User's Manual

Configuring the Wireless AP
hwc_apstartup.fm
Discovery and registration overview
A31003-W1050-U100-2-7619
, March 2008
72 HiPath Wireless Controller, Access Points and Convergence Software V5 R1 , C20/C2400 User Guide
4.2.1 Wireless AP discovery
Wireless APs discover the IP address of a HiPath Wireless Controller using a
sequence of mechanisms that allow for the possible services available on the
enterprise network. The discovery process is successful when the Wireless AP
successfully locates a HiPath Wireless Controller to which it can register.
You must ensure that the appropriate services on your enterprise network are
prepared to support the discovery process. The following five steps summarize
the discovery process:
• Step 1 – Use the IP address of the last successful connection to a HiPath
Wireless Controller.
Once a Wireless AP has successfully registered with a HiPath Wireless
Controller, it recalls that controller's IP address, and uses that address on
subsequent reboots. The Wireless AP bypasses discovery and goes straight
to registration.
If this discovery method fails, it cycles through the remaining steps until
successful.
• Step 2 – Use the predefined static IP addresses for the HiPath Wireless
Controllers on the network (if configured).
You can specify a list of static IP addresses of the HiPath Wireless Controllers
on your network. On the Static Configuration tab, add the addresses to the
Wireless Controller Search List.
Caution: Wireless APs configured with a static Wireless Controller Search
List can only connect to HiPath Wireless Controllers in the list. Improperly
configured Wireless APs cannot connect to a non-existent HiPath Wireless
Controller address, and therefore cannot receive a corrected configuration.
• Step 3 – Use Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) Option 78 to
locate a Service Location Protocol (SLP) Directory Agent (DA), followed
by a unicast SLP request to the Directory Agent.
To use the DHCP and unicast SLP discovery method, you must ensure that
the DHCP server on your network supports Option 78 (DHCP for SLP
RFC2610). The Wireless APs use this method to discover the HiPath
Wireless Controller.
This solution takes advantage of two services that are present on most
networks:
• DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) – The standard is a
means of providing IP addresses dynamically to devices on a network.