Cisco WLC 9800 40X bulk Access point name changing.

[farisamrani]

i have a WLC 9800 40X with 520 Access point joined and i need to rename All the APs but i can not find a way to doing in bulk so please if there is a way share it.

[balaji.bandi]

Look at the thread may help you :

https://community.cisco.com/t5/wireless/bulk-import-ap-with-name/td-p/3999869

[Scott Fella]

That link will give you more info. Typically I would gather the MAC address or serial number. 

config ap name <new name> <old name, MAC address, serial number>

it would be easy if they inventoried the AP’s capturing this information and labeling it also. 

[Arshad Safrulla]

You have 2 options, via API calls or manually using a script.

If you are using a script, use "show ap summary" to grab all the existing AP names and details, then create a script using the below command

ap name <existing name> name <new name>

[jasonm002]

The 9800 still lacks feature parity with the AireOS WLC in that you cannot rename an AP from the CLI with only its ethernet MAC address - on AireOS this is possible.

Until they fix that, what I do is do "show ap uptime" and then parse out the AP name as it appears on the WLC, the ethernet MAC address, and use a spreadsheet that does an xlookup into a different sheet containing a table of the desired AP names and ethernet MAC addresses that I've scanned from the back of the APs, then I generate the rename commands "ap name <oldname> name <newname>" and paste them into the 9800 all at once.