Automated WLAN Shutdown

[Mark Rigby]

Greetings, we operate a number of 2106 WLC's some of which are in training centres, we have been requested by one customer that the SSID used for the users in the training rooms is only enabled between the hours of 9am - 6pm Monday to Friday.

As such im trying to find an automated method of disabling said WLAN automatically outside of these hours including weekends.

Im aware that the commands:

config wlan disable "WLAN ID"

config wlan enable "WLAN ID"

Can be used to perform the required function but getting them to trigger at the appropriate time is proving more of a challenge.

Has anyone attempted something like this before, if so could you provide a few pointers on how to achieve it? SNMP Perhaps?

Regards

Mark Rigby

[Lucien Avramov]

With a WCS you can achieve this

[Mark Rigby]

Thank you for your response, unfortuntely we dont have access to intend to purchase WCS, do you think it would be somehow possible to reverse engineer the SNMP/HTTPS query which does this?

Regards

Mark Rigby

[Lucien Avramov]

As you said, WCS will not tell the manual steps to achieve as it will de

I know it's only SNMP based.

I suggest you to get WCS, get the eval license from www.cisco.com/go/license and download wcs from www.cisco.com/go/wcs (download software).

You could do packet captures on your WCS server to reverse engineer it.

This will involve to find out the snmp index for the WLAN you want to shutdown and then snmpset command to push the shutdown/ no shut for this vlan over snmp.

[dszendol]

Hello

I am looking for the same solution and I have NCS but I can not find how to do this.

There is no recurrent schedule  in controller configuration group. Maybe I am looking in wrong palce?

[Leo Laohoo]

Hi Mark,

You have two options:

1.  If the AP is connected to a Cisco PoE running 12.2(50) or later IOS then you can enable EnergyWise; or
2.  TCL or EEM.

http://forum.cisco.com/eforum/servlet/NetProf?page=netprof&forum=Network%20Infrastructure&topic=LAN%2C%20Switching%20and%20Routing&topicID=.ee71a04&fromOutline=&CommCmd=MB%3Fcmd%3Ddisplay_location%26location%3D.2cd464c4

[sebastiaannoppe · Accepted solution]

You can use Kiwi CatTools. Its a switch/router management software made for such purposes(timed script execution to take backups for instance). It

is free for up to 20 devices.

Just create a script that logs in using telnet/ssh and then execute the disable commands.

Create a second script with the enable commands

[Mark Rigby]

@ leolaohoo - Thank you for the suggestions, both excellent ideas, Energywise was considered but the AP's do support other WLAN's that need to stay up. TCL is definately on option but one that im currently not well versed on.

@ sebastiaannoppe - Thank you for the heads up, ive used Kiwi before for configuration maintainance, didnt pick up that you could schedule scipts with it.

Regards

[Leo Laohoo]

1. EEM allows for event-based scripting based on event detectors which are built in to IOS.  You cannot add new EDs.  However, you can use the timer ED to run a script periodically, and check for a custom event (e.g. run a show command and parse the output to see whether or not you need to take some kind of action).

 

EEM policies come in two forms: applet and Tcl script.  Applets are relatively simple EEM policies which are configured in the running config of the device (as such they are kept in NVRAM).  While EEM 3.0 offers some programmatic hooks for applets, the applet syntax is not a complete programming language.

 

That's where Tcl comes in.  Tcl policies are complete Tcl scripts with some EEM-specific proc calls which must live in the device's local flash.  Once registered, these scripts are copied to a private location in memory (for security reasons).  Tcl policies allow for a much more powerful interface into scripting IOS since they give you a complete programming language.  Everything you can do in an applet can be done in a Tcl script, but the inverse is not true.

 

Depending on your version of IOS, you can run the command "show event manager detector all" to get a list of all EDs supported by the given device.  The EEM homepage at http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps6815/products_ios_protocol_group_home.html is also a good starting point for documentation.

 

2. It depends.  If I am designing a custom command, I will tend to use a tclsh script.  However, if anything will require some event-based trigger, I will use EEM.  If I can get away with building an applet, I will.  Else, I will use EEM's Tcl.  In your example of configuring an ACL at a certain time, I would use EEM, and most likely an applet.  For example:

 

event manager applet mod-acl

event timer cron cron-entry "0 8 * * *"

action 1.0 cli command "enable"

action 2.0 cli command "config t"

action 3.0 cli command "no access-list 101"

action 4.0 cli command "access-list 101 permit tcp any 10.1.1.1 eq 80"

action 5.0 cli command "access-list 101 permit tcp 10.1.1.0 0.0.0.255 any"

action 6.0 cli command "access-list 101 permit tcp any any established"

action 7.0 cli command "access-list 101 deny ip any any log"

 

This policy will be triggered based on time.  It will run every day at 08:00 am.  The timer ED is very powerful.  It allows you to run scripts periodically, in a certain amount of time, or at a certain time.

 

3. EEM Tcl policies must be kept in local flash.  Tclsh scripts can be loaded from any URI which IOS supports (e.g. flash, tftp, http, scp, etc.).

Hi Mark,

TCL it is then.  A regular Cisco-employee, Joe Clarke, is the TCL guru in this forum.  Can you please re-post this on the Network Management section.  He trawls around there and he's bound to find it.  Put the word "TCL" around the title will help.

Check this out:
https://supportforums.cisco.com/thread/136272?tstart=21

Hope this helps.

[Mark Rigby]

Kiwi setup and working just fine now all i need is something that will take care of Christmas!

Regards