topic Re: Ruckus 7372 best practice without controller in Access Points - Indoor and Outdoor

Ruckus 7372 best practice without controller

gareth_palmer — Tue, 30 Aug 2016 06:22:38 GMT

Hey guys,

Upgraded our wireless network a year ago, ro the Ruckus 7372 (9 APs in total) but without a controller currently given cost. We're a small school and the controller is coming but want to be aware of any issues of running without a controller.

I notice a lot of jumping around in the logs via smart channel / channelfly but generally it's running well. Also see it a lot of errors regarding disconnections from APs they're not associated with.

Cannot notify kernel for Delete AP (65535) event, -- Address family not supported by protocol(124)

Would it worth it assigning a specific channel to each AP?

Re: Ruckus 7372 best practice without controller

michael_brado — Tue, 30 Aug 2016 16:42:50 GMT

Hm... without the controller receiving the channel/client info from your APs to keep channels coordinated and to seamlessly roam your clients,
you need to make careful design decisions.

Each time a client roams to a new AP it will need to re-associate and re-authenticate (depending on your WLAN security).

Because each AP is an individual, you cannot assume it will change 2.4G channels often, unless using Channelfly, which employs channels 1-11
that not all (older) clients may support. SmartChannel alone will make new channel decisions when APs are rebooted, but may settle in after that.

Channelfly on 5G is appropriate, because 5G capable clients will likely have the protocols to learn/move when AP channels change too.

Those considerations might lead you to design a static channel plan for 2.4G if only utilizing 3 channels, while 5G has more available,
however I do not recognize the message above, and remind that it's the client's radio/drivers that decide roaming thresholds. Sitting
in a single classroom should not have many client roaming events, but between class shuffle periods would likely appear in AP logs.

And do look for a ZD1100 at value pricing these days (EoS), but can run up to 9.10.x firmware and supports 7372 model APs.

Re: Ruckus 7372 best practice without controller

gareth_palmer — Wed, 31 Aug 2016 02:22:09 GMT

Thanks! I'm inquiring about the ZD1200 currently, not too many vendors here in Japan. Would it be possible to pick up a used ZD1100 via Ebay etc and purchase licences separately?

Re: Ruckus 7372 best practice without controller

mitchell_axtell — Wed, 31 Aug 2016 04:04:44 GMT

You can limit the channels a standalone will use on 2.4 via a blacklist, specifically:

set blacklist wlan0 disable
set blacklist wlan0 2 -1
set blacklist wlan0 3 -1
set blacklist wlan0 4 -1
set blacklist wlan0 5 -1
set blacklist wlan0 7 -1
set blacklist wlan0 8 -1
set blacklist wlan0 9 -1
set blacklist wlan0 10 -1

MTBC for Channelfly can also be adjusted if they are change-happy, though I don't remember the command for that off-hand. I don't remember it being much of an issue unless the APs are being rebooted a lot.