Autoprovisioning

Config groups are also widely used for autoprovisioning purposes. In earlier WCS and controller code versions, when new controllers needed to be deployed in remote offices where the local team did not have wireless skills, you first had to ship the controller to a central office to have it configured, and then send the controller to its final location. This was true when deploying a new controller and when replacing a failed controller.

With controller and WCS code release 5.0 and later, you can prepare the controller configuration from the WCS interface and store the configuration file in the WCS TFTP folder.

Figure 3-1. Auto-provisioning

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When the new controller boots for the first time, if you do not start the initial Configuration Wizard within 30 seconds after the completion of the boot sequence, the controller enters an auto-install mode. In this mode, the controller first performs a Dynamic Host Control Protocol (DHCP) request on all interfaces to obtain an IP address. When configuring the DHCP scope from which the controller gets its IP address, you need to configure an option 150 (TFTP server) pointing to the WCS IP address. You can also specify an option 67 (bootfile) or 209 (configuration file) to force the controller to use a specific file, but these last two are optional. Upon receiving the option 150 information, the controller initiates a TFTP communication with the WCS to obtain a configuration file. If a configuration file is ready for this controller, the file is downloaded and installed. The controller then reboots and is ready.

In summary, you have four tasks:

To configure autoprovisioning on WCS 5.2, choose Configure, Auto Provisioning. The Auto Provisioning Filter List window appears. Choose Auto Provisioning Device Management from the left sidebar menu. This allows you to create and edit autoprovisioning filters, which define the list of devices to be autoprovisioned and create the relevant configuration files.

The New Filter page is where you define how the configuration file should be created. In this page, you need to define, among others, the following items:

• Whether the filter is active (that is, whether you want to use the autoprovisioning parameters defined on this page).

• The filter name (for example, remote branch controllers).

• The filter mode, which defines how you will identify the new controller (using its MAC address, its serial number, and so forth).

• A config group name. If you want to apply templates to the new controller, you can create a config group with all the relevant templates and call the config group with this option. One important parameter to keep in mind is that the config group must be empty of controllers. The group must contain only templates, and no controller for this parameter is to be used by the autoprovisioning feature. The config group must exist, which means that you cannot create an autoprovisioning filter if you have not first created a config group on your WCS. The config group can be completely empty if you do not want to apply any specific template.

• In the lower part of the page, you must enter the parameters specific to each controller to be provisioned with the current page settings. You can choose Single Device or CSV file. If Single Device is selected, enter the future host name, management interface IP address, management interface netmask, management interface gateway, LAG, AP manager interface IP address, AP manager interface network mask, AP manager interface gateway IP address, and DHCP server information for the controller to provision. If CSV File is chosen, enter the CSV file or use the Browse button to navigate to the applicable CSV file. You can then provision several controllers with the same filter, using unique IP settings for each of them but the same config group parameters.

Once you click Submit, a configuration file is created for each controller listed in the filter, and stored in the WCS TFTP folder. To view detailed information about autoprovisioning devices, choose List Filters Device Info or List All Filters Device Info from the Configure, Auto Provisioning page.

If your aim is to deploy a new controller, create a new filter and define the new controller’s parameters with a config group. If your aim is to replace a controller, you can first save the old controller configuration and position the saved configuration file in WCS TFTP folder. In any case, a key to success is to name the configuration file properly. When establishing TFTP communication with WCS, a controller looks for a configuration file in the following format:

• Filename provided by the DHCP Bootfile name option (option 67)

• Filename provided by the DHCP file field (option 209)

• <hostname>-confg

• <hostname>.cfg

• <base MAC address>-confg (for example, 0011.2233.4455-confg)

• <serial number>-confg (for example, JMZ1234ZZZ-confg)

• ciscowlc-confg

• ciscowlc.cfg