topic Re: 9800 - Disable specific interface 2.4 or 5 GHz for set of APs in Wireless

9800 - Disable specific interface 2.4 or 5 GHz for set of APs

Martin Jelinek — Mon, 05 Jul 2021 20:23:40 GMT

Dear all,

Do you have any recommendation how to configure 9800 series to have possibility on certain APs to have one of the bands disabled? Let's say you want all APs at one location to be 5GHz only (therefore 2.4 to be disabled) apart of manually go to each and every AP and disable this band?

I played around with Custom RF Policy, but there you can either enable or disable this policy (Status = Enable / Disable), however if such policy e.g. for 2.4GHz is disabled, and you assign it in RF Tag, then on the AP level it looks as Admin Status = Enabled, Operational Status = Down.

But if you just disable 2.4 GHz interface directly on AP level you can see Admin Status = Disabled, Operational Status = Down.

Believe that important is Operational Status (Up / Down) and for this purpose Admin Status doesn't really matter.

However want to ask if there is better and consistent way to do so and achieve one interface is disabled on ALL APs with assigned RF Tag. I see only way, is to define custom RF policy, keep it disabled and map this policy within RF Tag. But then from view perspective it might be a bit misleading in 9800 WebUI.

Thanks

Martin

Re: 9800 - Disable specific interface 2.4 or 5 GHz for set of APs

balaji.bandi — Fri, 04 Jun 2021 11:30:05 GMT

Never tried only 1 frequency to enable for AP groups, i did some test on test environment it works for 1 or 2 AP for testing purpose.

but still, some legacy devices still need 2.4 so hard to get a chance to get rid of them.

if your environment clean with 5Gh may be try - maybe AP group with profile

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/wireless/catalyst-9800-series-wireless-controllers/guide-c07-743627.html

Re: 9800 - Disable specific interface 2.4 or 5 GHz for set of APs

Scott Fella — Fri, 04 Jun 2021 12:34:25 GMT

I have done this on AirOS when there was high density deployment and needed to only have a set number of aps using 2.4ghz as an example. You can do this with the 9800’s using custom RF tags. It’s not confusing as long as your tags and policy are named so it’s not confusing. Yes you will see radios down, because they are disabled, but it’s all about understanding what was done on that site and making sure others understand whom would have access or will be monitoring the wireless.

Re: 9800 - Disable specific interface 2.4 or 5 GHz for set of APs

Martin Jelinek — Mon, 07 Jun 2021 05:48:21 GMT

Hi Scott,

To be sure, therefore only reasonable solution is - creation of custom RF profile and keep it disabled. Then creation of dedicated RF Tag, where I link standard 5GHz and this custom 2.4GHz profile (disabled) and of course assign such RF Tag to the APs I want to be 5GHz only.

If so, that is exactly what I did as I could not think about other possibility and of course manual setting per AP is not a real option. However I've noticed mentioned difference about Admin status and that is what I mean is quite misleading (see below or attached picture).

CLI Output:

RF Tag with custom 2.4GHz policy which is disabled.

GRPSAFRANCC11#show ap dot11 24ghz summary
AP Name Mac Address Slot Admin State Oper State Width Txpwr Channel Mode
AP_Hostname 5c71.0d4a.6f00 0 Enabled Down 20 *1/8 (14 dBm) (1)* REAP

Interface 2,4 is manually disabled

GRPSAFRANCC11#show ap dot11 24ghz summary
AP Name Mac Address Slot Admin State Oper State Width Txpwr Channel Mode
AP_Hostname 5c71.0d4a.6f00 0 Disabled Down 20 *1/8 (14 dBm) (1)* REAP

But if this is just normal and rather cosmetic to realize...

Thanks.

Re: 9800 - Disable specific interface 2.4 or 5 GHz for set of APs

Martin Jelinek — Mon, 07 Jun 2021 08:30:27 GMT

Hi BB,

What AP group you are referring to to achieve certain interface e.g. 2.4GHz to be disabled on all APs in such AP Group? Please note that we are speaking about Catalyst 9800 wireless controllers. With 9800 we have just policies/profiles and Tags I would say (might be oversimplified).

Thanks

Martin

Re: 9800 - Disable specific interface 2.4 or 5 GHz for set of APs

innovative_elephant — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 00:14:12 GMT

Hey Martin, I haven't yet found a way to do this for a group of APs on the 9800's because of the switch to tags, but here's how to disable 2.4Ghz for 1 AP from the cmd line:

#ap name YOUR_AP_NAME dot11 24ghz shutdown (this will Admin down the interface)

and then check your results:

#sh ap dot11 24ghz summary

Re: 9800 - Disable specific interface 2.4 or 5 GHz for set of APs

Martin Jelinek — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 05:50:41 GMT

Hi innovative_elephant,

It's not about disabling 2.4GHz manually, that I can do as well. It's about policies to achieve this band to be disabled on all APs with assigned policy/Tag. This way it's more under control, more automated and easily maintained...rather to do this for each and every AP where we want 5GHz only.

So far I don't believe it can be done properly with assigned policies/Tags. Maybe next releases can do that, however that I can't test/confirmed as we have to be running 17.3.x release due to Wave#1 APs support.

Thank you

Martin

Re: 9800 - Disable specific interface 2.4 or 5 GHz for set of APs

Arshad Safrulla — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 06:04:46 GMT

Do you know that you can disable the Radios at WLAN level? If you already have SSID's working in both bands just create a duplicate SSID with a different WLAN ID and keep the radio turned off.

Keeping the 2.4 RF profile disabled also should work. What do you imply by it can be done properly with assigned policies/Tags?

Re: 9800 - Disable specific interface 2.4 or 5 GHz for set of APs

Martin Jelinek — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 06:30:08 GMT

Hi Arshadsaf

Most likely you are running higher release than 17.3.x as this possibility is not available for us.

Also this wouldn't make much sense as that would mean to create all SSIDs twice and then keep track which policies/tags have which SSID (if with disabled 2.4GHz or 5GHz,....) it would make this quite messy.

However this option seems to be at least some help, however not what I'm being missing at the moment. As basically I would expect all is achieved with RF policies where you define policies for each of the band and then you can keep one policy disabled and then merge them in RF Tag..this sounds as nice and pretty solution, but I doubt it works as I would expect.

Thanks

Re: 9800 - Disable specific interface 2.4 or 5 GHz for set of APs

Arshad Safrulla — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 07:48:46 GMT

It is perfectly possible to achieve this via RF policies as well. You will have 2 RF policies

ap dot11 24ghz rf-profile 2.4GHz-enabled

no shutdown

ap dot11 24ghz rf-profile 2.4GHz-disabled

shutdown

wireless tag rf RFTag-DualBand
24ghz-rf-policy 2.4GHz-enabled
5ghz-rf-policy 5GHz-enabled
!

wireless tag rf RFTag-5GHZOnly
24ghz-rf-policy 2.4GHz-dsiabled
5ghz-rf-policy 5GHz-enabled

ap AAAA.AAAA.AAAA
policy-tag policytag
rf-tag RFTag-DualBand
site-tag sitetag

ap BBBB.BBBB.BBBB
policy-tag policytag
rf-tag RFTag-5GHZOnly
site-tag sitetag

You can also use AP filter to automatically assign the RF tag to selected AP's

ap filter name XXXX

ap name-regex (condition)

tag rf RFTag-5GHZOnly

ap AAAA.AAAA.AAA
policy-tag policytag
rf-tag RFTag-5GHZOnly
site-tag sitetag

Re: 9800 - Disable specific interface 2.4 or 5 GHz for set of APs

Martin Jelinek — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 11:47:13 GMT

Yep, however as I noted I'm a bit worried about fact how are the results represented in such case.

If you use RF profiles, where 2.4GHz is disabled, then from AP point of view you can see on WLC:

Admin State = Enabled

Oper State = Down

If you manually disable on WLC that AP interface than you will see on WLC:

Admin State = Disabled

Oper State = Down

It might be just cosmetic or actually per design, however if I assign RF tag, which has a profile for 2.4GHz as disabled, I would expect to see also Admin State as Disabled and not "Enabled". Just kind of to be sure, it's really down, not operating, not trasmitting, not participating in anything in 2.4GHz band as is the case once you manually disable interface on certain AP via WLC (9800).

Hope it is understandable what I meant by above explanation 🙂

Thank you

Martin

Re: 9800 - Disable specific interface 2.4 or 5 GHz for set of APs

JustTakeTheFirstStep — Tue, 20 Sep 2022 07:43:44 GMT

@innovative_elephant

#ap name YOUR_AP_NAME dot11 24ghz shutdown (this will Admin down the interface)

What is the enable command?

Re: 9800 - Disable specific interface 2.4 or 5 GHz for set of APs

pwwiddicombe — Thu, 23 Feb 2023 18:27:59 GMT

I was asked to do this shutdown in a similar manner, and easy enough to do with a Python script.
ap name YOUR_AP_NAME dot11 24ghz shutdown
However, it seems the only way to "undo" the shutdown is to do it in the GUI, one-by-one ? All the potential logical commands to re-enable get refused, if the port is in shutdown state. (or I didn't look hard enough?)

shutdown normally has "no shutdown" to reverse it, but "no ap name YOUR_AP_NAME dot11 24ghz shutdown" or
"ap name YOUR_AP_NAME dot11 24ghz no shutdown" don't work.

Actually, there IS "ap name YOUR_AP no dot11 24 shutdown" but it replies with
% Error: 3453:3433:3333 AP slot :0 does not have a dedicated radio

Yeah, maybe because it was shutdown... ? Or maybe it's "ap name YOUR_AP no dot11 dual-band shutdown" (It was a 3802)

Re: 9800 - Disable specific interface 2.4 or 5 GHz for set of APs

Scott Fella — Fri, 24 Feb 2023 02:29:43 GMT

Have you tried the following commands? Keep in mind that ap that have dual-band radios, so you need to specify dot11 dual-band.

show ap slots
show ap dot11 dual-band summary

ap name <ap-name> dot11 dual-band slot 0 shutdown
ap name <ap-name> no dot11 dual-band shutdown

Re: 9800 - Disable specific interface 2.4 or 5 GHz for set of APs

JPavonM — Fri, 24 Feb 2023 10:12:51 GMT

This is not a cosmetic issue and that's the best way to unerstand what is happening to the 2.4GHz radio on that AP:

If the radio is "Admin State = Disabled" and "Oper State = Down" then I understand I have manually shutdown the interface.
If the radio is "Admin State = Enabled" and "Oper State = Down" then I understand that either I have disabled the RF profile or the RF profile assigned to the AP is mistyped (this is a problem you will have to check as there is no way to distinguish between one which is something wanted or the other which is something unwanted).

Re: 9800 - Disable specific interface 2.4 or 5 GHz for set of APs

No Cables on Me — Fri, 07 Jul 2023 05:02:51 GMT

Did you ever get a good explanation on ths, I read thru the all the replies and seem nobody understand what you are asking..

I have the same concern, I have to disable a few AP in areas where we don't need the 2.4, but but the RF profile seems like is just disabling the SSID being advertise but the 2.4 band is still being seen from a RF stand point.

Re: 9800 - Disable specific interface 2.4 or 5 GHz for set of APs

Martin Jelinek — Mon, 10 Jul 2023 05:33:48 GMT

Hi @No Cables on Me

Not really the one I would be happy about with. Still running 17.3.x release and behavior remains the same.

I had to deal with this "issue" as described previously with custom RF profile with needed band disabled, while still the interface status is a bit misleading which I convinced myself to be just "cosmetic" issue and not digging into it anyhow more.

Good luck 🙂

Re: 9800 - Disable specific interface 2.4 or 5 GHz for set of APs

klnnnnng — Fri, 14 Feb 2025 15:24:12 GMT

Thank you for your tips!

If you use RF Profiles or disable the 2.4GHz radio via CLI the AP 2.4 Radio still shows as "Down" in the Radios Dashlet (Dashboard). I personally hate seeing red things on my controller and try to keep it clean.

Unfortunately the only solution that I could successfully test is to create the needed SSID and PolicyProfiles twice, but depending on the count it can get very messy.

Re: 9800 - Disable specific interface 2.4 or 5 GHz for set of APs

Scott Fella — Fri, 14 Feb 2025 15:40:15 GMT

I never minded the red, because that showed me that I do have x amount of 2.4GHz radios disabled which is easy to track. I find it easier to script the configuration and send it to the cli. I use an excel spreadsheet with filters and builds the commands so I can just copy and paste and make changes fast. But that is me, the spreadsheet just help me track what is enabled and what is not and makes it helpful for others to know also.