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Cisco WAP371 Setup

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coxhaus

Part of the Furniture
I received my new old Cisco WAP371 wireless access point. I have setup it up to only use radio 1, 5GHz.
I decided to try captive portal for a guest user. I have it setup to authenticate guess users. I did not want to create user groups which would add additional logons so I just set it up for guest users. How can I modify the default captive portal display page to read my policy without using a web page? I get a page from some where.
My other problem is if I am using cluster mode with multiple wireless units will the captive portal authenticate roam? If someone walks around I do not want the captive portal page to pop up every time someone switches wireless units.

Does anybody have experience with these units?

PS
I am using the latest firmware 1.3.0.6
 
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Turns out the WAP371 wireless units need more POE power to run than my old WAP321 units. I have ordered a Cisco SG300-10MPP switch to power the WAP371 units.

I have a new plan to try using both 2.4 and 5 GHz and use band steering to see if I can get the WAP371 units to handle FaceTime calls without dropping the calls when roaming between APs. This of course is using multiple VLANs where one VLAN is a guest using my layer 3 switch setup posted here a couple of years ago.
 
I have power to run both radios now. I was thinking of trying band steering using both 2.4GHz and 5GHz. I found this on the Cisco's web help down below. It sounds like you can not use FaceTime calls with band steering. Am I wasting my time trying set it up? Is band steering a bad idea?

 • Band Steer—Enables band steer when both the radios are up. It effectively utilizes the 5-GHz band by steering dual-band supported clients from the 2.4-GHz band to the 5-GHz band.

 – It is configured on a per-VAP basis and needs to be enabled on both the radios.

 – It is not encouraged on VAPs with time-sensitive voice or video traffic.

 – It does not consider the n-bandwidth of the radio. Even if the 5-GHz radio happens to use 20 MHz bandwidth, it tries to steer clients to that radio.

5. Click Save. The changes are saved to the Startup Configuration.
 
For your needs - I would suggest against Band Steering - esp. since you've built out your 5GHz with the 371 and your other AP's.
 
I guess I will stay with 5GHz only. I was thinking of letting the guest network run on 2.4GHz with band steering. I think 2.4GHz would end up too close any way. Using clustering I am thinking I won't be able to turn off the center 2.4GHz radio. I think the clustering software requires all WAP371 to be configured alike.

Now that I have POE+ power for the WAP371 it is a little snappier painting web pages using 5GHz than running the WAP371 with POE power using my laptop.
 
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I have my new Cisco WAP371 cluster working. It has more features than the old WAP321 units. The WAP371 cluster has one unit as a controller. From this controller you can download new firmware to other WAP371 units. Setting up secondary units is still as easy as just logging into a new WAP371 unit and telling it to cluster. All done. Very simple.

I saw some error messages on the WAP371 controller when I had the old WAP321 cluster running at the same time so there may be something going on running both.
 
I had my WAP371 cluster controller go down. The other WAP371 took over duties. I noticed on Cisco's Findit software my cluster was being hosted by the other WAP371 as there was 2 entries in Findit for my cluster name one being red. When designated cluster controller WAP371 came back up it took over duties again and the other entry went red. They swapped on the Findit software.

I guess you have automatic cluster backup in Cisco's WAP371 wireless units.
 
We had a bad thunder storm which tripped my power conditioner for my entertainment center over night while I was sleeping. I turned it on the next morning.
 
Hey folks; I noticed discussions on the Wap371 and had a question. We have four Wap371 devices on our network and for some reason, I am unable to get clustering to work in firmware 1.3.0.6. If I go back to 1.2.0.3, it works fine. Just curious what version of the firmware you are using for clustering?

Thanks
 
I am clustering with 1.3.0.6. I upgraded all the WAP371 firmware then I built the cluster. So maybe you need to do a factory reset and then rebuild the cluster or just rebuild the cluster.
 
Really, I tried upgrading individually to 1306 but still wouldn’t work kept getting weird error messages and you wouldn’t see all four devices under the cluster. Hmmm. Ok thanks so much. Do you suggest a factory reset thru the UI or doing it through reset button on the actual device..?
 
I don't have the answer but I would do reset using the button on all devices. Then build the cluster.

I ran my old WAP321 cluster as I switching over and I saw some weird error messages while the old cluster was running. Once I turned off the old cluster the error messages went away. I may have duplicated something in the cluster. I really did not look for the issue as I was turning off the old cluster.

PS
I guess you are running POE+ power? The WAP371 requires more power than POE power. I had to buy a Cisco SG300-10MPP switch to power the WAP371 units.
 
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I guess you are running POE+ power? The WAP371 requires more power than POE power. I had to buy a Cisco SG300-10MPP switch to power the WAP371 units.

This is a very good point - as many sites might be retrofitting with newer AP's, one has to consider the injectors and available power.
 
I have my third Cisco WAP371 wireless AP. I put the latest firmware on. I forgot about using the controller to update the firmware. I did it the old fashion way. I really wanted to try the new way using the controller to install the firmware.

It is clustered now and I am going to give it a good test.

I am only using 5GHz. I cannot figure out a way to turn on and off radios independently of the clustering so I cannot randomly turn one 2.4GHz radio on. It is all on or off on the whole cluster.
 
Hey folks; I noticed discussions on the Wap371 and had a question. We have four Wap371 devices on our network and for some reason, I am unable to get clustering to work in firmware 1.3.0.6. If I go back to 1.2.0.3, it works fine. Just curious what version of the firmware you are using for clustering?

Thanks

Turns out Cisco is saying there is a problem with a lot of WAP371 units clustering using the latest firmware 1.3.0.6. They are recommending to drop back 1 firmware level. My clustering is working fine with 2 WAP371 units and the latest firmware. It could still be a power problem. Cisco is working on it. I am going to stay with the latest firmware since I am having no problems.
 
So I finally was able to get my hands on a Cisco SG300-52MP POE+ switch and plugged all my AP’s in and immediately, all my issues with roaming disappeared. For months I’ve been trying to play with the WAP371 settings to get roaming working but nothing I did or nothing that Cisco recommended worked. I was told by Cisco support that I would need to look at controller based AP’s for roaming to work well. But the issue was not with the WAP371 devices per say, but with the power required to run them. Absolutely need POE+ for them to work properly. I tried this as my last resort after reading your post above regarding your purchase of the SG300-10MPP. Anyhow, just thought I would pass that along.
 
Yes I had weird problems when I tried to use my WAP371 units with old POE power. Once I started using my SG300-10MPP which supports POE+ power all my problems went away also. Maybe we have figured out the secret for the WAP371 wireless units.
 

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