RFS4000 and AP7161 - steep WiNG learning curve for me

[Todd_R]

Hello all,

Great forum, tons of information!

My background...I'm a Motorola radio tech with many years experience on that side of the business. I'm technically savvy, and know my way around computers. I'm not so savvy with networking...I muddle, I get by. I've taken many courses, don't get a chance to use what I learn much.

This landed on my bench this week to configure for a customer...one RFS4000, with five AP7161, and five Sanyo IP PTZ cameras. The sales guy was told by the supplier that the wireless equipment required "minimal field configuration".

No real documentation beyond basic installation guides with the equipment, so I jumped on the web. The support addresses in the guides are out of date & lead nowhere, so I Google around & find the WiNG 5.5 system reference guide...1152 pages, wow!

It's apparent this equipment is very versatile & can be made to do everything but wash dishes. I simply need to set it up to MESH the five APs together to give access to the hardwired IP cameras that hang on each AP from their head office through the RFS4000. I want to make it do this in as simple a configuration possible. Once I've shown the customer how it works in that fashion, I'll leave it to their IT department to play with the bells & whistles.   

I can access the Web UI in the RFS4000, and have gone through the setup wizard. I can plug the APs into the switch and they show up in the hardware lists. I can make them blink lights and reboot them, so they're definitely talking to the switch.

I'm stuck pretty early on. The 2.4GHz and 5GHz radios remain inactive. The diagnostics show that the reason the radios are turned off is "no country code". However, I've defined Canada as the country in the default RF Domain, and that domain appears to be assigned to the APs. Am I missing a step to "upload" the config to the APs?

I'm going to have lots of questions beyond this, but I figure one hurdle at a time.

I do have a request into the supplier for help, but past history shows that will take a while. Any assistance is appreciated, thanks for reading!

Todd

[Todd_R]

A little bit of further info. I can view the startup and running configs in the APs, and do indeed see where it says "default RF Domain" and "no country code". I've tried creating another RF Domain, named it CPDtest, and set it for Canada. I've assigned it to the AP, committed and saved the changes. All looks good in the RFS4000 Web UI, but looking in the running config, it still shows the default RF domain, and no country code.

I'm at a bit of a loss. I verified that I can change the time/date in the RFS4000 Web UI, and that change is reflected in the AP when I console into it. But nothing else seems to be changing.

[rodrigo.olivares]

Hi Todd, could you please post the RFS4000 running config or send it to rolivares.lazo [at] gmail.com

Regards,
Rodrigo Olivares L.

[McNulty]

Oh boy! Straight into Meshconnex on your first day. Talk about being thrown in the deep end!

Long answer:
So you want to start with the country code issue ok...either change the country code in the "default" rf-domain (it is ok to use the default for your setup) OR if you want to use the CPDtest rf-domain you need to apply that to the AP.

There is this concept of configuring profiles, policies and other items like rf-domains and then assigning those items to each device. This means that if you have 5 APs using the same profile, and you make a change to the profile, then the change will be inherited by all of the APs. This makes it easier to manage large quantities of APs.

OK, back on track now. You will likely be doing all of your configs in the default-ap71xx profile as all of your APs are the same model. In the config for each device itself you will only have 3-4 lines of config.
One of those lines is the rf-domain.
Another is the Profile
The other lines of config are items unique to that device, such as hostname and ip address.

There are a few gotchas when working in the GUI.
1. When making any change, look for an "OK" button in the bottom of the window. (sometimes you need to scroll) If you make a bunch of changes and leave the window without hitting "OK" all changes are lost.
2. "Commit" vs "save" vs "Commit and Save". None of your changes will actually be pushed to the running-config until you hit "Commit". None of your committed running changes will be saved to the startup-config until you hit "Save". If you hit the button "Commit and Save" it simply performs both of those functions in one go.


Short answer: did you commit your changes?

[Todd_R]

Hello,

I truly appreciate the responses so far. Yes, I definitely feel like I'm diving into the deep end, and barely know how to doggie paddle!

(I think!) I have my head wrapped around assigning parameters such as RF Domains, Default Profiles, etc to the equipment. Conceptually, that part isn't difficult to comprehend...making it work seems to be a different story. I have set the country code to Canada in both the "Default" RF Domain, and in the "CPD_Domain" (erroneously referred to as "CPDtest" earlier). I also tried setting it to the United States at one point, just to try something different...no joy.

I've attached the configs for the RFS4000 and one of the AP7161. I definitely am hitting 'OK', and 'Commit' and 'Commit and Save' for anything I'm editing.

Based on a single line of feedback from the supplier so far, I've configured an Auto-Provisioning Policy since extracting the above configs, hoping that would get things going, but nothing has changed in terms of the radios becoming enabled.

I'll be continuing to work on things on my end, and will update with anything further. Any further help I get here is certainly much appreciated! I help administrate a Motorola radio forum, and understand we're all just volunteers here & helping people out of the goodness of our hearts!

[Todd_R]

For some further information, I've attached a document with screenshots detailing the Auto-Provisioning settings, and showing the RF Domains with country code, and some dashboard screenshots indicating the radios are turned off, reason being No Country Code. I've sent this to the supplier as well...we shall see what they say.

[McNulty]

Looks like you have not assigned any WLAN to any of the radios.
This gives the same LED code as if there were no country code.

[rodrigo.olivares]

As a recommendation leave the default profiles without changes since these profiles are auto-assigned if you don't have any auto-provisioning policy. Then create new profiles for Controller, Root and Non-root nodes.

This in order to troubleshoot any misconfiguration that let you come back to default config.

[Todd_R]

Looks like you have not assigned any WLAN to any of the radios.
This gives the same LED code as if there were no country code.

Hi. Well, I did create WLAN1, SSID "CPDtest" and it shows as Enabled. But, you're correct that I didn't assign it to any radios...I can't find where to do that? It does say in the introduction to Chapter 6 - Wireless Configuration "WLANs are mapped to radios on each connected Access Point"...but darned if I can find WHERE to do this mapping.

Beyond that, it's not just the LED code that I'm looking at, the AP configs are showing that they are using the default RF Domain, with no country code, even though I've assigned them to the "CPD_Domain" in the RFS4000. 

[McNulty]

Look under Configuration -> Profile (or device) -> Interfaces -> Radios -> Radio 1/2 ->WLAN Mapping

And make sure you are not doing any config on the AP. Do all of the config on the RFS. Any config done directly on the AP acts as an "override" and supercedes the controller config. This could be why you are not seeing anything happening on the AP when you make a change on the  RFS...

[Todd_R]

Look under Configuration -> Profile (or device) -> Interfaces -> Radios -> Radio 1/2 ->WLAN Mapping

And make sure you are not doing any config on the AP. Do all of the config on the RFS. Any config done directly on the AP acts as an "override" and supercedes the controller config. This could be why you are not seeing anything happening on the AP when you make a change on the  RFS...

Thanks, I'll look into that mapping tomorrow afternoon when I get back to the office! I haven't done any configs on the APs directly, precisely for that reason!

The supplier has sent me links to the latest 5.6 firmware, so I'll be updating the equipment and likely start from scratch, just to be safe.

[julio.duarte]

Look under Configuration -> Profile (or device) -> Interfaces -> Radios -> Radio 1/2 ->WLAN Mapping

And make sure you are not doing any config on the AP. Do all of the config on the RFS. Any config done directly on the AP acts as an "override" and supercedes the controller config. This could be why you are not seeing anything happening on the AP when you make a change on the  RFS...

Configuration -> Profile (or device) -> Interfaces -> Radios -> Radio 1/2 ->WLAN Mapping

Yup, I had the same problem when configuring my RFS6000; that "WLAN Mapping" option is kind of hard to find when you are wading on your own into uncharted territory. Like this thread's original poster, I had to figure out on my own how to configure the equipment, and went through a trial and error process in the beginning.

[Todd_R]

I finally got things going on Monday, although I hadn't spent time at it in the last two weeks due to other commitments. The root of my issue was firmware mismatch. The RFS was at 5.5.1 and it was loading the APs with 5.4.1 when they were first adopted. Not knowing any better, I thought that was normal. So, the APs simply weren't doing what the controller was telling them in terms of changing their configs!

Once I loaded everything with the latest 5.6.1 (that took a while, had to learn about TFTP with 3COM server all over again), then things started working as expected.

I want to thank everyone here for the help I received. Rodrigo even exchanged some emails with me...and he's in Chile! You guys have a great community here. I'm sure I'll be back with more questions before this project is completed!