Firmware upgrade and SNMP managment software

Question

I have two questions.  We have an outside network consisting of 230 - 7782 AP's running version 9.8.2.0 build 24.  We have outdoor CPE radios connecting to the system as well as mobile users connecting as well as they move through the 2 square mile network.  I'm finding that after 80 days of up time the root AP's need to be rebooted.  Would upgrading to a higher firmware be advisable.?  What would be a good management software to use for monitoring the signal levels between mesh and root access.

unknown · Answer

Jason:
My sympathies on your monitoring requirements.
I haven't needed to restart my 7782 APs, maybe because I have very few of them.

First:
DEFENSIVE CONFIGS:
In my environment, I disabled Mesh on all the APs that I did not intend to participate in Mesh and configured all the intended Root APs to only participate as "Root" devices.
If I dont do this, it's possible for intended root APs (or non mesh APs) to attempt to form mesh uplinks to other APs.
I suggest you make those changes as well.

GUI HAS MESH INFO:
Judging by what Michael had to say about the Monitor/Mesh page, you might-as-well go straight there if what you're interested in finding is the link quality to/from your meshed nodes.

GUI ISN'T AN ALERT SYSYTEM:
I assume what you were looking for was a tool that can pro-actively inform you when links are poor without you having to hire an intern to stare at the mesh page all day.
(which this won't do for you)

SNMP NOT COOPERATING:
Unfortunately, I don't think Ruckus provides this information via SNMP.
Of the few "mesh" related OIDs in the Ruckus MIB, most of them are not even populated in the latest firmware releases. (I'm pretty sure they used to be)
Not that it matters 'cause I'm not aware of mesh link strength ever being included.

LET RUCKUS KNOW:
You should open a support ticket w/ Ruckus just to confirm that (lack of SNMP support)
You might have to wait a while for support to find an engineer that knows about SNMP.
Then submit a feature request through your Ruckus Rep, asking for this SNMP support.
(because customers *should* provide their vendors w/ valuable feedback like that)

USE A PING/ALERT SYSTEM:
One option would be to deploy a ping/monitoring tool. (like nagios/icinga/"What's up", etc.)
That way, when APs drop off your network, you'll at least get a heads-up.

OR START A RESEARCH PROJECT:

If you *still* want a way to get signal strength, you should try ssh'ing directly into one of your APs and at the "rkscli:" prompt typing:
  get mesh

You should see a few lines of output for each AP you try that on.

If the second "S" column contains an "R" I suspect that means you're looking at a "root" only AP.
If you see an "M" under there, I suspect that means you're looking at a "regular" Mesh node.

"D" seems to mean "Downlink" and "U" seems to mean "Uplink".
(those are the important lines)

Under the "RSSI" column is the information you're looking for.
Be aware that most of the time Ruckus says "RSSI", what they really mean is "SNR". (Signal to Noise Ratio)
So, while this is not technically "Signal strength" it may relate more closely with link quality.

If no-one has better suggestions, automating a download of this information might be your best bet.

Let me know if you need help/info re: automating this and generating alerts.

-Bill

P.S.
Here's some example output from 2 different APs:

rkscli: get mesh

BSSID             S LastSeen Ch   AdvUpl  SmpUpl CalcUpl  RSSI/UL/NF   Flt IF UR D NILS Management-MAC    SSID   L3 IP
  2c:e6:cc:07:f5:30 M  2715077 108  123.00    0.00  123.00     0/00/0    l    -  u 2    0 2c:e6:cc:07:f5:30 Mesh-171308000009 Y 143.48.126.89
  24:c9:a1:9e:ed:47 U  2715077 108  390.00  123.00  123.00    26/28/-110 c    -  * 1    0 24:c9:a1:1e:ed:40 Mesh-171308000009 Y 143.48.126.49

rkscli: get mesh

BSSID             S LastSeen Ch   AdvUpl  SmpUpl CalcUpl  RSSI/UL/NF   Flt IF UR D NILS Management-MAC    SSID   L3 IP
  24:c9:a1:1e:ed:40 R  2191010 108  390.00    0.00  390.00     0/00/0    l    -  * 1    0 24:c9:a1:1e:ed:40 Mesh-171308000009 Y 143.48.126.49
  2c:e6:cc:87:f5:37 N  2191010 108  123.00  121.00   61.00    25/30/-110 l    -  * 2    0 2c:e6:cc:07:f5:30 Mesh-171308000009 Y 143.48.126.89
  2c:e6:cc:c7:f5:37 D  2191010 108  123.00   23.00   19.38    23/127/-108 c    -  * 2    0 2c:e6:cc:07:f5:30 Mesh-171308000009 Y 143.48.126.89

unknown · Answer

Thanks that helps.  I am looking at Cacti as well now and seeing what it will take to graph all the individual components.

michael_brado · Answer

Hello Jason,

ZD version 9.8.3.0.14 has the most up to date bug fixes and performance enhancements

and is sure to be compatible with your current systems.  Always save a backup from this version,

and put the '982024' digits in the filename, so you know what version it came from, in case you

ever want/need to roll back.

Have you seen the 'Rowdy' ZoneDirector debug analysis tool, available at this link:

https://loganalyzer1.ruckuswireless.com/Rowdy/

It will display all your Root APs, and graphically display each hop to the Mesh APs in your

network.  Mousing over each AP will give you it's name, IP, MAC, mesh role, sw version, and

number of reboots, but does not show the link signal strengths.  But with that, you can go to

your ZD's Monitor/Mesh page and look deeper into the links of interest.