Cisco WLAN AP Modes

hey there folks my name is Dan Goodman and I want to welcome you to another exciting rendition of Stormwind studios succinct held online remote training sessions or shorts we should just call them shorts anyways this is the eighth short in the wireless LAN essentials series of shorts picking up on the previous one which would have been number seven because this is number eight by discussing the different access point modes what does that mean we're going to talk about modes modalities modernization mode raters modeling come on baby we're gonna talk about modes all right so as far as these modes are concerned we have the local mode which is the default configuration providing full access point capabilities in this case 99% of the time is devoted to data services with 1% of the time devoted to monitoring so these access points will do a full channel scan every 180 seconds looking for rogue devices now just to clarify a rogue device is not always a bad device it could be an actual rogue device or just our next-door neighbor's access point that just so happens to be within range of one of our access points now all of the information gathering during this 1% time of monitoring can be collected by a controller or sent to another type of central device monitor mode focuses the capabilities on monitoring hence the name monitor mode now within this we have two sub modes one is known as the tracking optimized monitor mode or Tom which is optimized for RFID tracking and then the wireless intrusion prevention system which has a fixed scan time of 250 milliseconds per channel the monitor mode is also useful when it comes to just troubleshooting the basic functionality of your wireless LAN flex Connect mode is a solution for and remote offices as we discussed in an earlier short basically two modes connected is when the access point can reach the controller stand-alone is when the access point cannot reach the controller now in the event a controller comes back up at any point in time the fallback shutdown feature enables the access point to recognize this and automatically switch back to the connected mode and then of course if it goes down again it'll automatically switch back to the standalone mode now additionally the switching is stealth can be centralized or localized central means that the wireless LAN data is tunneled back to the controller local is where the 802 dot 1 tags are added by the access point to its local wired segment starting at the top of the second column we've got the rogue detector mode which is really a more focused version of the monitor mode in this case the ARP packets are captured to determine rogue status once again this information can be collected and reported to a controller for further action or another central device now in this case the radio is turned off and the only the access point is in a listening state the sniffer mode is once again kind of a more focused monitor mode if you will it dedicates all capabilities to sniffing a single channel in Bolton 2.4 gigahertz and the 5 gigahertz band all traffic is going to be captured and forwarded to a central server so that means it's going to gather things like the timestamp the signal strength and the packet size Bridge mode is used to set up indoor or outdoor mesh networks for those of you guys who aren't familiar with a mesh network it's essentially a handful of access points that have connectivity that contribute to the controller all others will rely upon these access points who provide a bridge back to the controller so instead of all access points connected to a controller some of them are and other access points essentially piggyback off of the ones that are connected so this is obviously useful where cabling is difficult to run it also eliminates single points of failure by establishing a certain sense of redundancy now you can set up Ridge mode as the default mode on any type of access point that supports it kind of rounding out this discussion we also have another mode that we've mentioned the office extend mode or the office extend access point or OAP this is designed for teleworkers as kind of a VPN slash hotspot hybrid if you will it's unable to automatically discover a controller so it's not a true lightweight access point in that regard you have to use the GUI or you have to use the command-line interface on the access point to say hey this is the controller I need you to connect to multiple wireless LANs are configurable in this particular mode but the best practice is to actually configure the access point lock down its configuration and tell the user hey go plug this in at your home and just play it don't mess around with it just plug it and play it the spectrum expert Connect or the SP Connect or the spectrum only monitor mode sum once again we have to have three names for one single thing this is where the access point serves in an information-gathering role so things like signal strength utilization and interference all this information is going to be fed into analyzer software essentially whichever one you prefer that understands this information to make the necessary adjustments now one thing to remember is that this is a mode that's only available on clean air capable access points that also have the Cisco spectrum expert software installed finally we have the wireless intrusion prevention system or WIPs enhanced local mode this provides wireless threat detection and mitigation while still operating in the local mode all of the packets on the servicing channel are going to be scanned this will eliminate the need of an overlay network that provides scanline scanning however this does require an additional Cisco product the mobility services engine as well as prime infrastructure with the WIPs licensing now if you want a quick summary of all of these things that we discussed kind of like we've done in other shorts we've done our best here to kind of summarize all of these operational modes specifically for the indoor access points this gives us a side by side comparison showing the indoor access points and their operational modes I'm gonna give you a couple of seconds to pause the video so you can take a look at it moving on what about the outdoor access point operational modes here is another side by side comparison showing the outdoor access points we previously discuss and the modes a support going to give you a couple of seconds once again to pause the video so you can take a look at it jot down your notes moving on that officially wraps up another rousing edition of our shorts focusing on Wireless land essentials please make sure you subscribe to our channel so that you are notified of our new shorts shortly after they become available talk to you guys soon okay

Channel: StormWind Studios

Views: 2,495

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Id: KVavo-InzVY

Length: 8min 24sec (504 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 03 2020