Cisco Access Points have two modes of operation. As Autonomous APs or as LightWeight APs. Former are used for deploying Wireless LANs using different configurations or with APs running independently. LWAPPs instead are used to deploy, install and manage more complex Wireless LANs. Using Cisco Wireless LAN Controllers, we can manage one or many APs at the same time, share policies, modify configurations on many of them at the same time, and more…

Autonomous or LWAPP need different IOS image software to run. So we need to upgrade our APs. Upgrade is how the process has been called. Even if we pull same version, Cisco calls the process upgrade. So let’s see it.

First we need an Autonomous AP. Depending on what version of the LWAPP image we want to install, the autonomous image running has to be a concrete one. I mean, we cannot upgrade from Automous version 12.3(4) to LWAPP version 12.4(21). AP needs to run as minimum Autonomous version 12.3(7). In the Cisco website we can easily find tables with the software releases suitable for upgrade.

As I have an Cisco WLC, and I want to learn how to use it, I need to upgrade APs in my home lab.

For this post/tutorial/lab I will use an AIR-AP-1230B Series running this autonomous version:

ap# sh ver  
 Cisco IOS Software, C1200 Software (C1200-K9W7-M), Version 12.3(8)JEE, RELEASE SOFTWARE (fc1)  
 Technical Support: http://www.cisco.com/techsupport  
 Copyright (c) 1986-2010 by Cisco Systems, Inc.  
 Compiled Thu 09-Dec-10 08:59 by alnguyen  
 And upgrade it to:  
 
c1200-rcvk9w8-tar.124-21a.JA2.tar

And upgrade it to:

c1200-rcvk9w8-tar.124-21a.JA2.tar

So we need to have IP address of the AP, tar file containing our image, a TFTP server running on the network, and the Cisco Upgrade Tool 3.4

We have to specify an IP File that is a comma separated file with IP address, username, password and enable password of the AP/s we want to upgrade.

The IOS software package filename.

IP Address of the TFTP server on our network and IP address of the AP if we only upgrade one at time. Then push Start and let it go.

We will be advertised some conditions that can cause an upgrade failure.

Only review, ensure nothing of this will happen and click Yes.

Final message.

Now we can start to play with our Wireless LAN Controller. Have fun!