Cisco Cisco 2106 Wireless LAN Controller

You can use the controller CLI to configure three mesh multicast modes to manage video camera 
broadcasts. When enabled, these modes reduce unnecessary multicast transmissions within the mesh 
network and conserve backhaul bandwidth.

Mesh multicast modes determine how bridging-enabled access points [mesh access points (MAPs) and 
root access points (RAPs)] send multicasts among Ethernet LANs within a mesh network. Mesh 
multicast modes manage non-LWAPP multicast traffic only. LWAPP multicast traffic is governed by a 
different mechanism.

The three mesh multicast modes are:

Regular mode—Data is multicast across the entire mesh network and all its segments by 
bridging-enabled RAPs and MAPs. This is the default mode.

In mode—Multicast packets received from the Ethernet by a MAP are forwarded to the RAP’s 
Ethernet network. No additional forwarding occurs, which ensures that non-LWAPP multicasts 
received by the RAP are not sent back to the MAP Ethernet networks within the mesh network (their 
point of origin), and MAP-to-MAP multicasts do not occur because they are filtered out.

In-out mode—The RAP and MAP both multicast but in a different manner: 

If multicast packets are received at a MAP over Ethernet, they are sent to the RAP; however, 
they are not sent to other MAP Ethernets, and the MAP-to-MAP packets are filtered out of the 
multicast.

If multicast packets are received at a RAP over Ethernet, they are sent to all the MAPs and their 
respective Ethernet networks. When the in-out mode is in operation, it is important to properly 
partition your network to ensure that a multicast sent by one RAP is not received by another 
RAP on the same Ethernet segment and then sent back into the network.

If 802.11b clients need to receive LWAPP multicasts, then multicast must be enabled 
globally on the controller as well as on the mesh network (using the config network 
multicast global enable CLI command). If multicast does not need to extend to 802.11b 
clients beyond the mesh network, the global multicast parameter should be disabled (using 
the config network multicast global disable CLI command).

To enable multicast mode on a mesh network, enter this command:

config mesh multicast {regular | in | in-out}

In controller software release 4.1.185.0, power levels for the AP1505 and AP1510 are reported as either 
Tx Power Level 1 or Tx Power Level 2. Previously, only a maximum transmission power (Max Tx 
Power) was reported.

Tx Power Level 1 = The maximum power level that exists across all of the data rates

Tx Power Level 2 = Tx Power Level 1 minus 3 dBm

The CLI command summary displays the dBm value for power levels 1 and 2, but this reading is not 
available on the controller GUI.