Mesh and Flexconnect with WLC5508

[Patrick Werner]

Hi Community.

A customer have a bad coverage in a corner of his branch office. He like to add a mesh AP (MAP) in the near of that corner.

I checked allready the documention about Mesh but i'm not sure if Flexconnect and Mesh works togheter. This MAP is in a branch office and the WLC is in the head quarter therefore he likes to uses Flexconnect togheter with Mesh.

Best regards Patrick

[Scott Fella]

You need to have one ap setup as a rap for the map to connect.

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[Scott Fella]

So what you should look at is using a WGB. The RAP needs to be tunneled back to the WLC so it's a different design per say.

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[Patrick Werner]

Oaky, and if the AP is setup as RAP than other wireless clients cant connect to that AP anymore ?

I have to do Ethernet Bridging and give the Bridge Group a name, right? Set that on the MAP and the RAP.

I have to set the port on the switch where the RAP is connected to a trunk port, so all 3 WLANs (VLAN) can reach the switch over Wireless.

But how do i forward these 3 WLAN (VLAN) from the MAP to the RAP and finaly to the switch.

[Scott Fella]

So RAPs are connected to an access port used you are doing Ethernet bridging which a device is connected to the Ethernet port of the MAP. Traffic is tunnels back to the WLC like a local mode AP. clients can't connect to the 2.4ghz radio and you can allow client backhaul access on the 5ghz if you want. I typically don't though.

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[Patrick Werner]

No there is no client connected to the MAP ethernet Port, only wireless clients are connected to the MAP.

Other wireless vendor calling that a repeater. We have just to extend the wireless coverage in a bad corner.

But the clients of the branch office needs a local internet break out, so Flexconnect is a must.

[Scott Fella · Accepted solution]

Repeaters will not connect to a lightweight network.

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[Patrick Werner]

So is there no solution to increase the wireless coverage ?

[Scott Fella]

I don't really understand what you want to do... Cable to the areas and adding an ap is the best way. If you have a rap and a map and you still want to extend coverage, add another map. That is the only way I can think of with the info you have provided.

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[Patrick Werner]

Imagine that there is a corner in a buiulding with bad wireless coverage. And imagine that you can't add a network wire to that place. How do i extend the wireless coverage to the corner without a network cable ?

[Saravanan Lakshmanan]

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/wireless/controller/7.2/configuration/guide/cg_mesh.html

Both, local and flexconnect modes are support in MAP using ethernet bridging. This traffic can be from wired devices that are being bridged by the wireless mesh or CAPWAP traffic from the mesh access points.

[psantorsola]

I know this is an old topic but version 8.0.100.0 was just released and it supports an AP mode called Flex+Bridge which does what you're asking for. We tried it and it seems to be working fine so far.