9800-CL dayzerowireless loop

[Peter Boerjesson]

Sorry in advance about the length, but I though this might be useful for other people trying this code.

Ok, so I decided to put a new virtual 9800-CL into my litte lab. First of all, ESX 6.7, don't recommend trying that one, while booting mine got stuck in a PXE boot loop, dunno what that's about.

So I tried another ESX host I have running with 6.0 and after some fiddling around I got it running, first installtion got stuck at booting process on grub2, but my second atempt got passed that and I now have CLI access at least. So I did a few small configuration, setting IP address on Gig 2, gateway and ntp. I also removed "service config" which tries to download configuration files from a broadcast address which I don't understan why it's there by default.

Anyway, finally into the GUI and I got hit with a zerodaywireless config. A bit buggy, it didn't accept when I typed SE since it was an invalid country code, but low and behold, when I used the "+" sign and added "Sweeden" (nice typo there) it was "ok". Followed up with configuring another IP address (not sure why it's mandatory to configure my OOB) but I did it anyway since they required it. I tried creating an SSID (and ignoring that part) and the last past was some rf group and generating certificate for WLC so AP could join. Done with all of that, hit finish, WLC tells me I'll be logged out and give it a minute to apply the configuration. Meawhile I have the console up and you would not believe the amount of tracebacks that pops up there :).

So I logged in again and what hits me, the dayzerowireless config I just did... so, I redid the configuration again, and again, and again and again... you kind of get where I'm going here, I tried various alternatives but no matter what I do I can not get into the gui and to start and play around to learn it. My ESX host (an intel NUC, with 16GB of RAM 4 virtual core so I fulfill that requirement) only has one NIC, which means there's some sharing there, not sure if that causes a problem for me.

Anyway, a long shot from me, is there anyone who know of something I can type in the CLI that can get me pass that **bleep** zerodaywireless config I hit when I login with the GUI, it's driving me nuts. Any help at all will be appreciated, can't really go to Cisco TAC cause you know... no support on this one yet.

Br

//Peter

[Rasika Nayanajith]

Thanks for sharing your experience. It is useful to many others here...

Rasika

[Reuben Farrelly · Accepted solution]

I had the same problem (in fact, I had all of the same problems as you have had).

To get around the initial configuration, try setting the AP country in the CLI - let us know if that helps?

I'm finding the 9800 *very* buggy on the client-AP side.  The controller itself is mostly OK but the code it pushes to the AP's seems to be pretty rough still.

[Ric Beeching]

Thanks for the info; I'm also having issues with ESXi 6.7 on my NUC too. I can see the DHCP leases being offered by my server (a switch in this case) but the WLC is ignoring it and then producing a PXE boot error "PXE-E53: No boot filename received." After a few goes it says it "operating system not found" and repeats the process.

Have tried:

• Ensuring promiscuous mode is enabled on the vSwitch
• Converting to OVF
• A Trunk on vHost side with native VLAN on switch-side
• Different interface combos and NICs disabled/enabled

All same results. Guess I'll have to install ESXi 6.5 or wait it out. Good luck to everyone else :)

[Scott Fella]

I ran into the same issue and was told to use the iso for the install and if using ESXi, must be minimum v6.5. I was using the ova and was getting a hard disk not found. When I continued with the install, ran into the PXE loop then received an error stating no operating system.

Going to try the iso later today.

[Peter Boerjesson]

For my particular problem it got resolved by

"ap country SE"

As with AIR OS you will have to disable the radio first

"ap dot11 24ghz shutdown"

"ap dot11 5ghz shutdown"

Thanks you to Reuben for pointing my in the correct direction.

I do want to point out I used the ova file for my install and it is on an ESXi 6.0.0 installation so Cisco saying it needs to be 6.5 or newer is.... somewhat missleading. Finaly I'm happy I've been to lazy to upgrade my esxi host, think I'm gonna stay with the 3 I have on 6.0, 6.5 and 6.7, never know when you're going to need one.

[Scott Fella]

I think it’s more of what they tested and support. I hd it installed on ESXi 5.5 using the ISO but recently tried 6.7.

[Ric Beeching]

Nice one, Scott! I installed the ISO on ESXi 6.7 in 6.5 mode as per the virtual deployment guide:

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/wireless/controller/technotes/8-8/b_c9800_wireless_controller_virtual_dg.pdf

Ric

[Reuben Farrelly]

I did an OVA install with ESXi 6.7 using the new HTML interface in vCenter and the install worked fine.  The screenshots were slightly different but not significantly so, and it was pretty easy to work out what to do based on the existing installation guide.

[clarkvyborg]

I wanted to add some feedback and I haven't seen anyone talk about KVM so far.  I was able to get things running using the recommended Ubuntu 16.04 LTS build.  I ran into a ton of Linux bridging problems but once I was able to get an IP on the box things went better.  I also ran into the DayOne configuration but I found a guide which detailed how to bypass that from the CLI by setting my region.  The command was ap country US from config.   I am getting tracebacks on the console line but the Web GUI appears to be operating just fine.  The next hurdle was provisioning the cert for the APs to join and after digging I found another set of CLI commands.  I had to state my AP management interface from config wireless management interface g1.  Then from exec issue the following: wireless config vwlc-ssc key-size 2048 signature-algo sha256 password 0 test1234.  If you don't do this, APs won't join. 

Now I have an AP on the controller, I am broadcasting an SSID but I can't join clients.  I keep getting "Unable to process the received mobility message hand off" Received message concerning client that does not exist.

[jegan_rajappa]

Thanks clarkvyborg.

Finally my AP joined 9800 CL WLC after entering below command in WLC.

wireless config vwlc-ssc key-size 2048 signature-algo sha256 password 0 test1234

[Thomas Obbekaer Thomsen]

When I get to this point (after having bascially configured everything else) . and try to run the script.:  "wireless config vwlc-ssc key-size 2048 signature-algo sha256 password 0 test1234"

It just goes:

Configuring vWLC-SSC...

And then back to #

No cert is being generated or any other outout ... *sigh*

[clarkvyborg]

Did you make sure to pick your management interface with the following command (config)#wireless management interface vlan <your vlan here>

I got ahead of myself during an install and without that command the cert won't generate, also make sure your management VLAN is up/up and you can ping the gateway. 

[mlz_]

We also had this issue, but on the physical 9800 series controller. 

@Peter Boerjesson Your fix worked for us also - Thank you! 

[Maurizio Roggia]

Many thanks, this was very useful