Interface groups and AP groups

[Michele Toblini]

Hello everyone,

I am studying wireless and I am wondering which is the difference with this interface groups and AP groups.

For what I understand an AP group is to map to a single SSID (for example school) multiple VLANs (teacher, student).

So in AP1 I have just the VLAN student and in AP2 just teacher but both AP broadcast the same SSID school.

The interface group does the same thing reading the documentation.

What am I missing?

Thanks in advance.

Michele

[Sandeep Choudhary]

Hi,

You are correct ...its almost same... and confusing.

Interface Group: Interface groups are logical groups of interfaces. Interface groups facilitate user configuration where the same interface group can be configured on multiple WLANs or while overriding a WLAN interface per AP group. 

Example:

If the WLAN has an interface-group allocated to it but if the particular AP to which the client is associated to is part of an AP-Group which has a different interface mapping than the default interface mapping of the WLAN, then the AP-group's interface takes precedence.

Hope it helps.

Regards

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[Scott Fella]

Just to add... AP Groups allows you to specify one or up to 16 SSIDs mapped to any vlan or interface group. So for example, you have three schools and each wants their own guest SSID. You would have a main secure SSID for all three schools and then each school would have its own guest SSID. So you would have three AP Groups:

School 1:

Secure

Guest-1

School 2:

Secure

Guest-2

School 3:

Secure

Guest-3

Warehouse

If you look at school 3, that would have three SSID's. 

Interface groups is a single subnet or a bundle of subnets that you can use for a wlan or AP Group. AP Groups and Interface Groups are optional.

-Scott 

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[Michele Toblini]

Wait, can you clarify more about interface groups? because they look the same.

Thanks

[Scott Fella]

Interface Groups define one or multiple subnets in a bundle. 

AP Groups define the WLAN and vlan mapping along with RF Profiles.

-Scott 

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[Michele Toblini]

What happens with a client that connects to an SSID with a WLAN bounded to interface groups?

Which IP address he gets? randomic one?

Thanks for your help!

[Sandeep Choudhary]

Hi Michele,

Here is the detail link about how client will get and iP address:

https://learningnetwork.cisco.com/thread/65546

Regards

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[Scott Fella]

Like Sandeep mentioned before, either your clients would get IP address from different subnets in an interface group or if you use aaa override, you can specify the interface name. AAA Overide only works with 802.1x and the algorithm used by interface group subnet decisions is based on the client MAC address hash.

interface group feature helped you when your subnet size started to fill up. You were able to create another interface and bundle that new subnet with an existing so now instead on a single /24, you have two /24.  Now the mask can be whatever you want, but it allowed for growth without having to change much on the network side. 

-Scott 

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[Victoria Bishop]

Hello,

Can the subnets be varying in size or do they all have to be the same? For example, having a /16 and a /24 verses needing both to be /24.

Thank you, 

Victoria