Mobility Express APs don't boot without external DHCP server

[Arne Bier]

Hello

I am very new to Mobility Express. I got quite far in setting it up, but I think I missed an important step ...

I have two 4800's running AIR-AP4800-K9-ME-8-8-130-0.tar and they were working perfectly when they were connected to the same switch in the office which also had a DHCP server running.  I have sent these two APs to a remote location for an AP Survey-On-A-Stick. The engineer on site connected the APs to the power brick (no switch, no DHCP server) and the APs are just blinking - waiting for an IP. 

I have a feeling that I must have chosen a DHCP option during the Mobility Express wizard setup on the console.

I did not capture the logs from the Console setup wizard   - But I did assign each AP a unique IP address as follows

My tftp server on 192.168.1.250

WAP1 IP 192.168.1.2 

WAP2 IP 192.168.1.3

console logging disable
capwap ap ip 192.168.1.2 255.255.255.0 192.168.1.250 
ap-type mobility-express tftp://192.168.1.250/AIR-AP4800-K9-ME-8-8-130-0.tar

I did the same for WAP2. When it was all over, I was able to log into the GUI and configure the Mobility Express.

Is there a command to make all this "standalone" to not rely on DHCP ? I need these two APs to be independent of each other (i.e. each one is its own Controller) and not rely on being connected to the same LAN, or even be in range of one another.

I have a feeling the command below might be it - but which AP do I issue this on, and is the management IP address the same on both APs? Is this IP address different to the IP address of the APs themselves?  

config interface address management <IP_addr> <netmask> <gateway>

Do I need the ap-manager config too? And/or redundancy-management?

I don't have access to these APs but I need to provide some advice to the engineer on the ground.

Any advice appreciated

Arne 

[Scott Fella · Accepted solution]

Here is a guide. Most likely they will have to go through the startup wizard and configure a static ip again.

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/wireless/controller/technotes/8-3/b_Cisco_Mobility_Express_Deployment_Guide/b_Cisco_Mobility_Express_Deployment_Guide_chapter_01101.pdf

[Arne Bier]

Hi @Scott Fella 

Thanks for the link - I wish I had seen that link before I started my journey - it would have saved me some trouble.

I didn't want to go through the whole setup again because I spent some time setting up the channel/power/tuning etc.

I can report back that I got both APs up and running without having to re-do the config. 

The solution was to do this on each AP individually:

1) Create a DHCP Scope for the APs (I issued the commands via the vWLC console)

config dhcp create-scope <scope name>
config dhcp network <scope name> <network ip> <mask>
config dhcp address-pool <scope name> <start ip from pool> <last ip from pool>
config dhcp vlan native <scope name> enable
config dhcp default-router <scope name> <default router ip>
config dhcp enable <scope name>

2) Drop from vWLC into the AP mode with the command

> ciscoapshell

and remove the static IP address on the AP CLI

# capwap ap erase static-ip

Then the AP dumped core and rebooted. And after some time it booted back into vWLC mode and the AP got a lease. Job done.

[Scott Fella]

Glad you got it working. It’s always a nice challenge unless it takes weeks to figure out:)