Cisco 5508 wlc mesh SSID broadcasting?

[Alexander Knight]

Hello,

I'm experiencing a strange phenomenon in my environment. Users on Windows laptops seem to be attempting to connect to SSIDs they're seeing coming from an AP which is in bridge mode (and not broadcasting an SSID). I've confirmed nothing weird is happening where the bridge would be broadcasting SSIDs (standing right next to the bridge on a freshly imaged laptop and when I connect I go straight to a properly configured flexconnect AP).

There's no out of the box way in Windows to tell the OS that an access point isn't valid once it thinks that it is, so I'm reaching out to the community to see if anyone else has seen this before. My next troubleshooting step will be to put the bridges into autonomous mode if I can't find an answer.

The environment consists of a 5508 WLC HA pair, standard flexconnect environment for in-house wireless, and we've got a bridging pair connecting a couple of buildings. The affected PCs are Windows 7 and Windows 8

[Jeffrey Keown · Accepted solution]

Hi,

Are you sure the mesh ap isn't configured to advertise the wlans of concern?

Unless it's in an AP group with no wlans, it will advertise wlans 1-16 via its 2.4ghz interface (and 5ghz if 'mesh backhaul client access' is enabled).

here's a controller cli command to confirm (1550 is the AP name) ('site name' is the ap group)

(jk-4400-111) >show ap wlan 802.11b 1550

Site Name........................................ 1550
Site Description................................. <none>

WLAN ID          Interface          BSSID
-------         -----------        --------------------------
18              management           88:f0:77:b7:b2:20
19              management           88:f0:77:b7:b2:21

[Alexander Knight]

Ahaaa that makes sense - ok, that would make sense. Alright I've hauled the offending bridging APs into a separate group with no WLANs associated, will test with my affected users and see if we've got it resolved.

Thanks much.

[Jeffrey Keown]

you bet.  let me know if that doesn't do the trick for you.

[Alexander Knight]

Thanks again, that got us sorted out perfectly.

[Jeffrey Keown]

glad to help and hear that did the trick

have a great weekend