Broadcast Multiple SSID's?

[arpboy]

We are piloting 12.3(2)JA on a 350 and 1200 AP. I read somewhere that it may be capable of broadcasting multiple SSID's. Can anyone help me set that up, if possible?

We tried the information-element ssidl command, but it didn't seem to help; we can't see the second SSID we configured.

We have a library where several VLAN are available; however, the Microsoft client will always go for the broadcast, if it's configured. For some of our users moving among multiple entities, that's a real issue.

Thanks for any help.

-Richard

[paddyxdoyle]

I don't think you can broadcast more than 1 SSID at a time.

The guest-mode command is used to do this, and all clients that haven't been configured with a specific SSID will (as you have noticed) associate with the guest-mode SSID.

Why not turn off guest-mode on your AP and make your users manually enter SSID's based on the VLANs they need to access?

HTH

Paddy

[arpboy]

Because some of the drivers require it for smooth functioning with 802.1x. We've noticed that we sometimes have dropped connections, authentication problems, etc. That are only solved by tunring on the broadcast SSID. We also have to "play ball" with other entities, and allowing the multiple SSID's would address the issue for us.

[alinn]

Hello Richard,

Currently broadcasting 2 SSIDs is not supported on the Cisco Aironet APs yet, this feature is slated for sometime next year.

And like the previous reply stated that 'guest mode' is for the broadcasting of the ssid, so you may want to have all of your AP not broadcast your SSID. This way clients will not automatically associate with the broadcasted ssid, but it of course depends on your networks needs.

Regards,

Aaron

[arpboy]

Aaron:

Thank you for the information. I'm not crazy about the multiple SSIDs myself, but the Microsoft client doesn't probe for non-broadcast networks. We usually try to encourage using vendor-written clients, as they tend to obey the preferences of the user, but in some cases that's not possible.

Thanks again for your help.

[dixho]

If you use XP, please upgrade to SP2. The behavior of Microsoft supplicant changes; so that it does not give a higher preference on broadcast SSIDs over non-broadcast SSIDs.

[mike.harlow]

I read that one of the new features in 12.3 was multiple SSID broadcasts, but the client support for this extension (packet type?) wont be available until the next Windows SP (SP3?)