In the networking realm of things I typically get to play with new and sophisticated technology. Sometimes, however, even the most sophisticated technology requires some really simple changes for some really simple reasons.
For example. the other day I was approached about disabling the LEDs on our Cisco access points. Since I was working in the healthcare world at the time it made sense that a request would come through about this particularly since many patient rooms had APs mounted in them. After some quick looking around online I found the answer:
Log into the controller and issue the following command:
(Cisco Controller) >config ap led-state {enable|disable} {all|<ap-name>} (Cisco Controller) >config ap led-state disable all
The first command shows the options and the second is what I actually used to disable all of our AP LEDs.
Another command that I found was a debug command to strobe the LED. This command is obviously nice when trying to physically locate an AP. The command to do this looks like this:
(Cisco Controller) >debug ap enable <cisco ap> (Cisco Controller) >debug ap command “led flash <seconds>” <cisco ap> (Cisco Controller) >debug ap command “led flash disable" <cisco ap> (Cisco Controller) >debug ap disable <cisco ap>
The first command enables debugging on the AP. Secondly, you issue the command to begin flashing the AP for set period of time in seconds. If you should want to stop the flashing before the time period is up you can do so with the third command and finally to disable the debug mode issue the forth command.
To complete the thought behind this fully I also looked up the commands to disable the LED on antonymous APs. I was please to see the command syntax was just as, if not more, intuitive. Get a configuration terminal prompt on the AP via console or SSh and type the follwoing:
AP1(config)#led display off
To re enable simply back the configuration out with the “no” version of the same command:
AP1(config)#no led display off