Cisco Cisco Aironet 3600i Access Point Guía De Instalación

The access point uses standard Control and Provisioning of Wireless Access Points Protocol (CAPWAP) to communicate 
between the controller and other wireless access points on the network. CAPWAP is a standard, interoperable protocol which 
enables an access controller to manage a collection of wireless termination points. The discovery process using CAPWAP is 
identical to the Lightweight Access Point Protocol (LWAPP) used with previous Cisco Aironet access points. LWAPP-enabled 
access points are compatible with CAPWAP, and conversion to a CAPWAP controller is seamless. Deployments can combine 
CAPWAP and LWAPP software on the controllers. 

The functionality provided by the controller does not change except for customers who have Layer 2 deployments, which 
CAPWAP does not support.

In a CAPWAP environment, a wireless access point discovers a controller by using CAPWAP discovery mechanisms and then 
sends it a CAPWAP join request. The controller sends the access point a CAPWAP join response allowing the access point to 
join the controller. When the access point joins the controller, the controller manages its configuration, firmware, control 
transactions, and data transactions.

For additional information about the discovery process and CAPWAP, see the Cisco Wireless LAN Controller Software 
Configuration Guide. This document is available on Cisco.com.

CAPWAP support is provided in controller software release 5.2 or later. However, your controller must be running 
release 7.1.91.0 or later to support 3600 series access points.

You cannot edit or query any access point using the controller CLI if the name of the access point contains a space.

Make sure that the controller is set to the current time. If the controller is set to a time that has already occurred, the 
access point might not join the controller because its certificate may not be valid for that time.

Access points must be discovered by a controller before they can become an active part of the network. The access point supports 
these controller discovery processes:

Layer 3 CAPWAP discovery—Can occur on different subnets than the access point and uses IP addresses and UDP packets 
rather than MAC addresses used by Layer 2 discovery.

Locally stored controller IP address discovery—If the access point was previously joined to a controller, the IP addresses of 
the primary, secondary, and tertiary controllers are stored in the access point’s non-volatile memory. This process of storing 
controller IP addresses on an access point for later deployment is called priming the access point. For more information 
about priming, see the 

DHCP server discovery—This feature uses DHCP option 43 to provide controller IP addresses to the access points. Cisco 
switches support a DHCP server option that is typically used for this capability. For more information about DHCP option 
43, see the 

.

DNS discovery—The access point can discover controllers through your domain name server (DNS). For the access point 
to do so, you must configure your DNS to return controller IP addresses in response to 
CISCO-CAPWAP-CONTROLLER.localdomain, where localdomain is the access point domain name. Configuring the 
CISCO-CAPWAP-CONTROLLER provides backwards compatibility in an existing customer deployment. When an access 
point receives an IP address and DNS information from a DHCP server, it contacts the DNS to resolve 
CISCO-CAPWAP-CONTROLLER.localdomain. When the DNS sends a list of controller IP addresses, the access point 
sends discovery requests to the controllers.

Before you mount and deploy your access point, we recommend that you perform a site survey (or use the site planning tool) to 
determine the best location to install your access point.