Bottom-line: You don’t want clients to connect to the Open-Mesh device, but to the Cisco WLC network. First, choose an SSID that does not correspond to the SSID that is configured in the Cisco WLC for the public accessible network and also hide this SSID (See Figure 5). Instead we will need to make some configuration changes to make the wireless network on the Open-Mesh device as inaccessible as possible. Unfortunately it is not possible to turn off the wireless capabilities on an Open-Mesh device completely. This should all be handled by the Cisco WLC-based network. You don’t actually want to use the Open-Mesh device to provide any wireless capabilities. Below are the configuration items that need to be changed for CloudTrax to work with the WLC: Public SSID settings tab Please refer to the CloudTrax documentation at for the quick start guide and documentation on how to use the splash page. In this case the VLAN from the 802.1Q trunk towards the WLC needs to be mapped to an access port towards the OM2P. Or you have to place a switch that does support an 802.1Q trunk between the WLC and the OM2P. You therefore either have to use the native VLAN capability on the WLC when connecting it directly to the OM2P. Keep in mind that the OM2P does not support an 802.1Q trunk towards the WLC. The Open-Mesh OM2P does and is therefore the recommended device for this project.įrom the perspective of the Cisco WLC, the OM2P just acts like an upstream switch and from the perspective of the OM2P the Cisco WLC just appears to be a wired device. Also keep in mind that not all Open-Mesh devices come with a second ethernet port. Make sure to plug the internet uplink into the port closest to the power plug and the Cisco WLC to the other port. the OM2P - between the Cisco WLC based WiFi network an the internet (See Figure 4). In order to make a Cisco WLC based WiFi network work with CloudTrax, the solution is to place an Open-Mesh device - e.g. This capability is restricted to Open-Mesh based devices. The Cisco WLC does not directly support interacting with the CloudTrax-based Captive Portal. Figure 3: Ports, Interfaces, and WLANs in a Cisco WLC As we want to provide a single public SSID with a CloudTrax backed captive portal, this setup would be sufficient. But in this case only a single SSID can be configured. As an alternative you can also use the untagged VLAN within the WLC, thus not requiring a 802.1Q on the neighbor switch side. As shown in Figure 3, each controller port connection is an 802.1Q trunk and should be configured as such on the neighbor switch. With Cisco WLC a service set identifier (SSID) is mapped to a VLAN within a port. In this article I’ll show you how to do exactly this. Instead you might want to use the best of both worlds: The rock solid Cisco hardware with the easy to use CloudTrax captive portal. Figure 2: Captive Portal provided by CloudTraxīut if you already made a large financial and time investment into your Cisco WLC based Wifi network you do not necessarily want to rip and replace this network with an Open-Mesh network. within a hotel, restaurant, college campus or other location - for users to authenticate via a Captive Portal for free, with a free or prepaid voucher or via PayPal payment (See Figure 2). Here Open-Mesh with it’s cloud-based CloudTrax controller offers a very simple and cost-effective solution to deploy a Wifi network - e.g. Figure 1: Simple Cisco WLC based networkĭespite these outstanding capabilities, Cisco’s WLC brings rather limited and complicated capabilities to the table when it comes to creating a simple captive portal for Wifi users, where authentication of valid customers is performed via voucher codes. The solution simplifies deploying and managing large-scale wireless LANs by managing all data client, communications, and system administration functions, performing radio resource management (RRM) functions, managing system-wide mobility policies, and coordinating all security functions (See Figure 1). The Cisco Wireless LAN Controller (WLC) solution provides 802.11 wireless networking solutions for enterprises and service providers via a combination of a central wireless LAN controllers and associated lightweight access points controlled by the controller, all concurrently managed by any or all of the operating system user interfaces. CloudTrax Online Dashboard Configuration.Use a Cisco WLC based Wifi with the CloudTrax captive portal
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