Cambium Wi-Fi in Schools

[RobFuller]

Just found this in the Cambium community Forums that might be of interest to some Hosted cnMaestro controller for Cambium networks, with guided migration · CloudWLC pricing looks OK but do you own diligence. 

Edited September 21 by RobFuller

[FragglePete]

3 minutes ago, synaesthesia said:

Eek! I feel your pain - but thankfully have successfully tested onboarding via DHCP. Much less painful - paste the mac addresses into the onboarding to claim them, add 2 dhcp options (option 60 with cambium-wifi-ap and option 43 with your onprem URL), reboot them (power on and off via the switch) and away it goes

 

 

My next step was to do the DHCP thang, but thought if what I'd done so far didn't work try the next step.  Will add those options anyway.

 

Pete

 

[FragglePete]

4 minutes ago, RobFuller said:

Just found this in the Cambium community Forums that might be of interest to some Hosted cnMaestro controller for Cambium networks, with guided migration · CloudWLC pricing looks OK but do you own diligence. 

 

Oof!  £119 per month it would be for us!  Somebody cashing in obviously.

 

Pete

[RobFuller]

3 minutes ago, FragglePete said:

 

Oof!  £119 per month it would be for us!  Somebody cashing in obviously.

 

Pete

 

Supply and demand 😔

[DavR]

I mean, if you've nothing on-prem to host a local version, and/or, no local expertise available to do so, I guess it might be worth it for some.

 

It is a bit outrageous for essentially hosting a VM in the cloud for you though.

[FragglePete]

3 minutes ago, RobFuller said:

 

Supply and demand 😔

True, true.

 

My Guest Portal is now not working, but I believe that's down to the Guest VLAN that these devices get associated too is being blocked by the ACL on my Core Switch.  Won't be pretty either once I've tweaked that as the Guest Portal has no certificate presently.  Oh the joys.

 

Pete

[andy_nic]

Got mine working, removed it all for the test AP for 2nd time and worked all setup can see devices connecting to the different LANs, no reports of broken connections. only thing which doesn't work was the social sign in in the old guest section to allow for 365 sign in for BYOD.  

[JazzFlute]

Cambium Switches – Having read through a number of forum posts, I haven't come across any examples of anyone successfully migrating Cambium switches to an on-premises management solution.

I currently have two switches that can only be managed through the cloud. At the time of installation, the engineer advised that they could be managed either via the cloud or locally, but not both simultaneously.

I can browse to the login page of both switches using their IP addresses, but I have never been provided with any local administrator credentials, nor were they included in the handover documentation. My understanding is that, because the switches were configured for cloud management from the outset, local credentials may never have been set up.

Has anyone been able to log into their switches locally while they are also managed via the cloud, or successfully migrate them from cloud management to an on-premises solution?

In addition, the switches have always shown as out of sync when viewing their configuration. From what I recall, the original configuration was applied through cnMaestro, and any attempt to push configuration updates has always failed. When this happens, the network briefly drops, the switches restart, and then everything returns to normal operation. At the time, the installer advised that this was not an issue, but given the current uncertainty around Cambium, I'm interested to know whether others have seen the same behaviour and if there is a recommended way to resolve it.

 

https://community.cambiumnetworks.com/t/guidance-for-cnmaestro-enterprise-customers-updated-18-sep-2026/108849/88

Edited September 22 by JazzFlute

[RobFuller]

Go to Switch Group Configuration > Management > Administrator Access. This is where administrator accounts are configured for switch access.

From your description, it sounds like the configuration being pushed to the switch is causing it to lose connectivity to cnMaestro Cloud. When this happens, the switch cannot verify the new configuration and automatically reverts to the last known good configuration after approximately 10 minutes.

I'd start by checking anything that could affect the switch's management connectivity, particularly the management IP address, VLAN assignment, default gateway, and DNS settings. An incorrect management VLAN is often the culprit.

It's also worth verifying that the uplink ports are configured as trunks and that all required VLANs are being passed to the switch. If the management VLAN is not available on the uplink, the switch will lose access to cnMaestro Cloud as soon as the new configuration is applied.

For what it's worth, I've migrated a test switch to local management without any issues or reboot requirements. However, the switch had a relatively simple configuration, so I wouldn't assume every migration will be quite as straightforward.

 

[SomeITBloke]

Airspan Acquires Fixed Wireless Product Lines from Cambium Networks

 

Quote

The acquired portfolio spans point-to-multipoint access with the PMP 450 platform; unlicensed point-to-point backhaul with PTP 670; point-to-point systems for defense applications with PTP 700; millimeter wave point-to-point and point-to-multipoint connectivity with cnWave; and narrowband communications for industrial environments with cnReach. The management system and planning software for the acquired portfolio, including LINKPlanner, cnHeat, and cnMaestro, are included in the transaction.

 

Appears to only cover their backhaul portfolio but would appear to suggest cnMaestro will live on.

 

Edited September 22 by PrimaryNetMan

[synaesthesia]

Just read this, so from what I understand although they aren't supporting enterprise WiFi they are keeping cnmAestro running as+is. That's good news at least, for continuity purposes.

[DavR]

Still a few unanswered questions there, I would say. They've bought cnMaestro cloud services sure, but, will they honour existing usage agreements from outside the Point-To-Point sector of the market. They could still cut off Enterprise WiFi customers if they wish.

[FragglePete]

I'm still pushing ahead with my migration - I'm 44 devices in out of my 97 moved over.  

 

Will be interesting to see what happens - if they honour cnMaestro Essentials in the cloud then I may move things back.

 

Pete

[SomeITBloke]

20 minutes ago, DavR said:

Still a few unanswered questions there, I would say. They've bought cnMaestro cloud services sure, but, will they honour existing usage agreements from outside the Point-To-Point sector of the market. They could still cut off Enterprise WiFi customers if they wish.

 

Feels like the Enterprise WiFi is done.  cnMaestro being purchased by Airspan may offer some breathing room past 1st Oct, but like you say they have really included it as part of the backhaul acquisition for management of that hardware. 

[smarties11]

38 minutes ago, PrimaryNetMan said:

 

Feels like the Enterprise WiFi is done.  cnMaestro being purchased by Airspan may offer some breathing room past 1st Oct, but like you say they have really included it as part of the backhaul acquisition for management of that hardware. 

I think cnMaestro going with the point to point stuff tells us all we need to know about enterprise WiFi. Clearly there will be no rescue for this element now 😞

 

If cnMaestro is maintained by Airspan for a while then it gives some breathing space, but we've still just bought a brand new enterprise WiFi solution that is dead in the water. DfE state that all hardware and software should be in active support as part of their technology standards and the same is true of CE/CE+. Compliance cannot be achieved. I still can't believe the timing of this, only 4 weeks ago we were mounting the new APs 😞

[synaesthesia]

Yeah, I'm still in two minds. Our supplier told us earlier today to give it until next week (prior to this announcement) before going on-prem.

As it stands, I'm leaning towards still going on prem next week; still compliant as far as centralised management goes, and if cloud stays then we can still onboard - not really losing much. Need more information really, it's a pain when there's a split purchase especially as part of it just happens to manage the bits we need.

Would be nice if the DfE would say something regarding the CtC aspect of it for ours!

[snagrat]

From the Cambium forums:

 

To clarify: Airspan will run their own cnMaestro cloud for fixed wireless products. Cambium still have the license to run cnMaestro for products that weren’t part of the Airspan acquisition.

 

So still open to another buyer using it

[synaesthesia]

Discussion including cambium (now airspan) employees on their forum say that there are no plans to support enterprise WiFi as part of cnmAestro going over and migration to on prem is still current advise. However it does rather look like the anchorless version might not be coming... Hopefully I'm wrong there.

Edited September 23 by synaesthesia

[Andycat]

I was at our suppliers yesterday, and they are hopeful that one of the major players might buy the enterprise wifi bit. Apparently they've snapped up quite a few Cambium employees immediately anyway. But we're still going on prem for now.

[RobFuller]

1 hour ago, synaesthesia said:

Discussion including cambium (now airspan) employees on their forum say that there are no plans to support enterprise WiFi as part of cnmAestro going over and migration to on prem is still current advise. However it does rather look like the anchorless version might not be coming... Hopefully I'm wrong there.

 

I can't help feeling this is one of the worst possible outcomes. The inability to split cnMaestro between buyers creates a significant problem for the enterprise business.

If Airspan retains ownership of cnMaestro, who is realistically going to acquire or invest in the enterprise networking side? The value of the enterprise portfolio isn't just the hardware, it's the management platform that ties everything together.

[synaesthesia]

Heads up if anyone is migrating bit by bit, having some APs on local and some on cloud really causes roaming between them to be a pain. Clients hang on to the "old" AP as long as they possibly can before finally giving up and connecting to new as opposed to be entirely seamless.

 

[andy_nic]

Does anyone know of way with on-prem to stop access when using guest vouchers access to the management console, can't see anything on prem to restrict Access via IP address to the console.

[JazzFlute]

16 hours ago, RobFuller said:

 

Go to Switch Group Configuration > Management > Administrator Access. This is where administrator accounts are configured for switch access.

From your description, it sounds like the configuration being pushed to the switch is causing it to lose connectivity to cnMaestro Cloud. When this happens, the switch cannot verify the new configuration and automatically reverts to the last known good configuration after approximately 10 minutes.

I'd start by checking anything that could affect the switch's management connectivity, particularly the management IP address, VLAN assignment, default gateway, and DNS settings. An incorrect management VLAN is often the culprit.

It's also worth verifying that the uplink ports are configured as trunks and that all required VLANs are being passed to the switch. If the management VLAN is not available on the uplink, the switch will lose access to cnMaestro Cloud as soon as the new configuration is applied.

For what it's worth, I've migrated a test switch to local management without any issues or reboot requirements. However, the switch had a relatively simple configuration, so I wouldn't assume every migration will be quite as straightforward.

 

I’ve just added a new Administrator access account, but when I save the configuration the device attempts to sync and then fails. The network/Internet goes down for a good 10 minutes before coming back online. Even then, the device still shows as offline and requires a power cycle before it appears online again and functions normally.

After the reboot, I can see the newly created account, but I’m still unable to log in locally with it.

I’ll need to investigate this further, as I can’t keep taking the network offline every time I attempt to make configuration changes.

[RobFuller]

5 minutes ago, JazzFlute said:

I’ve just added a new Administrator access account, but when I save the configuration the device attempts to sync and then fails. The network/Internet goes down for a good 10 minutes before coming back online. Even then, the device still shows as offline and requires a power cycle before it appears online again and functions normally.

After the reboot, I can see the newly created account, but I’m still unable to log in locally with it.

I’ll need to investigate this further, as I can’t keep taking the network offline every time I attempt to make configuration changes.

 

Sounds like it might need a factory reset to regain access then attempt a sync if you can get some downtime.

[JazzFlute]

A quote from Airspan about cnMaestro

 

“We are not buying the entire portfolio that Cambium had, but for everything that we are buying, we’ll continue to support the cloud-based cnMaestro, so any of the customers of these product lines should see no disruption at all,” Jain said.