Meru AP

[RobD]

Hi All,

 

I have a Meru access point that cant find the controller, I'm not sure who configured the device so I'd like to have a look at the config of the AP myself.

 

Does anyone know if the AP's themselves have a configuration page etc that I can connect to if I hook it up to my laptop locally (cross over or similar setup). If so what are the details?

 

Thanks

[CyberNerd]

Everything is done through the controller. The AP's don't even have IP addresses. I have a sneaky feeling they do have a console port through so you could try that using putty or minicom and a suitable cable.

[twin--turbo]

they should find each other via wi-fi as well as LAN so not sure why yours cant see the controller, and yes I think they do have a con port but never needed to use one.

 

Rob

[Speedydowt]

Meru Aps can either discover the controller via L2 (MAC address) or via L3 (Ip addressing). If your AP cannot find the controller it is most likely because their is no L2 connectivity between AP and controller and the IP address set is wrong. Best thing to do in this situation is to plug the AP into the same switch the controller is plugged into and make sure they are on the same native VLAN. Once the AP has found the controller, you can then configure the IP/DG and controller ip and move to a different VLAN or network segment if needed.

[RobD]

Thanks all, managed to sort it! Turned out the switch was at fault which was solved by rebooting it!

 

Do have another issue though where I'm trying to connect two merus over a VPN! I think the firewall isn't allowing the connection but I haven't used the firewall before (sonicwall) so I'm struggling to work out what to allow! Does anyone know ports meru use?

[wotnowires]

Hi Rob,

 

Not sure if this is still an issue for you?

 

The ports required depend on the configuration that you are trying to implement. The standard communication ports for the AP are: UDP 9292,9393 and 5000. These three will need to be forwarded to the Meru controller, and will work perfectly well through NAT. If you are looking to use the VPN capability in the newer Meru AP's, then you'll need to forward just UDP port 1194.

 

 

For future reference, you can connect to the Meru AP using a console cable. If this is an AP320 or AP1020, then you'll need an RJ45 console cable. For the AP332 or AP832, you'll need a specific jack cable (available for little cost from your Meru reseller). The console settings are 115200,8,none,1,none. Once connected to the console, you should see the discovery process take place.

 

The Meru AP can communicate with the Meru Controller either via "Layer 2" or "Layer 3". Layer 2 uses a bespoke ethertype, whereas Layer 3 uses UDP/IP. Out of the box, the AP will default to Layer 2. In this mode, it will attempt to discover the Meru Controller using the Meru ether protocol. If this fails, it will also attempt Layer 3 communication, using either DHCP option 43 or DNS with a hostname of wlan-controller to determine the IP address required to communicate with the controller.

 

When using the VPN capability of the newer AP's, the same UDP/IP ports are in use, but through an OpenVPN tunnel on UDP 1194.

[RobD]

Hi Wotnowires,

 

That was really very helpful thanks. The problem I'm having is we have our main site which hosts the Meru controller then we have a remote site that has two access points. The remote site is connected via a site to site VPN which only passes traffic bound on the 192.168.0.0 subnet and the 10.0.0.0 subnet (the main site subnets). I can see the traffic from the Meru AP's destined for the Controller on port 9292 but Meru controller isn't receiving any traffic. So I think the other ports are either being blocked or there's something else I'm missing.

[mhowell]

Hi Rob

If not sorted yet, please get in touch directly

[email protected] and we'll point you in the right direction for support

Thx

Mark

[RobD]

Just sent you a email, thanks for the help!!