Clarification on max-clients in the context of ap(-group) and wlan

[lukas_l_sche]

It's 3am and I'm bored, so I'm reading the ZoneDirector 9.13 CLI Reference Guide when something jumps out at me:

From the description the max-clients option in the wlan context limits the total number of clients that can associate with a given SSID. However the maximum value allowed is 512. So I'm thinking that seems low. I'm checking our Zonedirector and there it says for a given wlan:

      Max. Clients = 100

I know for a fact that we have way more than 100 clients concurrently connected to that SSID. Now I'm wondering if it's supposed to say "Max. Clients per AP" or "Max. Clients per AP radio"?

But if that's the case what's the role of max-clients in the context of an ap or ap-group? Why would I be able to configure max-clients per ap when I can also configure them per wlan and vice versa?

How are the two related, what takes precedence, and is this just a typo in the manual?

[dionis_taveras]

Hey there Lukas, this is a great question. Maybe one deserving some clarification too. However, you were on the right track.

The number is for a given SSID per AP per radio. So, if you leave the default (most customers do), you would have 100 max client over AP per Radio or a total of 200 clients max for an SSID in a given AP.

This is not a global AP command and it is isn't locking down the AP entirely either. It is simply per SSID per Radio.

Hope this helps.

[seanhmuir]

If you want to set max client per radio you need to use the the following commands (wlan0 is for 2.4GHz radio and wlan32 is for the 5GHz:

set max-aid wlan0 100
set max-aid wlan32 100

Note: This has to be run on each AP and can be accomplished using the remote ap cli command from the ZD debug menu:

rksap_cli -A "set max-aid wlan0 100"
rksap_cli -A "set max-aid wlan32 100"

Note: The -A will issue the command on all AP's, but if you want to have more/less clients on certain AP's than others, you can use the following:

rksap_cli -a 74:91:1a:00:11:22 "set max-aid wlan0 100"
rksap_cli -a 74:91:1a:00:11:22 "set max-aid wlan32 100"

Hope this helps 🙂

[robert_lowe_722]

As i understand it:

Max clients per AP = Total amount of clients associated to the AP on a per radio basis (regardless of the number of SSID's broadcast by the radio)
Max clients per WLAN = Total number of clients allowed on a specific WLAN on a per AP basis