.3.216
Go to the controllerand check the control plane security settings
A really easy way is that when you are provisioning just put autocert provisioning(just when you are provisioning)
after you done provisioning please uncheck the auto cert provisioning(thats just for security purpuse)
Okay now you connect the AP to the network
You will notice that the AP will reboot like twice. One to download and install the firmware on the AP and the second time to install the certificate.
After that you will see the AP on AP installation tab
As you see on this example the AP as name will have the mac address of it, and the default group he will be is on the default one
now you just need to provision it
You need to select it and click provisioning like this
After you click provision you need just to configure a few things like this
Select the ap group, select indoor if its an indoor AP
After that you just change the name and thats it!
Click Apply and Reboot
Well thats it, it will reboot and it will come up with the configuration
