Cisco 9800 WLC questions

[cisco8887]

Hi

Few questions chaps:

Can you setup 9800 with RP only without the SP port? Essentially inband managent based on SVI vlan.

What do you say is key diffrence between SP and mgt port on 9800 vs 5520 ?

can you access primary and secondary based on IP assigned to SVI ?

In 5520 you can't access secondary wlc direct.

as far as I know 5520 mgt was layer 2

[balaji.bandi]

Can you setup 9800 with RP only without the SP port? Essentially inband managent based on SVI vlan.

yes possible as per i know.

What do you say is key diffrence between SP and mgt port on 9800 vs 5520 ?

same Service port is OOB manangment.

can you access primary and secondary based on IP assigned to SVI ?

yes you can access, but it limited.

[marce1000]

                                  >...Can you setup 9800 with RP only without the SP port? 
 - On  the 9800 platform the RP is used for 'redundancy detection'' only , you always need the SP for managing the controller(s)
 Appendix : when working on your controller and getting it ready  (e.g)  start reviewing it's configuration with the CLI command : show  tech   wireless , have the output analyzed by  https://cway.cisco.com/tools/WirelessAnalyzer/  , please note do not use classical show tech-support (short version) , use the command denoted in green for Wireless Analyzer.               Checkout all advisories!

 M.

[cisco8887]

thank, I believe you can still use Mgt interface of management vlan and not use SP , right ? sort of like air os

[eglinsky2012]

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@cisco8887 wrote:

thank, I believe you can still use Mgt interface of management vlan and not use SP , right ? sort of like air os

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Yes, that's what I meant.

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@cisco8887 wrote:

RMI is RP on 9800 ?

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No. The guide Marce linked to will explain what's what. Here's Cisco's guide: https://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/td/docs/wireless/controller/9800/17-6/deployment-guide/c9800-ha-sso-deployment-guide-rel-17-6.pdf

[eglinsky2012]

> can you access primary and secondary based on IP assigned to SVI ?

For service ports, no. The service port is "GigabitEthernet 0" in the config. This only applies to the active unit in an HA relationship. Whichever unit is active has the IP you give the SP. This is different from AireOS.

This drove my decision to not use the service ports on the 9800s. We just access them by the management IP, the shared IP on the active unit in the management VLAN (like AireOS). If that doesn't work for some reason, we can access each unit individually by its RMI IP (which is in the same VLAN and subnet as the shared management IP). If all else fails, we have console servers, so I can access console CLI remotely. We don't have a dedicated out-of-band network. Also, our new wireless distribution switches will be fiber only (service ports are copper).

This applies to 9800-80 on 17.6.3, not sure about other hardware or software versions.

[cisco8887]

RMI is RP on 9800 ?

[marce1000]

 - FYI : https://howiwifi.com/2021/01/17/cisco-9800-rmirp-high-availability-best-practice-configuration/#:~:text=RP%20refers%20to%20the%20physical,the%20uplinks%20of%20each%20controller.

 M.

[Arshad Safrulla]

Can you setup 9800 with RP only without the SP port? Essentially inband managent based on SVI vlan. - RP is not related to the management plane of the switch, it's the redundancy port. It is perfectly ok to use an SVI for management. You can always accommodate what your design demands, just because WLC has a dedicated SP (Gig0) it doesn't mean you have to use it.

What do you say is key diffrence between SP and mgt port on 9800 vs 5520 ? In 9800, as someone else explained only the active WLC can be accessed via the dedicated management port (SP Gig0), but why you need to access the standby device? I personally don't believe once the HA is built you need to access the redundant unit as you can see all the redundancy related info from the active WLC cli or GUI as needed. You can even see redundant device harddisk/flash usage from active WLC cli which was not the case in 5520. Management port capabilities in 9800, changes depending on the code you are running, so to get the exact capabilities read the release notes and it is very well documented. Always remember 9800 and 5520 are 2 different platforms and 9800 is running IOS-XE and 5520 is running AIREOS, so what ever the best practices in 5520 is not ALWAYS valid in 9800. In 5520 SP was used to access during upgrade or tshoot scenarios mostly, but in 9800 due to way IOS-XE behaves it is not mandatory. 

can you access primary and secondary based on IP assigned to SVI ? I haven't tried accessing the WLC via the secondary IP, but what is the use case here. Why you want to use the secondary IP. It is always recommended to use the same VLAN as WMI for RMI+RP HA, so your secondary IP is mostly going to be from the same VLAN as your WMI. Technically you should be able to access it, but I don't see any use case for this scenario in production.

Again, if you have 9800 design your network according to the capabilities of 9800 and most importantly to address your requirements, I would highly recommend you to avoid comparing it with 5520 or any other AIREOS platform as this could lead to bad decisions.