Meru MC3200VE - Known as FortiWLC - Firmware upgrade advice

[mbedford]

Hi,

 

I need to upgrade an MC3200-VE (Virtual controller) with 85 AP's connected to it. Last time I did this, it was a nightmare. This time I would like to do the following.

 

1. Disable the auto upgrade function on all of the AP's
   
2. Upgrade the Controller
   
3. Upgrade 1 AP to test functionality
   
4. Roll back the controller to a pre upgraded backup
   
5. Enable auto upgrade on all of the AP's
   
6. Upgrade controller and allow the AP's to auto upgrade
   

 

Note: I am rolling back the controller as I dont know if the AP's on the old firmware version will be accessible from the newer firmware, if they are, then I can skip the rollback.

 

My question is, is there anyway I can disable the auto upgrade feature on all my AP's at once, or do I need to connect to the CLI on each one ?

 

Thanks

Mike

[Jaguar77]

[houlta]

I feel your pain

I have the mc3200 hardware controller and it's been bricked twice while support themselves went through the upgrade for me.

I stopped at v7.0-13 as that was the last of the 'meru' branded firmware before the fortinet version and got fed up of the downtime.

Hopefully you won't have such issues with a virtual one.

 

The new fortinet kit looks great, but it's a shame most of the AP's I have are not backward compatible, I tried to use the fortigate firewall as controller for the meru AP's I had but no joy.

It has to be the newer fortinet AP's. Replacing all the AP's I have is going to be the costliest job I have coming down the road.

[mbedford]

Thanks both, yes my last upgrade was a whole lot of fun, but I need to do something as we are a good number of years out of date now. Given things like the recent exploit KRACK, I cant really afford to leave this hardware\software out of date.

[JScott]

Hi, we have a Meru MC3200 and 100APs. We are having issues with a number of access points just slowing down and Windows Clients dropping pings. The APs then don't allow any WiFi traffic. As the issues you are seeing anything similar?

We are on Fortinet firmware version 8.

Jim

[houlta]

I haven't had anything like that happen as yet, just radius incompatibility is all but I'm on 7.0-13 not v8.

[mbedford]

Well, our update was a complete disastor. Both the Controller and the AP's accepted the firmware. Then the AP's just rebooted every 2 - 3 minutes. Ended up having to roll back to original firmware version.

 

This is the second time this has happened, does anyone know if I am doing something wrong?

[JScott]

We had that when we went from version 6>7 and 7>8. The APS got stuck in a reboot loop. We had to run round and unplug every AP (100+) and they seem to work after that.

 

We are now on 8.4-0Build7 (MC3200) and AP332i.

 

 

What version are you on?

[houlta]

I've stayed at v7.0-13 because of similar horrors with firmware upgrades, the controller had to be reset twice and the upgrades were even done by fortinet support, so it's not just you or something you are doing wrong.

7.0-13 looks like the final meru branded firmware.

 

I'm probably not going to upgrade to fortigate when the time comes, I have my eye on ubiquiti.

The vendors should really not be expecting schools to replace tens of thousands of £'s worth of kit every 3 years.

[Ev4952]

Hi there. I have drawn the short straw and been tasked to support a meeu mc3200 controller at my local community center. It was donated by someone and was the result of an upgrade at their office. It has about 20 aps with it nit that I will need all those. My issue seems to be a common one. The flash card reports as blank when u put it in a reader. Hypertermnal reports reboot and select proper boot device when connected to the controller and the controller powered on. The sad part is that it definitely worked when it was donated. I logged in to check that the controller was at least kind of working. It's been sitting for 12 months in a bis and now this. I'm not asking for what I'm asking for you know.

 

 

Any help appreciated.

 

Ev.