Airprovision Problem.

[walidake]

Hi,

We have  WLC 9800 with different APs connected to him, last night we upgraded it from 17.3.5 to 17.3.6 for some compatibility reasons with 9130axi to add some new APs, so far everything was good, but after the upgrade, several access points from the same location (about 50 Access point) didn't join the controller, they are diffusing SSID named 'Cisco1' 'Cisco2':

After some research, I found that one of the's APs is now the controller for the rest of the 50 ones that didn't join the original controller:

Does anyone out there have any tips, I hope someone can help me with this problem, which I think it's an air provision problem. Thank you.

[Mark Elsen]

 - Reboot a problematic AP , immediately after reboot login to it and issue the command show logging , look for anomalies from the boot process which is then still available in the output. Also check the logs on the controller when a none-working AP tries to join. Make sure the intended access points are still in CAPWAP (client) mode. Also  review the current 9800 WLC   configuration with the CLI command : show  tech   wireless , have the output analyzed by  https://cway.cisco.com/tools/WirelessAnalyzer/  , please note do not use classical show tech-support (short version) , use the command denoted in green for Wireless Analyzer.               Checkout all advisories!

[Arshad Safrulla · Accepted solution]

Looks like you had a EWC capable AP in the same broadcast domain of AP management. You have to make sure that at no point of time there are 2 WLC WMI's in the same VLAN, also if you have more than 100APs make sure that AP management is in a different VLAN, not in the same VLAN as WLC WMI. It is highly recommended that you prime the APs (configure primary and standby WLC WMI per AP). Using option 43 is also recommended.

In your case easiest option would be login to the new EWC WLC and go to Configuration>>Wireless>>Access Points

Select all the APs and click on convert to capwap. Or you can ssh to EWC and type (ap-type capwap)This will make sure that there are no EWC capable APs in your network (actually APs will not participate in EWC process) 

For other APs let it find the WLC via broadcast or you can use any other method like option 43 or DNS to advertise the WLC WMI.

[Rich R]

You can also disable EWC via option 43 remotely:

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/wireless/embedded-wireless-controller-catalyst-access-points/white-paper-c11-743398.html#Conversion

Converting EWCs to CAPWAP using option 43

DHCP option 43 is a vendor-specific option and is used for providing WLC IP addresses to the access point. Using option 43 with a specific subtype option, you can have the EWC convert to CAPWAP and join a WLC appliance or virtual controller. After the AP receives DHCP option 43 and subtype 0xF2 at bootup, the AP type will be converted to CAPWAP, and the AP will follow the regular joining process.

The DHCP configuration on the switch is shown below.

Switch(dhcp-config)#option 43 hex F2056464645801

Configure your option 43 then cycle all the EWC APs.  Then they should boot up as standard CAPWAP APs.  The other conversion methods are in that link too.