Cisco Systems 3700

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.

Note 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.

Note CAPWAP support is provided in controller software release 5.2 or later. However, your

controller must be running release 7.6.0.0 or later to support 3700 series access points.

Note You cannot edit or query any access point using the controller CLI if the name of the access

point contains a space.

Note 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 “Performing a Pre-Installation Configuration” section on page 14.