WifiNigel

This is just another one of those ad-hoc posts for a piece of information I get tired of looking up. I often get the question: "can I disable the LED indicator on a Cisco Lightweight Access Point?". At this point, I always have to jump for my CLI reference guide and can never remember the right word to search for. So, here is the command I need (for next time...): config ap led-state  {enable |  disable} {cisco_ap  |  all}  It can only be done from the CLI as far as I am aware. It can be useful from time to time if you have someone in a dark room who is annoyed by the lamp, or even more useful, if you are trying to track a particular AP that perhaps you aren't too sure of the location of ("go and look for the AP with no lamp on"). I just hope I remember that I blogged about this next time I need this command...

I'm documenting this for my own reference as much as anything, to avoid having to look this information up (yet again). (This description assumes that the use-case is for a guest network, but will apply to any layer-3 authenticated wireless network) It is a common occurrence on Cisco wireless networks (using a WLC of some type) to have complaints from guest users that they have to keep logging back in to the guest network after their device has gone in to sleep mode. They are often put in to sleep when they are enveloped in some type of holder or covering system that has a built-in magnet to make them sleep when they are not in use (this is very typical on iPad holders/covers). The reason for the annoying issue of having to log back in to the guest network is that the WLC has a user idle timeout setting which expires (by default) after 5 minutes. So, when a device is put in to sleep mode, the WLC will not hear from it for a while and then after  5 minutes will termi...

I've been read lots recently about BYOD and how many users in an organisation may well have 2, 3, 4 or more devices that they wish to use on a WiFi network. The will often have a laptop, possibly a tablet and almost certainly some type of smartphone. The characteristics of these different types of device vary enormously, depending on the device capabilities and their RF characteristics. I thought it might be interesting to just fire up 4 random devices I have in my home and compare the signal levels I could see from the same SSID on my home ADSL router. Each device had some type of software installed that could (allegedly) report the signal level that the AP is observed at from the client device point of view. I know this isn't a particularly definitive approach, as the software used probably has varying levels of accuracy, so I wouldn't treat these results as being too accurate. But, they may give an indication of different device performance. The devices I tested ...