topic Where is individual access point config saved ? in Wireless

Where is individual access point config saved ?

Khoa Pham — Sun, 04 Jul 2021 05:36:24 GMT

I have 50 WAP connected to a WLC 5508. When I backup the config I don't see the custom settings I put in some WAP. Where are the WAP settings saved at ?

Where is individual access point config saved ?

Leo Laohoo — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 00:03:14 GMT

NVRAM

Where is individual access point config saved ?

Amjad Abdullah — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 05:47:07 GMT

NVRAM saves the config of the access point. But why you want to backup from the AP itself if you are using a wireless controller? lightweight APs always take their config from the WLC when they join it.

or, you mean you save the config to the controller but you don't see the config you applyed to the AP reflected to the controller's configuration?

Please clarify your point.

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Where is individual access point config saved ?

Khoa Pham — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 15:57:24 GMT

I have 30 APs, each with individual name and settings (antenna power, RF power...). Some have static IP addresses

When I backup the WLC config I dont see those AP names and settings.

Where can I backup those name and settings ?

Where is individual access point config saved ?

George Stefanick — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 16:00:32 GMT

Great question. And I beleieve these are stored on the AP and not in the WLC. Because if the AP drops off the WLC, the WLC doesnt see it and it doesnt hold the aps info.

If you have WCS you can run a report, but that may not be what you want.

Where is individual access point config saved ?

Khoa Pham — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 16:03:08 GMT

I beleieve these are stored on the AP and not in the WLC. Because if the AP drops off the WLC, the WLC doesnt see it and it doesnt hold the aps info.

Is there a document about this ?

Where is individual access point config saved ?

George Stefanick — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 16:06:29 GMT

Not that I have seen. But if the APs are all connected to the WLC you can pull AP show runs.

Maybe Scott, Leo or Steve can comment.

Re: Where is individual access point config saved ?

aaroncoffman — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 03:09:16 GMT

I'm fairly confident in what George is saying is accurate. When migrating access points from one WLC with a single ap group (other than default) to another not in a mobility group the ap kept the same ap group (which was named the same) and wasn't placed into the default group.

Also if we take the capabilities of FlexConnect APs into account which can lose connectivity to the WLC as well as power to the APs themselves and they still continue to function without WLC connectivity. Something must be stored on the APs.

I don't know of any particular doc that explains in detail the function of how the APs maintain their configuration however I'd like to see it as well if it exists.

You may want to talk with your Cisco SE about that since its a feature related question.

Regards,

Aaron

Where is individual access point config saved ?

Leo Laohoo — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 17:39:58 GMT

My response is still the same. The config of the WAP, in LWAP/CAPWAP mode, is stored in NVRAM.

Re: Where is individual access point config saved ?

Scott Fella — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 22:35:19 GMT

I agree with everyone here.

There is no need to document this, because the WLC only stores the configuration it has (which you see in the backup) and the access point keeps its config in..... NVRAM. If you want to test it, console into your ap and log in. default is Cisco/Cisco unless you changed it. issue the following:

debug capwapp console cli

erase /all nvram:

undebug all

reload

Now your AP is factory dumb

Thanks,

Scott

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Re: Where is individual access point config saved ?

aaroncoffman — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 23:06:02 GMT

Khoa,

Telnet into your access point do a 'show run brief you'll see config of power levels etc. If you look in the nvram you'll also see several items. You don't have permission to view them from the lightweight software. One of them is likely the config file.

Also you do have Scott, leolaohoo and George in agreeance on this. They are all very knowledgeable of Cisco Wireless products.

Hope this helps to put your mind more at ease.

Happy Weekend!

Aaron

Re: Where is individual access point config saved ?

Khoa Pham — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 23:58:32 GMT

When I putty to the AP, I ran "show startup-config" , it says "startup-config is not present".

It gotta download the config somewhere

Also

AP33-Outdoor-Gate12#more private-config

%Error opening flash:private-config (Permission denied)

The reason I asked is I want to backup these config. With the way everyone here observed,Do I have to manually connect to each AP to backup? How is it possible with dynamic DHCP address APs ?

Re: Where is individual access point config saved ?

Scott Fella — Sat, 08 Sep 2012 00:01:52 GMT

They are stored in nvram and can't be backed up to be restored like an autonomous AP.

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Where is individual access point config saved ?

Leo Laohoo — Sat, 08 Sep 2012 03:23:14 GMT

The reason I asked is I want to backup these config.

You CANNOT backup the config of a lightweight WAP. This defeats the purpose of lightweight WAP.

The config of a lightweight WAP is controlled by the WLC. You may want to backup the config of the WLC instead.

Where is individual access point config saved ?

Amjad Abdullah — Sat, 08 Sep 2012 10:24:50 GMT

But Leo: taking the bacukp of the WLC does not include backup for the APs. Does it?

I think the AP will maintain its config so no need to take the backup of the AP.

The quesation is, if an AP configured for some specific settings (HA, static channel and power...etc) and it is moved later to join another WLC that has different WLANs, will the AP maintain same configuration that it had on the old WLC?

If the answer is "Yes" then the backup of the AP is not at all needed.

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Re: Where is individual access point config saved ?

Leo Laohoo — Sat, 08 Sep 2012 10:29:38 GMT

But Leo: taking the bacukp of the WLC does not include backup for the APs. Does it?

You've got a point and you are right. However, where did the WAP get the config? From the WLC, right? Now if you can't take a backup copy of the config from the WAP, you might as well get a backup copy of the config from the WLC.

The good part about this is that instead of having copies of config from ALL the WAPs, you only have a copy of all the WLC.

Now, note that the config of the LWAP is taken from the WLC. It may not be in the same syntax as an autonomous because the WLC "massages" the config and pushes the config to the WAP.

Re: Where is individual access point config saved ?

Scott Fella — Sat, 08 Sep 2012 12:54:49 GMT

Well if you have FlexConnect and your APs failover to another wlc that either doesn't have WLAN(s) defined or AP Group(s) defined, you loose your vlan mappings. Now this isn't a bug, but it's due to getting the configuration from the other wlc. The hostname and power should be kept, but you know there are instances that an ap can all of a sudden show up with the default name, default location, and back to dhcp. I have had this happen in the past, but having good documentation helps identifying the ap and putting the configuration back.

I use the CLI for a lot of the config and what I have in a spreadsheet is all the ap configurations CLI commands. That is my backup.

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Re: Where is individual access point config saved ?

Stephen Rodriguez — Sat, 08 Sep 2012 14:34:29 GMT

just to weigh in on this

The AP stores it's own config, granted in local mode all it really needs is the name/ip address of the WLC in the mobility group. If you set static IP, Channel, Power, this is also stored. The file system on the CAPWAP AP is protected, so that you can't get in and alter it. ALl changes are made via the WLC.

As for backing it up, there really is no need, as you can't restore it anyway. If you backup the WLC, that is enough. If you have to replace the WLC, reload the config, and all should be good.

As for FlexConnect, yes it does store it as well, and yes you lose your mappings if the WLC it joins does not have the same WLAN in the same order.

HTH,
Steve

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Where is individual access point config saved ?

Naveen Kumar — Sat, 13 Jul 2013 19:24:01 GMT

The config of the WAP is stored in NVRAM.

Where is individual access point config saved ?

tranminhc — Sun, 24 Nov 2013 07:24:07 GMT

Hi,

I have to config SNMP to manage each APs. But whenver AP reboot or power cut off, I lost SNMP configuration.

My question is how to keep some same configuration patterns to all AP on WLC?

Thanks you!