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If anoyne's interested in the compatability and features of the 4000/4100 series WLC's and wanna see what the differences are between say 3.2.215 and 4.2.207 code for example...  then I'm working my way to doing so.

I've been hacking my way through the CLI on these puppies and it's probably too many posts to share here since there is a competition going on right now.

If you are considering purchasing a Cisco / Airespace / Nortel WLC for your labs you might wanna know what the results are and how much they actually matter.

I'd think for the CWTS/CWNA/CWSP/CWNE - probably minimal except for some small loss of newer features - but for functionality and actual practicals of older features, I think you will find these WLCs pretty rich, flavorful, and cheap too.

There are so many vaveats in those code versions I would look at scrapping those very old controllers. Particularly ifyou want to move to support the infrastructure via a WCS as code 6 in the WCS train has significant enhancements over code 4.

4.2.207 is a good code but 6.0.196 has.

6.0.196 also drops OTAP and encrypts thaRRM packets

The 4100 series controllers you mentioned previously are not supported in code 4.

The Cisco Wireless exams are based predominaently on 4.2 code with a bit of code 5.0. Most people skipped code 5.0 as it was rubbish

Anyone looking at a lab should NOT be considering code 3.2 or a 4100 controller as its dark ages stuff

I think you said this prior to realizing this was my own home lab.

I'm going to again refer to the pure fact that mostly everything that is in the 3.2 code is largely still working just fine in the 4.x or even the 6.x code.

I'm going to take my production 4402's and "dare to compare".  It seems to me no one else has cared to.

Shiny is great.

I need a lot of hours with hands-on and to be honest...

1. A 40-hour class or 5 of them won't cut it.

2. My production environment is not "the devil's playground".

3. I like to become the expert with the CLI (which looks sparkling new and absolutely fantastic on the 4000/4100's to me).

By the time I am familiar at the expert level with the 4000/4100's the 4200's will be within my budget. 

Believe it or not this stuff depreciates faster than an ice cube in hell.

That's the one state of change I've come to learn to respect.

I'm going to stick 3.2 for a bit until I run out of features to become the expert with.

No worries Darby, it will be interesting from my perspective, I had many hours of fun with 3.2 only on 4400s though. One minute its up next its down. There were alot of issues. You will have alot of fun I can assure you.

Get a very early 1230 access point convert it to LWAPP and add it to the WLC spend half a day working out why it wont join, then find one document that explains it all (first generation 1230s didnt hae MICs so had to addd manually to the WLC)

Well as luck would have it you may have helped explain why one AP - a 1231 does not want to join the correct WLAN Controller.

I know about having to add the certificate to my WCS and I suppose you can do this on the WLC by your description and that may be my solution as well.

Thanks

Not installed that old a WCS. never used certificates on them either I think the earlliest one I installed was 4.2 and its just snmp, may not have had snmpv3 in the really early stuff?

Darby

I cant PM you not sure if the prob is my end or not I may have something of interest on the WS front. If your PMs are working send me or mail me at pete.nugent66@gmail.com

Update:

I received the Cisco Airespace Offical Course from August 2005 for the Cisco Airespace line of products.

I know we already discussed it being "The Dark Ages". I'm certainly sure it does not support all the latest features and of course it does not support the new 802.11(variables) that have occurred since the last version of AireOS was released in 2009:

AIR-WLC4100-K9-3-2-215-0.aes
Release Date: 04/Sep/2009

So that's going to be the release I use. It's only a few months old and as such I guess it shouldn't quite be so bad for my own home lab anyway.

So here's the plan and I know it is rough to most people since I'm not using a 4400 controller which I understand will soon be EOS and in 5 years or so would be EOL anyway.

So my little 4000 and the 3 4100's are not quite that far behind the curb as far as AireOS goes - my courseware is a little behind the curb - but I have release notes for the delta.

The truth is... the 4100 and the 4400 aren't that far apart as far as most functionality go. No they are not equal. I'm not suggesting that.

I am suggesting that they:

- Support a given version of Lighweight APs.
- Support various encryption types including various EAP and TKIP variants.
- Support Mobility.
- Support the same CLI as the 4400 for most things (note: not all)
- Support a wider variety of interfaces depending on the model.

Hell they support nearly everything I just configured on the 4400's!

So I'm not sure why we'd say they are "The Dark Ages"...

Beats out using a 2006 or 2106 - neither of which support being a mobility anchor.

One of mine even has the ESM Modules and supports up to 500 IPSec VPNs - How kewl is that?

I'm happy with my little purchase.

Now I'm going to over-populate my house with APs and see how many can actually be supported in 2000+ square feed of living area.

Umm... The 4000 Controller got its AireOS Update at the same time the 4100 did:

AIR-AS4000-K9-3-2-215-0.aes
Release Date: 04/Sep/2009