Mobility Express Help

[SergioJ]

I was wondering if somebody could shed some light on a particular issue I'm having with my wireless setup. I have two Cisco 1815i running ME for redundancy, each AP is connected to a L3 Cisco 3550 switch via trunk ports to forward client traffic on various VLANs. However, if I bring one of the APs down for maintenance purposes and try to login to the WLC web interface, all I get is a partial webpage and I'm not able to login. I've tried different web browsers to no avail. If I change the switchport to access mode, then the web interface loads correctly and I'm able to manage it just fine. I'm not sure where the problem lies. Here's what the configuration looks like on the switch side. Switch port 1 is connected to the primary AP and has a config of:
"switchport trunk encapsulation dot1q
switchport trunk native vlan 3
switchport trunk allowed vlan 3-10
switchport mode trunk
switchport nonegotiate"
Switch port 2 is connected to the secondary AP and has the same config as switch port 1. VLAN 3 is also an SVI interface and has an IP of 10.3.0.1/16, in addition, I have added two "ip-helpers addresses" to the SVI to relay DHCP requests to both of my DHCP servers located on a different VLAN. The other problem I'm having is if I were to do a full factory reset on the secondary AP that's connected to the trunk port, it never discovers the WLC nor picks up an IP address from my DHCP servers; however, if I connect a laptop to the same trunk port, it picks up an IP address from the corresponding native VLAN subnet of 10.3.0.0. In order to get the secondary AP to pick up an IP address and discover the WLC, I have to first change the port to an access port and then revert back to a trunk port because of the multiple VLANs associated with the SSIDs, but the moment I do, I'm back to square one where I can't get to the management web interface for some reason. There are no ACLs on any of the interfaces. I don't mind setting the secondary AP to CAPWAP mode but if I were to bring the WLC down for whatever reason, the CAPWAP AP stops forwarding client traffic until the WLC is back online. Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks!

[Flavio Miranda]

Hi

 " I have two Cisco 1815i running ME for redundancy"

They are doing automatic or manual failover?  It seems to me that the failover is not happening when you turn the active wlc down.

And  it seems also that the secondary wlc is not configured as trunk mode.

Also,

"switchport trunk encapsulation dot1q
switchport trunk native vlan 3
switchport trunk allowed vlan 3-10
switchport mode trunk
switchport nonegotiate"

I dont believe you need dot1q despite this might not be the problem.

[SergioJ]

Hi, I'm assuming the APs are set for automatic failover. Both are new AP's and all I've done is set one of them as the primary controller and the other as secondary in case the other one fails. The weird thing about this whole ordeal is that if I leave the port on the secondary AP as an access port, the failover works fine and I can get the the web management page but I can't leave it in that mode because of the multiple VLANs in my network. Thanks!

[Flavio Miranda]

Step 2

Next Preferred Master–Admin can configure the Next Preferred Master UI and CLI. When this is configured and the active Primary AP fails, the one configured as the Next Preferred Master will be elected as a Primary. To configure the Next Preferred Master, follow the procedure below: Note  Only one Next Preferred Master can be configured on Cisco Mobility Express. Navigate to Wireless Settings > Access Points. Edit the AP which you would like to make it as a Next Preferred Master In the Edit AP window, enable the Set as Preferred Master toggle. Click Apply. To configure the Next Preferred Master from the controller CLI, please follow the steps below: To configure the Next Preferred Master, execute the following CLI: (Cisco Controller) >config ap next-preferred-master <Cisco AP> <Cisco AP> Enter the name of the Cisco AP

[SergioJ]

I've set the primary AP as the preferred master but it didn't make any difference. Thanks for the suggestion tho.

[Flavio Miranda]

Please, check the trunk config for the secondary and try to fail over. 

[SergioJ]

How do I check/configure the trunk on the AP?