Setting up a Cisco AP using the command line

This article is to document the CLI commands used to configure an Autonomous Cisco Access Point.

To configure the AP management IP address use the following command:

Interface BVI1

ip address [ip] [subnetmask]

no shutdown

Next, define the SSID properties including Name, Key method and password.

This particular configuration is using WPA2 to authenticate the users.

dot11 ssid [SSIDName]

authentication open
authentication key-management wpa version 2
guest-mode
wpa-psk ascii [password]

Next you will push this SSID on the 2.4 Ghz which is on interface dot1Radio 0 and if you want it to be available on 5 Ghz band as well, you will configure it on dot1Radio 1. The radio will be using the AES-CCM encryption mode.

interface dot1radio0

encryption mode ciphers aes-ccm

ssid [SSID-name]

no shutdown

Once you are done, you can save the configuration and test you wireless device.

Cisco: Converting an Cisco AP 2600 from Lightweight AP to Autonomous mode

This article is about converting a Cisco AP version CAP2602E from a lightweight to Autonomous. (This can apply to other APs of similar models)

The tools that you will need to do the job:

  1. A TFTP server application…I am using Pumpkin (link here)
  2. Telnet tool…I am using Putty (link here)
  3. The Autonomous image for the Cisco AP (note: that the image file name will contain “k9w7“)
  4. Console cable
  5. Network cable
  6. Power adapter for the AP. (If you have a PoE switch to power the AP, then you can skip the adapter)

Now let us begin the process:

  1. Install the TFTP server application and start it up
  2. Install the PUTTY telnet tool
  3. Copy the image to the tftp folder path set in the TFTP server application. The image required for my Cisco AP CAP2602E is “ap3g2-k9w7-tar.153-3.JAB.tar”. Note when you get the image, it will need to be renamed from the image type “.tar” to “.default“. Example in my case, it will be ap3g2-k9w7-tar.default. Please ensure to follow this same syntax.
  4. Connect your AP directly to your computer.
  5. The static IP address of the computer on which your TFTP server software runs should be between 10.0.0.2 and 10.0.0.30.
  6.  Disconnect power from the access point.
  7. Press and hold MODE while you reconnect power to the access point.
  8. Hold the MODE button until the status LED turns red (approximately 20 to 30 seconds) and then release.
  9. The AP will start to broadcast to the tftp server for the image file. When the tftp server get a prompt from the AP, select Grant Access. (Note if the another image is requested, make a note of the image and try to get it.
  10. Once the image is correct, it will start to pull the image from the TFTP server and it takes about 10 minutes to load.
  11. Once the image has loaded, the AP will reboot.
  12. Then you can use the PUTTY to connect to the console and configure the AP as desired by assigning an IP address to the BVI interface. (default password Cisco/Cisco)
  13. Once the IP address is set, you can access it using the Web GUI.

I hope this article was helpful.

 

reference: https://community.cisco.com/t5/wireless-security-and-network/converting-the-air-lap1242ag-e-k9-from-lightweight-to-autonomous/td-p/632837

 

 

Microsoft: Manipulating Windows Network Adapter using PowerShell

This article is about configuring the network adapter using PowerShell cmdlet:

To get a list of the names of physical network adapter, the following command was used:

Get-NetAdapter -Physical

To get the IP address assigned to the network adapter:

Get-NetIPAddress | Format-Table

To enable/disable the network adapter:

Enable-NetAdapter [-Name] “NetAdapterName”

Disable-NetAdapter [-Name] “NetAdapterName”

Restart-NetAdapter [-Name] “NetAdapterName”

To set dynamic IP address assignment for network adapter:

Set-NetIPAddress -AddressFamily IPv4 -PrefixOrigin Dhcp

To set static IP address for network adapter:

New-NetIPAddress -InterfaceIndex [NetAdapterIndex] -IPAddress 192.168.0.1 -PrefixLength 24 -DefaultGateway 192.168.0.5

Set-NetIPAddress -InterfaceIndex [index] -IPAddress 10.0.0.9 -PrefixLength 24

To set DNS IP address for network adapter:

Set-DnsClientServerAddress -InterfaceIndex 12 -ServerAddresses(“10.0.0.1”,“10.0.0.2”)

Or

Set-DnsClientServerAddress -InterfaceIndex 12 -ResetServerAddresses

For more commands and help on this topic, you can visit the Microsoft documentation site here.

Manipulating Windows Network Adapter using Network Shell

This adventure of configuring the network adapter started when I required admin rights to modify the settings because UAC (User Access Control) was disabled which prevented the prompting of admin privilege. The challenge was that I did not want to log off or switch user account hence I had to resort to using elevated privilege for the command prompt and utilize the network shell.

To get a list of the names of network adapter, the following command was used:

netsh interface show interface

To get the IP address assigned to the network adapter:

netsh interface ipv4 show addresses

To enable/disable the network adapter:

netsh interface set interface name=”NameOfInterface” admin=[ENABLED/DISABLED]

To set dynamic IP address assignment for network adapter:

netsh interface ipv4 set address source=dhcp

To set static IP address for network adapter:

netsh interface ipv4 set address static 10.0.0.9 255.255.255.0 10.0.0.1

To set DNS IP address for network adapter:

netsh interface ipv4 set dnsservers source=dhcp

Or

netsh interface ipv4 set dnsservers static 10.0.0.10 primary

For WLAN network adapter:

netsh wlan show interfaces

Show the Wireless networks broadcasting:

netsh wlan show networks

Show the WLAN profiles on computer:

netsh wlan show profiles

Connect to one of the WLAN profile configured on computer:

netsh wlan connect name=[ProfileName]

Disconnect from the currently connected WLAN SSID

network wlan disconnect name=[InterfaceName]

For more commands and help on this topic, you can visit the Microsoft documentation site here.

Setting up an Cisco Lightweight AP previously configured

We had a problem at work where we had to change the IP address of the Cisco Wireless controller (WLC) and as a result all the APs were orphans with no way to rejoin the WLC.

In our environment, we did not have the CISCO-WAP-CONTROLLER configured in the DNS server so the APs had no way of getting the new WLC IP address.

I had to connect to each APs via the console port (blue) using a serial cable. When I connected to it, I used the default login of Cisco/Cisco which is factory default configured username and password for any APs that joins an cisco WLC.

When I login and went to the privilege mode using command enable. after you have entered the privilege mode, you can use the following AP commands to manually configure the AP network settings and controller IP address to ensure it rejoins the WLC:

  • AP# capwap ap ip address 192.168.0.5 255.255.255.0
  • AP# capwap ap ip default-gateway 192.168.0.1
  • AP# capwap ap controller ip address 192.168.0.2 255.255.255.0

These commands sets the AP’s IP address manually and the controller ip address that the AP should use to register.