WifiNigel

In the WiFi industry, there are fewer characters who are more polarizing than Devin Akin ( @DevinAkin ). I guess he is the 'Marmite' of the WiFi industry: you will generally be a huge fan, or maybe not so much :) I personally have always been a huge fan of the work he did when he was part of the CWNP organization - I would not be in the position I am now without the fantastic work that Devin and the guys over at CWNP have done in providing vendor-neutral WiFi certifications. However, back at the beginning of 2012, Devin had moved to Aerohive and was presenting at the WiFi Symposium, which was part of the Wireless Field Day 2 event. I watched all of the videos from that event and learned some very valuable information. However, Devin's presentation about Aerohive's architecture (which you can see at the bottom of this article), and his belief that in the future other vendors must move in a similar direction, was a 'light-bulb' moment for me. I had only been...

There are a number of methods of directing an Aerohive AP to find its instance of HiveManager, including using a DHCP option. In this quick tip, I share how to set up a Cisco switch or router DHCP server range to provide the correct  DHCP option to direct an Aerohive AP to a local instance of HiveManager. This is useful if you have a copy of HM running on your own appliance or virtual server. APs may be passed the IP address of HM via DHCP option 226. In the example below, APs are assigned addresses in the range 192.168.20.0/24. The Hive Manager server may be found at 192.168.50.7 in this example. The default router and DNS server options will need to be set to match your own environment. ! ! DHCP range for Aerohoive APs ! (HM address passed to AP using option 226) ! ip dhcp pool APs    network 192.168.20.0 255.255.255.0    default-router 192.168.20.254    dns-server 8.8.4.4     option 226 ip 192.168.50.7 Hopefully, this is ...

This is just a quick note about some interesting things I found out about the  Aerohive BR200-WP  today when I was having a look at our demo kit for a possible customer solution.  The  BR200-WP  is a great little branch router/switch/AP platform. It boasts a single AP radio (5GHz or 2.4GHz, 3x3:3!!!) and has 5 x 1Gbps switched Ethernet ports (one is the WAN uplink). If you throw-in in the fact that its cloud managed and has all of the usual powerful HiveOS features (VPN, firewall, AVC, airtime fairness...etc,. etc.), you've got a great branch-router platform. (Oh yes, I forgot to mention that it has 2 x POE ports too!) But in addition to the mass of great features outlined above, the BR200-WP has one more trick up its sleeve: 3G/4G backup. The unit has a USB 2.0 port which can be used to attach a 3G/4G dongle to provide WAN backup in the event that the main WAN link should fail. This was the area I was interested in taking a look at in my testing. ...

Just a quick note to myself (as well as sharing for anyone interested)... Aerohive APs can be told where to find Hive Manager using DHCP option 225 (for the HM name) or option 226 (for the HM IP address). - (see here for a much better explanation) I tried to set up the DHCP option 226 for an Aerohive AP today to tell it where to find Hive Manager in my lab. The DHCP server I am using is a Cisco IOS switch. I couldn't get the AP to accept the option for some reason. After lots of playing about, I finally figured out what my issue was: I was using the ' ascii ' keyword for the option type, when it should have been the ' ip ' type (...yes, it's always obvious in retrospect). Here is the correct configuration for a DHCP scope in case you find yourself in the same position: ! *** only assign addresses above .150 *** ! ip dhcp excluded-address 192.168.50.1 192.168.50.150 ip dhcp excluded-address 192.168.50.254 ! ip dhcp pool AP-VLAN    network 192.16...

Got yourself a free Aerohive 121 AP after a recent training course or webinar? Got it home and found it's got no PSU!? Yeah, annoying isn't it... Get yourself one of these 'bad boys' off Amazon - bought one this week and works a treat! http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B004V2IZG4/ref=pe_217191_31005151_3p_dp_1 Disclaimer : if it blows your AP up don't blame me...mine certainly worked OK :) *** Update 11th October 2013*** Works well for an AirTight C-55 AP too!