topic Re: Flexconnect groups in Wireless

Flexconnect groups

ciscoworlds — Mon, 05 Jul 2021 17:24:26 GMT

Hi;

We have some WLANs as below:

As you see WLAN ID 2 is in "Admin Status Disabled". This WLAN has been added to a Flexconnect Group named "Ankara":

I see SSID "Sekom" on my PC and connect to it successfully and get my IP address from vlan 90 despite that the WLAN ID 2 has been disabled (first figure). I found my PC MAC address on Clients page on WLC but the Detailed page on WLC showed I actually connected to the SSID: Sekom, Profile: sekom-ank which has WLAN ID of 101.

How is this possible?!

When I try to add an unknown WLAN ID to the flexconnect group, it shows me an error message stating that the specified WLAN is not available. Thus this shows that the WLAN ID numbers on the Wireless > Flexconnect Groups page is the same as WLAN ID numbers listed on the WLANs tab on WLC. Based on this fact, what is happening on my mentioned WLAN?!

regards.

Re: Flexconnect groups

Sathiyanarayanan Ravindran — Thu, 16 May 2019 13:53:27 GMT

Since the WLAN ID 2 and 101 is having same name so you are able to see the enabled WLAN 101. This is fine.

Lets come to the IP Address, Check on the AP Flex-connect TAB is there any Native VLAN is configured, If its enabled go to VLAN Mappings and check there for the WLAN ID 101 what is the VLAN mapped is it 90 or not ?

Re: Flexconnect groups

ciscoworlds — Thu, 16 May 2019 14:26:28 GMT

Hi;

Vlan 100 has been selected as Native VLAN on the Flexconnect tab on the AP:

I clicked on the VLAN Mappings button on the above page and this is the contents:

SSID:Sekom with ID of 101 has been assigned to vlan 90 as the screenshot shows. But Why the "Sekom" SSID which has Wlan ID of 2 has been shown on the Flexconnect Groups page instead of the actual "Sekom" SSID with the Wlan ID of 101 ?!! This is really confusing!

Re: Flexconnect groups

craig.beck — Thu, 16 May 2019 14:51:12 GMT

@ciscoworlds wrote:
But Why the "Sekom" SSID which has Wlan ID of 2 has been shown on the Flexconnect Groups page instead of the actual "Sekom" SSID with the Wlan ID of 101 ?!! This is really confusing!

It hasn't.

You have multiple WLAN profiles configured with the same SSID of "sekom". The FlexConnect WLAN-VLAN mappings show the WLAN ID and the SSID, but not the WLAN Profile. This is probably why it's confusing you.

Re: Flexconnect groups

Sathiyanarayanan Ravindran — Thu, 16 May 2019 14:53:04 GMT

Based on this configuration your getting the IP from the VLAN 90.

If the AP is mapped to Flex-connect AP group , But if the Flex-connect parameters on the AP is configured. It will prefer to go with Flex-connect parameters.

If you want to function only through flex-connect group, Disable the flex-connect parameters and then configure it on the Flex-connect AP groups.

Re: Flexconnect groups

Sathiyanarayanan Ravindran — Thu, 16 May 2019 15:38:18 GMT

Why you have some many SSIDs with same name and same authentication methods? Is it to provide services for different projects on different VLAN’s?

Re: Flexconnect groups

Some_Guy — Thu, 16 May 2019 20:13:55 GMT

@craig.beck wrote:

The FlexConnect WLAN-VLAN mappings show the WLAN ID and the SSID, but not the WLAN Profile. This is probably why it's confusing you.

Uh... OP's second screenshot clearly shows that it is showing "WLAN Id" and "WLAN Profile Name." And it shows one of them is "guest" but the first screenshot shows that "guest" is a WLAN profile name not an SSID. Perhaps you're talking about the AP-specific mappings? (OP's question that you replied to was about the group mappings though.)

I suspect what might be happening here is that OP needs to create an AP Group to restrict which WLANs appear on the AP. If you don't set a VLAN mapping, it just means there's no VLAN mapping. It doesn't mean the WLAN won't appear. If you don't want the WLAN to appear on the AP then you need an AP Group.

Re: Flexconnect groups

Some_Guy — Thu, 16 May 2019 20:41:14 GMT

@Sathiyanarayanan Ravindran wrote:

If the AP is mapped to Flex-connect AP group , But if the Flex-connect parameters on the AP is configured. It will prefer to go with Flex-connect parameters.
If you want to function only through flex-connect group, Disable the flex-connect parameters and then configure it on the Flex-connect AP groups.

Please be careful with the terminology. We are trying to clear up confusion here, not create more. "FlexConnect Group" and "AP Group" are two different things. There is no such thing as "FlexConnect AP group".

AP Group is for setting which WLANs appear on the APs. And also for setting which RF Profile will apply to the AP.

FlexConnect Group is for setting which wired VLANs the WLANs get connected to. But it does not control which WLANs appear. All WLANs will appear even if there is no VLAN mapping, unless there is an AP Group restricting them from appearing.

Re: Flexconnect groups

craig.beck — Thu, 16 May 2019 21:33:22 GMT

@Some_Guy wrote:
@craig.beck wrote:
The FlexConnect WLAN-VLAN mappings show the WLAN ID and the SSID, but not the WLAN Profile. This is probably why it's confusing you.
Uh... OP's second screenshot clearly shows that it is showing "WLAN Id" and "WLAN Profile Name." And it shows one of them is "guest" but the first screenshot shows that "guest" is a WLAN profile name not an SSID. Perhaps you're talking about the AP-specific mappings? (OP's question that you replied to was about the group mappings though.)
I suspect what might be happening here is that OP needs to create an AP Group to restrict which WLANs appear on the AP. If you don't set a VLAN mapping, it just means there's no VLAN mapping. It doesn't mean the WLAN won't appear. If you don't want the WLAN to appear on the AP then you need an AP Group.

I was referring to the screenshots in the post I quoted. It seems to me that the OP is looking in two different places and assuming that they do the same thing. AP mappings and group mappings are not the same.

Re: Flexconnect groups

ciscoworlds — Mon, 20 May 2019 07:38:38 GMT

I haven't configured the WLC but use it for learning purpose. I got confused when I saw a wrong WLAN ID listed on Flexconnect group page. As you may noticed from the screenshots, WLAN ID of 2 is listed on the flexconnect page, despite that on the WLANs page of the WLC, WLAN ID of 2 refers to a different WLAN which also has been administratively disabled. When I searched my PC, I found that I connected to the "Sekom" SSID which its profile name is "Sekom-Ank" which proved thet the WLAN ID listed on the flexconnect group page is incorrect. This would be a bug or an exemption of something, I don't know but it's really confusing.

Although I got many answers to my question here & I'm really thankful to the friends who tried to participate in the discussion on the forum, but none of the answers helped me to clear what is going on and why this inconsistency happened at the first place.

Re: Flexconnect groups

ciscoworlds — Mon, 20 May 2019 10:49:17 GMT

Hi @Sathiyanarayanan Ravindran

Although I haven't configured the WLC, but I think they wanted everyone visited various locations (branches) see the same SSID everywhere and connect to that SSID.

Re: Flexconnect groups

Sathiyanarayanan Ravindran — Mon, 20 May 2019 11:33:32 GMT

Single SSID would be enough for providing services to all the locations . Only thing is you have to allow the SSID in all the AP groups.