Pass-Through Port on the 1815w Purpose

[jonssonm1]

Hi - Since I haven't found anything that has been able to paint a good enough picture for me by googling I'm hoping someone can give me a real world example showing the purpose of the pass-through port on the bottom of the 1815w as well as the back. What is a good use-case for this?

[Scott Fella]

The port is so you can connect another Ethernet cable and have the 1815w just pass it through.

[Grendizer · Accepted solution]

You can connect that port to a switch so the traffic will be terminated directly on the switch instead of going thru the WLC.

One important feature is that, this port is active even if the AP is down and has no power at all, meaning when you connect this pass-thru port in the back of the AP to  a switch and mount the AP on a wall then if user connect for example a PC to the bottom pass-thru port then will be able to connect to your network via the switch (if you allow that from the switch) even if the AP is down.

[jonssonm1]

Thanks. Now if there is only 1 cable hooked to the PoE port in the back of the WAP and nothing plugged into the pass-through port on the back then what happens when a client plugs into the pass-through switching port on the bottom of the WAP? Does it use the PoE line in the back by default and pass traffic back to the WLC like the other 3 ports or does it go nowhere?

[Grendizer · Accepted solution]

In that scenario the port will not be active and will not connect you anywhere. Imagine the pass-thru ports (from behind and in the bottom of the AP) as cable extension, so if there is no connection to the behind port there will be no connection to the bottom port too.