RM 2 Issues

[JamesCOP]

Hi Everyone,
I am new to radio work. (I am actually a network Analyst) but have been thrown in to start managing our radio fleet at our production facility. We have 600+ and no management system. I have been working to set up RM2 but running into issues with Wifi and have contacted Motorola support repeatedly and they can't help me at all....

I have RM 2.21.61 and have a working server setup for testing purposes. It is all running as I expect but I am unable to read or program over Wifi, and unable to get the radios to install an enterprise wifi certificate to join my Company Wifi.

I set up the server, job processor and device monitor. all my radios are XPR 7550e models. If I connect to the radio via USB either directly at my server or using my remote client there are no issues and the system works perfectly. I have selected in the device monitor to use USB and Wireless. same with my remote client device monitor.

I have created a separate SSID for the initial wifi login and DHCP using a WPA/2 PSK. My radios have no problem connecting to the wifi and getting an address. The address is pingable from within that subnet (server is on same subnet) Radios are also pingable throughout my corporate network from other networks, subnets etc. but when I try to read or write the radio via wifi it just sits at "waiting for device"
What am I doing wrong? there must be something in the way, or blocking but I cant see what that would be. I tried wire sharking the subnet to catch lost broadcasts but nothing happened.

My second issue is I need to get these radios to download a corporate wifi certificate and join our enterprise wifi. I have a scep server that works, but it looks like the radios dont even try to contact the Scep to ask for a cert. Does the SCEP server also need to be in the same (local) subnet? that seems weird.
Any help would be VERY much appreciated

 

[TampaTyron]

JamesCOP,
You have 2 issues. I would suggest separating the issues into 2 parts:

-First part is getting OTAP to work over wifi. This can be a difficult task. The big issues that I run into are making sure the wifi is in the same subnet as a device programmer. I am assuming you have extended the RM subnet to the wifi SSID. Next, make sure multicast is enabled between the radios and the device programmer (device programmer uses mDNS to discover radios via multicast packets). There are a handful of Cisco commands that I can share to help you get this going. A few more things to keep in mind are: ensure subnet is large enough to have all radios connected at the same time, ensure dhcp lease is relatively short (like 5-10 minutes), ensure radios will either have full time wifi or have ability to have its wifi remotely turned on via newer firmware feature, and ensure users are not disabling wifi to prevent updates.


-Second part is that corporate wifi certificates is a relatively new feature and has very few deployments and that very few people who know how to do it successfully. You will have a hard time finding resources inside the big M to assist. I am familiar with one ongoing deploymentbright now, but I am not close to that one on a technical level. I would recommend being patient. A decent short term strategy may be to get normal OTAP up and running, then deploy the certificates at a later date over wifi.

I hope this helps, TT.

 

[JamesCOP]

Hi Tampa, thanks for responding. I agree I have 2 distinct issues. For the moment I will settle with the first. My RM server is setup in a completely isolated Vlan specific for radios (though connected to my larger network) Server, job processor, device monitor are local to a single box with Wifi SSID, DHCP scope all on that single subnet together. so 1 broadcast domain for all. the scope is a /22 so double my current count of radios and has lots of space.
I am wondering if you are onto something with the multicast and will look further into it

 

[TampaTyron]

A couple more things as I was thinking of them:

-Several vendors of wifi AP equipment may need AP Isolation disabled

-Here is a resolution I found on Reddit that I have used a few times:
Setup a new mDNS profile (cisco’s name for DNS-SD) on Cisco wireless controller.

Controller [TAB] : General
Broadcast Forwarding - Enabled
AP Multicast Mode - Multicast
Controller [TAB] : Multicast
Enable Global Multicast Mode - checked
Enable IGMP Snooping - checked
Controller [TAB] : mDNS - General
Added a Service Name: motorola OTA
with the service string : _otap._tcp.local.
mDNS Global Snooping - unchecked (this made it work- all settings other than this were in place and the OTA was not working.

So I don't know how your other settings compare upto ours but I would try unchecking mDNS Global Snooping.

Thank you, TT.

 

[TampaTyron]

Motorola has a new feature in 2.10.5 that no longer requires multicast. The basic info is in the system planner. TT

 

[redrock2002]

Following...We have the WiFi programming working but the firmware updates take forever if the radio isn't extremely close to an AP. TampaTyron post is what we had to go through on our wifi controller to get the device programmer to start seeing the radios. Now I'm trying to work through getting firmware updates to complete faster in the field.

 

[TampaTyron]

How long is forever? Usually it is done in 5-7 minutes. I am guessing you have some wifi issues (interference, duplicate ip, signal drops). What firmware are you moving from and to? TT

 

[redrock2002]

We have cisco ap's throughout our site. In my office it takes maybe 5 minutes to complete the firmware update. In my office which has a very strong signal to any radio in here. At another AP installation site we have a xpr5500 that is maybe 12 feet away from an AP and it won't kickoff the update. The wifi icon shows full bars. Our IT dept has a DHCP scope that can handle 1000 units. Currently have 480 radios on the server. Our AP's are 3802e's. I keep up to date with all FW updates as they come out. CUrrently trying to get all units up to the latest 2.10.05.0002 from whatever version was before this one.

I like to monitor the device programmer output screen on our server and some radios complete the update without a hitch. Some radios will error out saying error 302?? response not received quick enough. The next one that errors out I will get the exact error.

 

[TampaTyron]

Some radios may need to be rebooted in order for wifi to see them (this is intermittent, cannot locate a cause or correlation yet). I would be interested in what it takes to get that thing to work (ap isolation, rules, etc). TT

 

[redrock2002]

Job Current State : Attempt failed. Will retry job later if job is still pending in RM Server.
Error Code: 203 [ Application has encountered an error. The device response was not received within the allotted time. ]

This is the exact error that shows up. I just rebooted and nothing. Disconnected power then it pinged the server and starting trying to update after reboot then errored out again. Still exploring possibilities.

 

[TampaTyron]

Looks like the radio did not reboot fast enough after taking the programming. Try reading it. TT