Catalyst 9800-L Wireless Controller in HA Switching Test

[Electronic20]

Hi Community,

There are 2 C9800-L WLCs in HA and it is configured like this:

You want to perform a failover test, that is, disconnect the Primary WLC and see that the Backup WLC works correctly.

What would be the most appropriate way to perform the switchover:

Turn off the main WLC?

or

Disconnect all the network cables from the main WLC so that it is not connected to the NETWORK without having to turn it off?

regards

Electronic20

[Leo Laohoo]

Two options:  

1.  Turn off the active controller; or

2.  Console into the active controller and enter the command "test crash"

[Electronic20]

Hi @Leo Laohoo 

Regarding option 2, what does the "test crash" command do, does it shut down the main WLC via console?

[Leo Laohoo]

---

@Electronic20 wrote:
what does the "test crash" command do, does it shut down the main WLC via console?

---

Gives a list of options what kind of "crash" the platform can perform.  

The command "test crash" is hidden and can only be invoked via the console port. 

[Electronic20]

Hi @Leo Laohoo 

The option of disconnecting all your network cable from the main WLC, wouldn't it be a good switching option? even though it would no longer be in NETWORK?

[Haydn Andrews]

I generally perform the failover test based on fail senarios so I have tests against all of them

1. Physically power off primary

2. Pull cables out of primary

3. If RP going via switch infra then kill that

4. Kill uplink switch

5. etc

Just remember that you need to fail back to the primary post each test

[Mark Elsen]

  - In the real world a controller failure will not correspond to disconnecting power cables ; turn it off to simulate a failure. Below are a number of useful commands for querying HA states 

show redundancy | i ptime|Location|Current Software state|Switchovers
show chassis
show chassis detail
show chassis ha-status local
show chassis ha-status active
show chassis ha-status standby
show chassis rmi
show redundancy
show redundancy history
show redundancy switchover history
show tech wireless redundancy
show redundancy states

 If you expect HA to be up and running the verify with:
                   9800# test wireless redundancy rping

M.