Guidelines For Using The Access Point - Cisco Aironet 1550 Series Getting Started Manual

Guidelines for Using the Access Point

You should keep these guidelines in mind when you use the access point:
• The access points can only communicate with controllers and cannot operate independently in
standalone mode.
• The access point communicates only with controllers and does not support Wireless Domain
Services (WDS). The access points cannot communicate with WDS devices. However, the
controller provides functionality equivalent to WDS when an access point associates to it.
• The access point supports Layer 3 CAPWAP communications with the controllers. In Layer 3
operation, the access point and the controller can be on the same or different subnets. The access
point communicates with the controller using standard IP packets. Layer 3 operation is scalable
and is recommended by Cisco. Unless it has a static IP address, a Layer 3 access point on a different
subnet than the controller requires a DHCP server on the access point subnet and a route to the
controller. The route to the controller must have destination UDP ports 12222 and 12223 open
for CAPWAP communications. The routes to the primary, secondary, and tertiary controllers must
allow IP packet fragments.
• Before deploying your mesh access points ensure that the following has been done:
Your controllers are connected to switch ports that are configured as trunk ports.
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Your mesh access points are connected to switch ports that are configured as untagged access
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ports.
A DHCP server is reachable by your mesh access points and has been configured with Option
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43. Option 43 is used to provide the IP addresses of the Management Interfaces of your
controllers. Typically, a DHCP server can be configured on a Cisco Layer 3 switch or router.
Optionally a DNS server can be configured to enable a local domain Cisco CAPWAP
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controller (CISCO-CAPWAP-CONTROLLER.<local domain>) to resolve to the IP address of
the Management Interface of your controller.
Your controllers are configured and reachable by the mesh access points.
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Your controllers are configured with the MAC addresses of the mesh access points.
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