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CWNE Essays
To help prevent plagiarism, there has been a growing trend to publish the essays you submitted for your CWNE. So, I’m joining and publishing mine here. Essay #1 – Low Power Mode Background An increase in Wi-Fi complaints frequently occurred following power disruptions of the PSE. A cursory analysis revealed the access points were running…
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Troubleshooting is easier with context
I recently worked on a “Wi-Fi issue” that came in with very little detail — just a note that a hallway was having connectivity problems. A cursory examination showed all access points were online, and clients were connected with valid IP addresses. To gain deeper insight, I ran a network-wide packet capture and focused on…
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LDWin
LDWin is an application to assist in identifying switch port information. And, it can be used by almost anyone. Can’t access a network closet to identify the switch port information? Just use LDWin. Have a technician in the field that isn’t network savvy? Use LDWin! Because LLDP and CDP are Layer 2 protocols, the connected…
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Customizing Wireshark for Wireless Frame Captures
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Issues Deploying Cisco 9176 Access Points
I recently had an issue when deploying some new Cisco 9176 Meraki cloud managed access points. The access points connect to Cisco Catalyst 9300 switches. Deployment went as expected without any hiccups. That is until the site experienced a power outage. During the outage the switches rebooted and of course, the access points did as…
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It’s always the Wi-Fi (even when it isn’t)
I was recently speaking with a colleague after they returned from visiting their college freshman for parents weekend. The student was frustrated they’re smartphone wasn’t working as well as they expected and were blaming the Wi-Fi. The colleague pointed out to their child that they were in an area where there wasn’t any Wi-Fi and…
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Merakiwifi.app
Disclaimer – When using tools of this nature it is strongly recommended to create a separate, read-only API key. There is no need to risk your API key being compromised and allowing a bad actor to perform irreparable harm to your organization. While this tool open states it does not store API keys, I find…
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Managing Large Networks
Managing large networks come with a considerable number of complexities. Most of these complexities can be managed but considerable care must be taken as seemingly minor changes can have major impact. The network I manage currently has more than 14,000 wireless access points deployed across more than 200 sites supporting more than 150,000 users. Below…
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Issues binding new network to configuration template
This issue began occurring recently in the “New” Meraki dashboard view. The problem does not occur in the “Old” view. Recently our install team was attempting to create a new network and had issues when binding it to the template. The issue can be seen in the screenshots below. When attempting to create the network,…
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Wireshark – 802.11 frames encrypted
Being able to decrypt 802.11 frames in a frame capture may be necessary from time to time. I personally have worked on several issues with our vendors TAC where they need frame captures to analyze and resolve a bug. They may need to be able to decrypt the data to do this. This technique is…