Meru WLAN Basic Configuration Guide

Meru

Meru Networks is a supplier of wireless local area networks (WLANs) to various industries. Meru Networks was founded in 2002 and headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, United States. Meru formulated many innovative approaches to wireless networking. It has used virtualization technology to create an intelligent and self-monitoring wireless network to allow enterprises to become all wireless, while smoothly migrating their business-critical applications from wired to wireless networks.

Major Products of Meru

Hardware

Controllers - For small enterprise to large enterprise use various models of controllers are available. Eg: MC1550, MC6000 etc.

Access Points - Different models of Access Points are available for various deployment scenarios.

Software 

Meru System Director Operating System - The operating system which runs on all Meru controllers and access points

Meru E(z)RF Network Manager - Manages multiple controllers and thousands of access points providing real-time location tracking and location firewall.

Meru Spectrum Manager - A spectrum analysis solution.

Meru Identity Manager - Allows businesses to provide access to thousands of Wi-Fi devices in the “bring your own device” (BYOD) workplace.

Meru Virtual Controller - Provides the same functionality as that of the hardware controller. It can be downloaded as OVF template and can be loaded to Esxi server.

To know more about the products visit http://www.merunetworks.com/products/index.html

Wireless LAN - The Meru Difference

Some of Meru’s key technology innovations include:

- Single Channel Architecture (SCA) for pervasive Wi-Fi coverage without the hassle of costly site surveys

- Channel layering to maximize client density without sacrificing pervasive coverage

- Intelligent network control traffic management

- Robust on-boarding and monitoring solution for BYOD

Basic Meru WLAN setup

This setup includes the following components:

1.) Meru MC3200v Virtual LAN Controller

2.) Meru 320i access points.

3.) Windows domain. 

4.) RADIUS server for AAA (Windows NPS).

Network Diagram

In this example I have used Meru Virtual LAN controller instead of a hardware controller. When it comes to the configuration part there will not be any difference between a hardware controller and virtual controller, except the system director is loaded to a hardware box in the former and to a virtual machine in latter.

Step by step configuration

This configuration includes the following:

A.) Deploying the controller, Access Point to an existing wired network consist of a Windows Domain

B.) Basic Controller and Access Point Configuration

C.) Basic Wireless Profile setup for  domain users with RADIUS authentication

D.) Basic Wireless Profile for guest users

E.) Configuring TACACS+ Authentication for Administrators (Optional)

A.) Deploying the controller, Access Point to an existing wired network consist of a Windows Domain.

1.) Meru Controller Installation. Download the Controller Installation guide and follow the steps outlined to deploy either a hardware controller or virtual controller. 

2.) The next step is to perform the basic configuration of the controller which you have deployed earlier. 

3.) Access the Controller console (if it is a hardware controller, connect it using a console cable and virtual controller - connect through vSphere client console )

3.)  Login to the controller with user name as admin and password admin. Type setup to launch the initial configuration script.

4.) Perform the rest of the configuration using the guide which is available for download from the following link Make sure that you followed the steps under the topic 'Setup Via CLI' only. We will configure the rest of the Controller setup via CLI latter in this blog.

5.) Once the initial setup is done via CLI. It's time to check whether the Meru WebUI is working. Connect the web interface of your controller via the IP address you configured during the setup i.e https://ipaddress Also check whether you are able to connect your controller using an SSH connection. Below screenshot shows the WebUI.

6.)  Install Meru Access Point using the Installation guide which is available for download from the below link. 

B.) Basic Meru Controller and Access Point Configuration

All the configurations are done using CLI. Meru CLI is very similar to Cisco and many of the Cisco commands will work here. If you are comfortable with Cisco routers I would recommend you use CLI for configuration. Also some CLI commands does not have a WebUI alternative. So in some point of time you will have to use CLI.

Like Cisco CLI, Meru have got different command modes - User EXEC Mode, Privileged EXEC Mode, Global Configuration mode. 

Setting the command history buffer size

Just in case you need to recall the commands you have typed previously, the default size is 10.

I am just setting it as 20. Use the command terminal history size 20 in Privileged EXEC Mode.

Meru Controller File System (CFS)

Using CFS you can manage the controller OS and its configuration files.

Below are the local directories present in a controller:

Images         - Directory where the current image resides

Backup         - Contain backup configuration

ATS/scripts  - Contain AP bootup scripts

Capture        - Contain the packet capture files

Some useful commands

Show current directory - pwd

List files inside directory - dir

Change to another directory - cd ATS/scripts

Configuration Files

Similar to Cisco router, Controller have got startup configuration and running configuration.

The command copy running-config startup-config (to save running config to startup config) is also applicable here.

Copy files to and from the Controller

In some situations you might need to transfer files to the controller or backup files from the controller. You can use the following protocols to do the same: FTP, SFTP, TFTP, SCP

If the server from/to which you perform the file transfer is using a password then you can globally set the username and passwod using the below command:

ip ftp user-name myusername

Ip ftp password mypassword

Replace ftp with sftp, scp according to the server you are using.

Copy files from Controller to FTP, TFTP, SFTP and SCP server

For example, to copy a file script.log from the local directory of the controller to a remote FTP server. The server IP is 192.168.1.100 and its remote directory is backup. The username of the server is administrator. (If you have set the credentials earlier using the ip ftp username/password command, use the second command to copy)

1.  Copy script.log ftp://administrator@192.168.1.100/backup/

2. Copy script.log ftp://192.168.1.100

Here replace ftp with scp, sftp, tftp etc.

Copy files to Controller from a remote server

Copy ftp://192.168.1.100/script.log .

Summary of the File System Commands

Show flash - Displays the version of the image files contained in the controller's  flash memory.

More running-config - Same as that of running-config. But there is a difference. Try to figure out the difference ;-)

Reload ap [id] | all | controller | default - To reload ap, controller or all.

[CAUTION :- The keyword default will reboot all Aps' and Controllers at the factory default startup configuration.]

Licensing

The following commands will display information about the license :

show license

show controller

show license-file active

To import a license file from ftp/sftp/tftp use the following command in global configuration mode:

License ftp://192.168.1.100/license3411.lic active

Configuring DHCP server in Controller 

You can configure DHCP server in Controller itself so that you might not want to rely on external DHCP servers to server the client devices. This is basically done in small environments. Deploying Controller based DHCP server in large environment may increase the Controller load.

In a controller you can configure multiple DHCP servers for different VLANs' in your network. You can map each VLAN with DHCP server.

Important : DHCP Relay Pass-through MUST be enabled for a Controller based DHCP to work. To enable DHCP Relay Passthrough globally, use the below command in global configuration mode:

ip dhcp-passthrough

To enable DHCP pass-through for a VLAN:

(config)#  vlan  TestVLAN tag  200

(config-vlan)# no  ip  dhcp-passthrough

Use the below code to configure DHCP server. Here I have tagged the DHCP server to vlan 'TestVLAN':

(config)# dhcp-server DHCP1

(config-dhcp-server)# enable

(config-dhcp-server)# vlan name TestVLAN

(config-dhcp-server)# lease-time 3600

(config-dhcp-server)#  ip-pool 192.168.1.10 192.168.1.100

(config-dhcp-server)# domain-name tony.com

(config-dhcp-server)# dns-server-primary 192.168.1.5

(config-dhcp-server)# dns-server-secondary 192.168.1.4

(config-dhcp-server)# enable

More options can be configured like below:

 
Republishing with a notification : Product discontinued hence this post is not relevant anymore..