Issue with Restoring Config on a WAP4410N overwriting MAC Address

[DylanBell]

We have deployed a dozen Cisco WAP4410N (V2) access points throughout the company ( all of which have been upgraded to the newest available firmware (2.0.6.1) & have imported a config from another AP).

All these Access Points have are running in a seperate subnet & have a DHCP reservation configured  (Windows Server 2008 R2 for dhcp / dns) & they get an address via dhcp relay (Cisco 880 series routers)

So far we have had several access points that change the MAC address on the Ethernet interface after every reboot! They tend to alternate between 2 VERY SIMILAR addresses (eg. A44C11EE89C4 &  A24C11EE89C5). The mac address reported on the web interface & printed on the label is the latter of the 2. Naturally this causes issues with setting a DHCP reservation.

After further inspection this appears to be the MAC address of the AP the config was originally saved from.

This issue seems to have been around for the past several firmware revisions.

[jeffrrod]

Dear Dylan,

Thank you for reaching Small Business Support Community.

Since you mentioned the running configuration being imported from another AP, I suggest you to first restore to factory conditions and then re-configure it manually.  Please try that out and let me know if there is any further assistance I may help you with. 

Kind regards,

Jeffrey Rodriguez S. .:|:.:|:.
Cisco Customer Support Engineer

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[DylanBell]

Hi Jeffrey,

You are correct in that it seems this error is caused by restoring a config. However, I wouldn't see that configuring them manually is an acceptable solution.

As this issue has been around for several firmware revisions & is easily reproducible I would naturally expect Cisco to at least attempt to fix the bug and integrate that into the next firmware revision??

I am honestly unsure as to why the exported configuration even contains the MAC address??

[Eric Moyers]

Hi, My name is Eric Moyers. I am a Network Support Engineer in the Cisco Small Business Support Center. Thank you for using the Cisco Community Post Forums.

Being the SME for the Support Center, I am intrigued by this. When you say that your not even sure why it is contained in the exported configuration, where are you seeing the that Ethernet and Wireless MAC addressed in the config file?

I am only seeing one in the config file that I have looked at.

;WAP4410N Configuration File - Version: 2.0.6.1

;MAC address: A4:93:4C:C2:B2:E8

This is the first two lines of the config file. With the ";" in the leading spot. It shows that the following statement is for informational purposes only.

Could you send me one of the config files that you have? I would love to try it here in my lab.

Thanks

Eric Moyers    .:|:.:|:.

Cisco Small Business US STAC Advanced Support Engineer

WIreless Subject Matter  Expert

CCNA, CCNA-Wireless

866-606-1866

Mon - Fri 09:00 - 18:00 (UTC - 05:00)

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[DylanBell]

Hi Eric,

I have uploaded the config over here: http://pastebin.com/XZMAVEvS

I can only see the one mac address listed in the config file, at the top.

On my end it appears that restarting the AP will result in the ethernet mac address toggling between the actual Ethernet mac address, as printed on the hardware label, and another mac address slightly similar to the WiFi Mac Address (i'm now not too sure it's pulling it from the config)

E.g for the AP I pulled the above config from.

The label on the box / device  & the web interface report the mac address as A2:4C:11:EE:89:C5

The Wifi MAC's are:

SSID1 MAC Address:          A4:4C:11:EE:89:C5

SSID2 MAC Address:          A6:4C:11:EE:89:C5

SSID3 MAC Address:          A2:4C:11:EE:89:C5

However, after every few reboots of the AP it will report its MAC address as: A4:4C:11:EE:89:C4

This seems to be slightly inconsistent. Sometimes it will swap after every reboot, othertimes it will take several (although toggling between static IP & dhcp usually seems to trigger the issue.)