AP Image Pre download

[MICHAEL SCHROEDER]

Hey Guys, if i download a new Image to the WLC and doe NOT reboot the Controller, when is the New - but not active Version - available for AP Image Predownload? Is it now - before rebooting - the active Image? Sorry, i dont have equipment here to test it...

Regards, Michael

[weterry · Accepted solution]

As soon as you install software to a WLC, it becomes the "primary image" to that WLC.

Even if you do not reboot, it will become available for predownload to the APs.

Check out this thread going on in another Mobility section in the Support Forums: https://supportforums.cisco.com/message/3502152#3502152

Basic concept is you install code to the wlc, push image to APs, then tell everyone to reboot on the new code at the same time.

[MICHAEL SCHROEDER]

Great, thanks!

[Vinay Sharma · Accepted solution]

Wesley,

Thanks for sharing information and collaborating with other CSC users. 5+

Vinay Sharma

Community Manager- Wireless

[Rene S.]

Hi, we would like to push it not to everybody on the same time, but at first to a test group so we can see how the APs behave... is there a possibility to do this?

thanks

kr

rena

[George Stefanick]

Yes of course. I do it in cli. Rather than to 'all' you can do by ap, with the ap name . 

[Rene S.]

Hi George,

thanks for the answer. What about robinwenham's comment? 

If I want to upgrade my WLAN infrastructure, I start by upgrading the WLC and to finish the upgrade process I have to reboot the WLC.. If I reboot it and the APs rejoin, won't they automatically download and install the new image??

[George Stefanick]

Correct. The purpose of the pre download is not to provide separate testing on the same controller, rather its there to limit the amount of downtown during upgrading. 

You would need a different controller running the code and joining those aps to that controller for testing ..

[Rene S.]

Ok thanks. Do you know how often the APs compare their image version with the one from WLC? because we have a wlc HA cluster, and if I reboot the primary, the APs should not rejoin, because the secondary takes over...

thanks
 

[robinwenham]

But won't the APs rejoin when the primary comes back up again?

Also - can you have a HA pair with different versions (unless you've de-HAd them)?

The APs compare their booting image with the WLC when they join the WLC - if they find the WLC has a different version (and they don't have it pre-downloaded) then they download that version from the WLC then reboot. If they have it already they make that the boot image and reboot.

Can cause havoc if you have an AP bouncing between controllers on different versions, particularly as I think the algorithm that chooses the WLC to connect to changed between versions.

[robinwenham]

Not sure that you can do that - how do you want to see how the APs behave?

The problem is the AP has to have the same version running as the controller: so you can push the upgrade out but the AP will not use it "live".

If you reboot the WLC then all the APs will have the upgrade version when they join back; if you don't reboot the WLC then the APs will still be running the old version despite having the new image ready to go.

[Rene S.]

the reason I am asking is: we need to update our WLC and we have APs in a few cities.. So before we upgrade all APs, we would like to upgrade just a few APs, which are in the citiy, in which I work and therefore have physical access to this APs... So if we see that the first few APs - for some reason- have issues with this firmware version, we would choose another firmware version for WLC... 

When I say "we would like to see how they behave"- then I mean we would like to upgrade the APs to which we have physical access to, first, and if everything works fine and if there won't be any bugs or other issues, then we would push the image to all the other APs.. 

Thanks for your help!

[George Stefanick]

While you can pre download to individual APS. You can't have APS joined to a wlc on mixed code. You would need a second controller and run your different code on that wlc .

[Rene S.]

Ok thanks. We have two 5508, but one of them is -HA SKU.. I guess I cannot break the HA config and use the secondary as an independent one, right?

[George Stefanick · Accepted solution]

I did a detailed blog post on this subject that you may find helpful ...

http://www.my80211.com/cisco-wlc-cli-commands/2011/2/20/wlc-predownload-the-image-to-the-access-points-from-the-cont.html