topic Re: EWC (C9120) questions in Wireless

EWC (C9120) questions

Dominic Stalder — Fri, 06 Oct 2023 04:41:29 GMT

Dear community

I am somewhere, that internet access is limited and I try to setup a small WiFi for a hospital. I wanted to use a C9120 as EWC + AP and some Aironet 1832 as APs.

I converted the C9120 to EWC 17.3.6 but as soon as the EWC boots up, the L3 connection is lost. I am not able to access the EWC w/o serial console.

1. somewhere I read, that an active internet connection is needed, to setup the EWC, is that true? I don‘t think so.

2. Can I somehow upgrade the EWC (offline) to another version?

Thanks in advance

dominic

Re: EWC (C9120) questions

Mark Elsen — Fri, 06 Oct 2023 06:57:48 GMT

- You don't need an active internet connection for the EWC . Concerning upgrading , what do you mean by an offline upgrade ?

Re: EWC (C9120) questions

Dominic Stalder — Fri, 06 Oct 2023 09:17:51 GMT

Hi M

thanks for the confirmation, that no internet access is needed. Then it is a specific problem of 17.3.6, that the EWC is not able to connect to the network.

I want to try another EWC version, but because I have no L3 access to the EWC, I am not able to up-/downgrade it via TFTP or something similar.

Regards

Dominic

Re: EWC (C9120) questions

Mark Elsen — Fri, 06 Oct 2023 09:35:01 GMT

>... Then it is a specific problem of 17.3.6, that the EWC is not able to connect to the network.
- Negative this does never happen, provided correct network parameters such as address and netmask are provided during first installation. Now if we talk about out of the box installation(s) , look at
https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/wireless/embedded-wireless-controller-catalyst-access-points/white-paper-c11-743398.html

In that case the EWC can get an (initial) address trough DHCP (too) ,

Re: EWC (C9120) questions

Dominic Stalder — Fri, 06 Oct 2023 09:43:21 GMT

I can confirm, that it IS a problem; the EWC gets an IP address from DHCP server (192.168.1.1) but it can not reach it:

WLC#show ip int brief
Interface IP-Address OK? Method Status Protocol
GigabitEthernet0 192.168.1.14 YES DHCP up up
WLC#ping 192.168.1.1
Type escape sequence to abort.
Sending 5, 100-byte ICMP Echos to 192.168.1.1, timeout is 2 seconds:
.....
Success rate is 0 percent (0/5)

Re: EWC (C9120) questions

Mark Elsen — Fri, 06 Oct 2023 09:52:27 GMT

- Where are you trying to reach it from ? Is the particular device on the same subnet as the EWC AP ? If not do you have a routable-path to the EWC AP (subnet) ? If it is remote , are there any firewalling or remote access restrictions ?

Re: EWC (C9120) questions

Dominic Stalder — Fri, 06 Oct 2023 12:19:00 GMT

Very simple setup: I have a switch with a mgmt IP address in VLAN 1 and a client also in VLAN 1 on the same layer 2 domain.

I can ping:

client > switch mgmt

switch > client

But I can never ping the EWC from the client or the switch and I can never ping from the EWC to the client or the switch.

Re: EWC (C9120) questions

Mark Elsen — Fri, 06 Oct 2023 12:33:42 GMT

- What address is the client using ? Is the EWC and the client in the same
VLAN ?

M.

Re: EWC (C9120) questions

Dominic Stalder — Fri, 06 Oct 2023 12:37:01 GMT

Hi M.

I was finally able to get it to work with EWC 17.9.4 and configure the ip address statically configured:

interface GigabitEthernet0
mac-address 0000.1111.2222
ip address 192.168.1.10 255.255.255.0
no negotiation auto

Thanks for the help anyway.

Regards

Dominic

Re: EWC (C9120) questions

Mark Elsen — Fri, 06 Oct 2023 12:40:42 GMT

- Good work !

M.

Re: EWC (C9120) questions

Rich R — Fri, 06 Oct 2023 14:25:26 GMT

Glad to hear you got it working - good choice to upgrade - 17.3 is almost end of life.
For future always check the TAC recommended releases - link below.