Converting Cisco Lightweight Access Point to Mobility Express

Cisco Mobility Express Introduction

Mobility Express Capability is exhibited only by Wave 2 Access points from Cisco. These are primarily called as COS APs.

The predecessor of COS APs were the IOS APs which can support only the Autonomous AP capability. Though both Autonomous and ME APs do not require an AP license and the controller, however ME APs are more advantagous in a sense that the ME AP attains the role of a controller (referred as master AP) and can terminate upto 100 APs (referred to as sub-ordinate APs) while the autonomous AP just act as a single independent AP with no posibility of co-ordination with other APs in the network.

(Similar concept exists in Aruba for the APs exhibiting controller capability and they refer it as IAP. Every model of Aruba AP comes in two forms, either Aruba AP or Aruba Instant AP. When ordered as Aruba Instant AP, it can be converted back to normal AP but when ordered as Aruba AP, it cannot be converted back to Aruba Instant AP. Thus care should be taken while placing the order )

Pre-requisites

Cisco Wave 2 Access Point

Laptop / PC with ethernet interface

Configuring the Windows Network Adaptor to connect on to the ME AP

Go to Network & Internet Settings

Click on “Change adapter options”

Click on “Ethernet adaptor” which is connected to the Access Point’s Ethernet port

(In my case it is the 5G Port of 4800 Access Point)

Assign an IPV4 address on your PC / Laptop

Determining the Com Port In use by Console Cable

Connect the console to the AP and determine the corresponding COM port

Devmgmt.msc à Ports (COM & LPT) will list the USB serial port in use

Configuring the AP for Conversion to Mobility Express

(Optional) If AP has previously existing configuration delete it (capwap ap erase all)

Syntax: capwap ap ip <ap ip> <mask> <gateway>

capwap ap ip 192.168.1.11 255.255.255.0 192.168.1.10

In this example we are assigning the AP an IP of 192.168.1.11

Verify the AP’s wired 0 interface has taken up the configured IP addresses

Since the AP has two Ethernet interfaces, two wired interfaces could be found listed viz: wired0 & wired1

Open the TFTP application and give the ME image path

Supply in the command in AP cli to download the ME image

Syntax: ap-type mobility-express tftp://<tftp IP address>/<ME AP image>.tar

ap-type mobility-express tftp://192.168.1.10/AIR-AP4800-K9-ME-8-8-120-0.tar

Once the image is copied, reload the AP

Once the AP comes up after manual reload, wait for couple of minutes

After couple of minutes, it will again go a second subsequent reload on its own and comes up as ME Controller

Configure the AP via the installation wizard

ME Controller comes up after reloading with initial configuration

Configuring the internal DHCP for the ME express

The internal AP inside the ME will not come up until:
The ME is connected to a switch and it obtains the DHCP IP from it
Or an internal DHCP server is configured.

Since for RF coverage testing scenarios (AP on a stick), we won’t be having the AP connected on to the switch, lets first connect the ME on a switch to let it obtain a DHCP and have its internal AP up and running.