{"id":2188,"date":"2015-11-20T13:22:00","date_gmt":"2015-11-20T13:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jay-miah.co.uk\/?p=2188"},"modified":"2024-11-18T13:27:12","modified_gmt":"2024-11-18T13:27:12","slug":"deploy-a-cisco-virtual-wireless-lan-controller-and-complete-initial-setup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jay-miah.co.uk\/index.php\/deploy-a-cisco-virtual-wireless-lan-controller-and-complete-initial-setup\/","title":{"rendered":"Deploy a Cisco Virtual Wireless LAN Controller and Complete Initial Setup"},"content":{"rendered":"

In this step by step guide I will show you how to deploy a Virtual Wireless LAN Controller and complete the initial setup process.<\/p>\n

Deploy the Cisco vWLC OVF Template<\/strong><\/p>\n

1.\u00a0<\/strong>Download the vWLC OVF template from the Cisco website and save it in a suitable place, you can download a trial version valid for up to 60 days. Launch vSphere and select \u201cFile\u201d and click \u201cDeploy OVF Template\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0<\/strong>Browse\u00a0for the OVF template file and click \u201cNext\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

3.<\/strong>\u00a0At the Summary window verify the details of the VM\u00a0and hit \u201cNext\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

4.<\/strong>\u00a0Give the Appliance a name and click \u201cNext\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

5.\u00a0<\/strong>Select \u201cThick Provision Lazy Zeroed\u201d and click \u201cNext\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

6.\u00a0<\/strong>At the network mapping screen\u00a0click \u201cNext\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

7.\u00a0<\/strong>At the Summary screen verify all the details are correct, make sure \u201cPower on after deployment\u201d is unticked and hit \u201cFinish\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The template will begin to deploy, this can take a few minutes to complete, once completed successfully hit \u201cClose\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a0Edit the Virtual Appliance<\/strong><\/p>\n

1.<\/strong>\u00a0Right click the VM and select \u201cEdit Settings\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

From the Virtual Machine properties make sure \u201cNetwork Adapter 1\u201d is connected to the management VLAN as this port will be used for the service interface on the vWLC.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Next make sure \u201cNetwork Adapter 2\u201d is connected to a Trunk interface, this will be used by the vWLC as the management interface to communicate with the Access-points via CAPWAP. Click \u201cOK\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Begin Initial Setup<\/strong><\/p>\n

1.<\/strong>\u00a0launch a console window and Power on the virtual machine, Hit enter for the device to begin the boot process.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

2.<\/strong>\u00a0At the prompt \u201cWould you like to terminate autoinstall\u201d type \u201cYes\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The device will now walk us through a set of configuration commands which allows us to define the settings we want for the controller.<\/p>\n

3.\u00a0<\/strong>Create a Administrative account which will be stored locally on the device, at the prompt give the account a name and password.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

4.<\/strong>\u00a0Type \u201cStatic\u201d to set the service interface IP address and netmask manually, this interface will be used for \u201cOut of Band\u201d management and should be on a management VLAN<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

5.\u00a0<\/strong>Enter the\u00a0Management\u00a0IP address, netmask, & Default gateway information \u2013\u00a0this cannot be on the same subnet as the service interface!\u00a0<\/strong>Enter the VLAN (If any) information, 0 can be used if the controller\u00a0doesn\u2019t\u00a0belong to any VLANs. By default the Interface port number will be 1, finally enter the address of a DHCP server that will serve the scopes of the Wireless Access-points.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

6.<\/strong>\u00a0At the prompt for the IP address of a \u201cVirtual Gateway\u201d simply enter 1.1.1.1, this would only be used in an environment where three or four WLC\u2019s are deployed for the purpose of \u201cRoaming\u201d where users can go between any access points and between different controllers, all of the controllers in the same mobility group would use the same VIP.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

7.<\/strong>\u00a0Give the controller a mobility group name<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

8. \u00a0<\/strong>Give your first SSID a name<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

9. \u00a0<\/strong>At the prompt to configure DHCP Bridging type \u201cNo\u201d this can always be setup at a later stage.<\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

10.<\/strong>\u00a0Select \u201cYes\u201d to allow the use of static IP addresses<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

11.\u00a0<\/strong>You have the option to configure a RADIUS server at this stage, however in this example we will say \u201cNo\u201d at the prompt.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

12.\u00a0<\/strong>Enter the country code \u201cGB\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

13.<\/strong>\u00a0 at the prompt to enable the radios select yes for all four<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

14.\u00a0<\/strong>If you have a NTP server you may configure this here,\u00a0alternatively you can\u00a0manually\u00a0enter the date\/time information<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

15.<\/strong>\u00a0if you are using IPv6 in your network you configure these options now alternatively type \u201cNo\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

16.<\/strong>\u00a0If the configuration is correct, type \u201cYes\u201d and the VM will save the changes and reboot. if you have made mistakes or want to start again select \u201cNo\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Once the VM has rebooted successfully, the console will display a \u201cUser\u201d prompt. You can login using the credentials specified earlier to carry out further command line configuration, or we can also use the web GUI interface.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Access the GUI Web Interface<\/strong><\/p>\n

1.\u00a0<\/strong>launch a web browser and enter the IP address of either the service interface or the management interface. At the certificate error click \u201cContinue to this website (not recommended)\u201d the error is displayed only because the device is using a self signed certificate and our browser doesn\u2019t recognise it.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0<\/strong>Click \u201cLogin\u201d and insert the credentials created earlier.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Once the user is authenticated, we will have access to the interface where we can begin configuring our Wireless LAN in more depth.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Before we can begin adding access-points to the controller, we must activate a valid licence \u2013 in this case we will activate the evaluation licence. If we don\u2019t have a valid licence the APs will fail to establish a capwap tunnel to the controller, and therefore fail to associate. From the top menu navigate to \u201cManagement\u201d-\u201cSoftware Licence\u201d-Licences\u201d and click on the\u00a0licence name \u201cap count\u201d. click on the \u201cSet Status\u201d button for the licence agreement and click accept. finally save the configuration and reboot the WLC.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In this step by step guide I will show you how to deploy a Virtual Wireless LAN Controller and complete the initial setup process. Deploy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2215,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,17],"tags":[137,136,108],"class_list":["post-2188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-network","category-wireless","tag-vwlc","tag-wireless","tag-wlc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jay-miah.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jay-miah.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jay-miah.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jay-miah.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jay-miah.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2188"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jay-miah.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2188\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2224,"href":"https:\/\/jay-miah.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2188\/revisions\/2224"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jay-miah.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jay-miah.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jay-miah.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jay-miah.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}