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

[Martin Jelinek]

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

[balaji.bandi]

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

[Scott Fella]

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.

[Martin Jelinek]

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.

[Martin Jelinek]

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

[innovative_elephant]

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

[Martin Jelinek]

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

[Arshad Safrulla]

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?

[Martin Jelinek]

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

[Arshad Safrulla]

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

!

[Martin Jelinek]

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 

[JPavonM]

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).

[JustTakeTheFirstStep]

@innovative_elephant 

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

What is the enable command?

[pwwiddicombe]

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)

[Scott Fella]

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