Configuring ports on AP3912

[Dave_Dicken]

So I'm trying to set up this new 3912 AP which is working fine as an AP. However, I'm trying to see what I can hang off of the ports (P1, P2, P3/POE) and having some difficulty. I manage this AP with v2110 controllers and apparently you have to add a WLAN to the port you desire to connect to. This seems odd since we're not talking WLANs any more since we connecting by cable, are we? I was able to get it working by selecting one of our existing WLANs. However, the functionality seems limited. What if I need the POE port to power a phone which is on a VLAN that is not on one of our existing WLANs?? (and why would a phone be on a WLAN??). ...or we also have a management VLAN that I'm not able to access from one of our existing WLANs. Do I have to add WLANs that include VLANs typically reserved for wired devices?

Is there any documentation that covers the 3912s?

Thanks,
Dave

[Richard_Hazlett]

I recently did this for our new deployment in some dorm rooms. I simply tagged the vlan I wanted on the physical port the AP was plugged into. We use 50,52 for our wireless and 20 for our AP management, so pvid of 20 and 15,50,52 tagged. In this case I have a VLAN 15 I created called "DormLAN."

Inside my wireless controllers I had to create a topology I called DormLAN (we use b@ap) and tagged it VLAN 15. Then I had to make a WLAN service and a Virtual Network of the same. I also added a DormLAN policy and then tied it all together and enable them. After that you assign the WLAN to p1, p2, or p3. p3 is the only POE port so if you were doing phones you could assign a WLAN service you'd spin up called "PhoneWAP" or something and only assign it to p3. Save yourself some time by setting them up on the default settings too. If you want something more detailed I can do that for you.

[Ronald_Dvorak]

You need to assign the WLAN service and the default topology of that service is used - here a example (I've manualy added a AP3912 as I don't own one yet).

looks like a multiple choice test.....

[Jeremy_Gibbs]

So, do you just assign a topology and a role to the wired port. I know .1x will come later.

[Ronald_Dvorak]

Hi Dave,

I don't have one yet to play around but I think I unterstand the concept so I'll try to explain it.

Let's not call it Access Point but a Point of Access for a wired clients in that case 🙂
You apply a (WLAN) service to the port and assign a role (policy/ACL) that this client will get.

A perfect example would be a home office deployment.
The home office employee will get the AP from the IT dept and connect it to his ISP connection.
That would allow the user to connect to the same SSID/Service in the home and in the office - with the same role (VLAN/ACL).
Now he'd also connect his IP phone to a port and you'd tunnel the traffic back to the HQ PBX.
Or connect another wired device i.e a printer or desktop PC.

It's just a extension of the wired network that is transported via the AP/controller tunnel... or bridge@AP if that role is set that way.

You are correct - if you attach a phone and like to put it in the PBX network you'd need to either route it or the role is set to the phone VLAN - if you don't have one yet you'd need to configure a new topology with that VLAN ID and a new (WLAN) service and role to put the client in that VLAN.

Right now you'd only do a static configuration but as far as I konw in the future 802.1X should be supported and you'd do a dynamic authentication (i.e. via ExtremeControl) to assign a different role.
That would allow that different devices that you connect to the same port could get a different role (VLAN/IP/ACL).

Another thing is that you'd use all the reporting functions that you've for wirless clients now for the wired clients that are conected via the ports... application visibility, fingerprinting, statistics.

I hope that was helpful.

BR,
Ron