Hi,
I recently tested the process for a customer of defaulting a Cisco WLC to factory configuration and then restoring the configuration from Cisco NCS. It was not seamless to say the least and I wonder if I have just gone about it the wrong way.
Have have set the NCS platform to configuration sync with the 5508 controllers at 04:00 every day and prior to the controller defaulting I ensured that NCS also reported that the config was in sync.
I have also set NCS to complete a tftp backup of the controller every night 23:00 - interestingly though I have no idea where this is stored on the NCS platform ( a VM appliance ) or what it's filename is.
Anyway my experiences where as follows:-
1. defaulted WLC and via serial CLI ended up at the configuration wizard.
2. Set the correct LAG, management IP, hostname that NCS knew this controller by.
3. To test things just created a dummy WLAN ( SSID ) as I assumed this would be overwritten ( big mistake ! ).
At this point I connected the controller to the network and tried to restore the configuration from the config sync version.
First problem - you have to remember to set up the SNMP community string you were using as it is needed by the configuration sync process. After adding this to the controller I could push the configuration to the controller.
Second problem - failed to add the first WLAN from the backup as I have added the temporary dummy WLAN via the wizard and NCS reported a conflict. So had to delete WLAN ID 1 from the WLC GUI directly and then the config push no longer reported this error.
Third problem - for some reason did not add the TACACS server details - reported the error that it could not added them. I manually added these via a template via NCS and all was well.
Fourth problem - all but the first WLAN was in the disabled state - had to re-enable all of the WLANs
Fifth problem - any default items I had disabled or removed have not been saved - therefore I have removed the public and private SNMP communities - but these were still on the WLC after the restore. I have disabled unused ports not in the LAG as they show an error in NCS - these where not disabled after the restore.
So all in all not a very satisfactory restore process from NCS to an defaulted WLC ( ment to simulate to the customer what would be needed if they had to replace a controller due to hardware failure ).
So - anybody like to comment on what I did wrong - is there a different / better way of achieving this ??
Regards
Robert
