Provisioning Access Points
Chapter 3
10
Aruba AP 80 Outdoor Wireless Access Point
0500125-03
Installation Guide
January 2006
Aruba Discovery Protocol
Aruba Discovery Protocol (ADP) is a plug-and-play provisioning tool for AP 80
Access Points. ADP performs two tasks:
Obtains the IP address of the TFTP server from which it downloads the AP
boot image
It discovers the IP address of the master Aruba Mobility Controller in the
network from which the AP can download its configuration.
The address of the TFTP server that ADP discovers is the equivalent of the
BOOTROM environment variable
serverip
. The IP address of the Aruba master
Mobility Controller is the equivalent of the environment variable
master
.
ADP can discover these values using DHCP or by discovery. In the case of DHCP,
ADP relies on a DHCP server which is configured to return the IP address of the
Master Mobility Controller using the Vendor Specific Options in DHCP. To facilitate
ADP, Aruba APs include this Vendor Specific Option in the requested Option list,
and if the DHCP server is configured to return the IP address of the Master
Mobility Controller, the IP address will be a part of the DHCP response. This is
used by the AP to get its image as well as its configuration.
Discovery of the
serverip
and
master
variables is necessary when the DHCP
response does not include the Vendor Specific option. The AP attempts to
discover an Aruba Master Mobility Controller by sending multicast packets and
broadcast packets on its subnet. To use the ADP discovery method, the ADP
discovery mechanism needs to be enabled on the Aruba Master Mobility
Controller (using the
adp discovery enable
command).
If multicast routing is enabled in the IP network between the AP and the Master
Mobility Controller (which can be any one or more Aruba Mobility Controllers in
the network), the IGMP-Join option should be enabled on the Aruba Mobility
Controller (using the
adp igmp-join enable
command). If multicast routing is not
enabled on the network, the Aruba Mobility Controllers need to be on the same
broadcast domain as the AP or an “IP Helper” must be configured to direct the
broadcast ADP packets to the Aruba Mobility Controller.
Once these discovery prerequisites are met, the Mobility Controller will respond
to APs with the IP address of the Master Aruba switch. The APs can then obtain
their image and configuration.
To enable ADP on an Aruba Mobility Controller, enter:
(A5000) (config) #adp discovery enable
To enable IGMP-Join on an ADP multicast group on an Aruba Mobility Controller,
enter:
(A5000) (config) #adp igmp-join enable
