What to do with many rogue APs

[Michael Medwid]

I just looked into one of our remote offices in the middle east and see there are 182 rogue APs detected.

The users are complaining about frequently getting kicked off. What is the best way to approach the issue?

Is it likely that that many rogues could cause wireless attachment problems? Thank you.

[Philip D'Ath]

That doesn't look too bad.

First make sure the WiFi drivers on your clients are up to date.  Older drivers can cause no end of problems.

Next make sure you are running a recently release of code on your WLC.  You should look at enabling things like 802.11k and 802.11r.

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/wireless/controller/8-1/Enterprise-Mobility-8-1-Design-Guide/Enterprise_Mobility_8-1_Deployment_Guide/Chapter-11.html

[Scott Fella]

Just to add... we have sites in downtown areas that hit 2000+ rogue AP's.  in these locations, for example, the issue may be due to devices connecting on the 2.4ghz which has very high utilization.  This may not be an issue for you, but you need to look at your environment, understand what is the complaint other than it's not working, isolate the issue to one, few or all devices before making a decision on what is the cause.  Look at debugs, talk with some users directly, look at the controller logs, look at channel utilization, look at client ration 2.4ghz vs 5ghz, etc.  What works for us in the US may not work in EMEA and or APAC, so understanding the devices and the environment first is required.

-Scott 

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[Michael Medwid]

Thanks much for putting it into perspective. I had no idea what bad rogues would look like. Air Quality looked pretty good with a worse case 94. But I think I found another issue - a downed AP that probably has some users going to a more distant AP. We'll see tomorrow if that does it.

[Scott Fella]

Micheal,

Assess the environment as much as possible.  Asking the users what their experience is, really helps with troubleshooting, well at least for me.  What you brought up is a good example, is your wireless there healthy and are all your AP's online and functioning properly.  There are so many things you need to check, as configuration, code and bugs can also be a factor.  

-Scott 

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