Enable Wireless through a Cisco 2702 AP to a Vonets Bridge

[edwardonelife]

We have a setup where wired IP Phones are connecting to the Wireless network using VONETS VAP11G-300 bridge. The Vonets bridge has an RJ45 link to the ip phone.

The Vonet bridge can successfully connect to Cisco 2702 APs WPA2-AES wireless network with a WLC2504 controller, but the ip phone doesn't connect to the network as it doesn't get an IP address.

Below is the setup, image attached.

IP-Phone <--rj45--> VONETSBridge <--wlan--> AP2702I <--lan--> WLC2504 <--lan--Switch

 

What settings need to be enabled on the WLC to allow traffic to traverse from the ip phone through the Vonet to the network?

[Flavio Miranda]

Hello,

 First of all, assuming you Cisco AP is correctly configured as bridge.

  Does your IP phone associate to the Wifi network and then doesn´t get an IP address or it doesn´t not associate to the wifi network at all? Bear in mind that this is a different process. 

 Does you phone should get IP on the same vlan as Vonet does? AP bridge allows for vlan mapping.

[edwardonelife]

See schematic for a better understanding of the setup

[Flavio Miranda]

Nice pic, but the questions remains.

 Does you Cisco AP is configured as bridge? Does your phone connects to the wifi network sucessfully but did not get IP address? etc.

[edwardonelife]

The Cisco AP is not in bridge mode, its the Vonets that does the bridging
The phone does not connect to the wifi, it connects to the Vonets using a
cable. The Vonets bridge successfully connects to the Wifi but the IP phone
that is behind the Vonets doesn't get an IP address.
If I connect the Vonets to a Dlink AP SSID, the Vonet and IP Phone connect
and each gets an IP address from the same subnet.

[Flavio Miranda]

Alright! 

 The way I see it, Cisco AP must be in bridge mode. 

  Vonets is a client of the Cisco AP BSSID and has its own mac address. Then, it use it to communicate on the network and get its own IP address from a DHCP server.

   IP phone also establish a layer 2 communication with Vonets and then try to get its own IP address. 

 If a new  DHCP requet gets to the Cisco AP with a new mac address as a source but on the same BSS ID, it may be confuse for the AP.

 As a bridge, it is expected that AP works like a portal and accept multiples Layer 2 communications through it.

[edwardonelife]

Is there a document that I can reference that shows that the Cisco AP
doesn't support the proposed setup/config?

[Flavio Miranda]

Maybe. I didn't find. I'm relying on my experience here. Cisco AP in local mode has a split mac address architecture. This means, it is totally limited and depends on the WLC to perform some task for layer2. I don't see how could it perform bridge service without a bridge configuration.

[Ric Beeching]

Agreed with Flavio, you would need to set this up as an Autonomous bridge which will permit multiple MAC addresses to connect behind the non-root. It depends on compatibility as well there.. your Vonets bridge might not connect and bridge the traffic to the Cisco Root so would need testing.

Ric