Cisco WLC and AP DHCP Options

For Cisco AP's to get registered to a WLAN Controller on a different subnet, you have to do a bit of work on your DHCP server. This is where it gets interesting.

I found an article online from Cisco that you can follow to get these AP's working with your WLC. You can find that article here.

The one thing I did differently in the Predefined Options was instead of using Binary in the data type, I used IP Address and then edited the Array to include the IP Address of the WLC. Then in the scope options, the IP address has been specified and is good to go.

The AP gets the Option 43 to get the files from the WLC and then registers after any firmware upgrade the controller could be offering.

All set and good to go.

Cisco Call Manager Express Phone Times

I had a buddy of mine ask me about making sure the time on his routers were correct on his CME boxes because the phone times were off. I recommended setting up an NTP server and syncing to that...and here was the instructions I gave him.

First of all, we need to make sure your time zone is correct.

Log (telnet) into you router and go into config mode and enter these commands:

router(config)#clock timezone GMT -6

router(config)#clock summer-time CST recurring

Then, you could either change the time yourself or configure an NTP server. If you have a Windows 2008 server, I would set it up as an NTP server and configure the router to check with it. Here is an article we followed to get the server to be an NTP server locally:

http://bchavez.bitarmory.com/archive/2009/12/21/how-to-setup-a-windows-2008-r2-sntp-ntp-server.aspx

Then on your router in config mode, do the following:

router(config)#ntp server x.x.x.x prefer

It will take a bit for the router to sync to an NTP server, and quite frankly, you are probably better off to set the time manually after you configure the NTP server since sometimes they don't want to sync if they are too far off. So, to set the time manually...you actually don't have to be in config mode, just at the enable prompt.

router#clock set 08:20:00 2 October 2012

To check to make sure it took, just enter this command…it will show your current time and date and whether it is manual or NTP synced:

router#show clock detail

08:25:35.826 CST Tue Oct 2 2012

Time source is NTP

Summer time starts 02:00:00 GMT Sun Mar 11 2012

Summer time ends 02:00:00 CST Sun Nov 4 2012

You should probably check your time zone in the telephony-service portion as well since this is where your phones check for their time zone:

router(config-telephony)#time-zone ?

This will bring up the number you need to put for what time zone you need:

router(config-telephony)#time-zone ?

  1-56  select timezone name used by IP phones (offset in minutes)

1 Dateline Standard Time -720

2 Samoa Standard Time -660

3 Hawaiian Standard Time -600

4 Alaskan Standard/Daylight Time -540

5 Pacific Standard/Daylight Time -480

6 Mountain Standard/Daylight Time -420

7 US Mountain Standard Time -420

8 Central Standard/Daylight Time -360

-snip-

So, for Central, it should be:

router(config-telephony)#time-zone 8

That should correct the time on the phones, but you may need to rebuild the cnf files. Still in telephony-service mode, issue these commands and it should help correct the time on the phones.

router(config-telephony)#no create cnf-files

router(config-telephony)#create cnf-files

That should fix you up!