Release Notes for Cisco Wireless Controllers and Lightweight Access Points, Cisco Wireless Release 8.9.100.0

About the Release Notes

This release notes document describes what is new or changed in this release, instructions to upgrade to this release, and open and resolved caveats for this release. Unless otherwise noted, in this document, Cisco Wireless Controllers are referred to as controllers, and Cisco lightweight access points are referred to as access points or APs.

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Supported Cisco Wireless Controller Platforms

The following Cisco Wireless Controller platforms are supported in this release:

• Cisco 3504 Wireless Controller
• Cisco 5520 Wireless Controller
• Cisco 8540 Wireless Controller
• Cisco Virtual Wireless Controller (vWLC) on the following platforms:
  • VMware vSphere Hypervisor (ESXi) Version 5.x and 6.x
  • Hyper-V on Microsoft Servers 2012 and later versions (Support introduced in Release 8.4)
  • Kernel-based virtual machine (KVM) (Support introduced in Release 8.1. After KVM is deployed, we recommend that you do not downgrade to a Cisco Wireless release that is earlier than Release 8.1.)
• Cisco Wireless Controllers for High Availability for Cisco 3504 WLC, Cisco 5520 WLC, and Cisco 8540 WLC.
• Cisco Mobility Express Solution

Supported Cisco Access Point Platforms

The following Cisco AP platforms are supported in this release:

• Cisco Catalyst 9115 Access Points
• Cisco Catalyst 9117 Access Points
• Cisco Aironet 700 Series Access Points
• Cisco Aironet 700W Series Access Points
• Cisco AP803 Integrated Access Point
• Integrated Access Point on Cisco 1100, 1101, and 1109 Integrated Services Routers
• Cisco Aironet 1700 Series Access Points
• Cisco Aironet 1800 Series Access Points
• Cisco Aironet 1810 Series OfficeExtend Access Points
• Cisco Aironet 1810W Series Access Points
• Cisco Aironet 1815 Series Access Points
• Cisco Aironet 1830 Series Access Points
• Cisco Aironet 1850 Series Access Points
• Cisco Aironet 2700 Series Access Points
• Cisco Aironet 2800 Series Access Points
• Cisco Aironet 3700 Series Access Points
• Cisco Aironet 3800 Series Access Points
• Cisco Aironet 4800 Series Access Points
• Cisco ASA 5506W-AP702
• Cisco Aironet 1530 Series Access Points
• Cisco Aironet 1540 Series Access Points
• Cisco Aironet 1560 Series Access Points
• Cisco Aironet 1570 Series Access Points
• Cisco Industrial Wireless 3700 Series Access Points

What's New in Release 8.9.100.0

This section provides a brief introduction to the new features and enhancements that are introduced in this release.

For complete listing of all the documentation published for Cisco Wireless Release 8.9, see the Documentation Roadmap.

Cisco Catalyst 9100 Access Points

The Cisco Catalyst 9100 Access Points are IEEE 802.11ax standard compliant APs. The 802.11ax standard allows access points support more clients in dense environments and provides a better experience for typical wireless LAN networks. The 802.11ax standard also provides a more predictable performance for advanced applications such as 4K or 8K video, high-density high-definition collaboration applications, all-wireless offices, and Internet of Things (IoT).

Wi-Fi 6 Features

• OFDMA Support for 802.11ax APs: Using the OFDMA technology, the Cisco 9100 APs support eight spatial streams and deliver up to 4800-Mbps throughput at the physical layer. OFDMA-based channel access is backward-compatible with traditional EDCA/CSMA, and Cisco 9100 access points use each channel optimally.
• MU-MIMO: Provides concurrent downstream communications to multiple wireless devices for more efficient use of the spectrum.
• Target Wake Time (TWT): The TWT feature reduces the network energy consumption through better scheduling and spectrum optimization. Devices enter a doze state until their TWT arrives, thereby significantly increasing battery run time, an important requirement for IoT devices.
• 1024 Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM): The QAM feature increases throughput in Wi-Fi devices by encoding more data in the same amount of spectrum.

Power Requirements

• We recommend that you pair the Cisco Catalyst 9115 APs with an 802.3at PoE-capable switch to get the best performance from these APs. If the power supply is not 802.3at-capable, there is a drop in performance that is related to Tx power and spatial streams.
• Under critically low power conditions, the AP LED might blink in a loop of red, blue, and green color, and the controller GUI summary page might display power supply as medium power.
• We recommend that you pair the Cisco Catalyst 9117 APs with an UPoE switch. This allows the external USB module to be attached to the USB port on the APs.

Models

The following 802.11ax AP models are supported:

• Cisco Catalyst 9115 Access Points
  For more information about Cisco Catalyst 9115 APs, see datasheet-c78-741988.html
• Cisco Catalyst 9117 Access Points
  For more information about Cisco Catalyst 9117 APs, see datasheet-c78-741989.html

Software Release Types and Recommendations

For detailed release recommendations, see the Guidelines for Cisco Wireless Software Release Migration Bulletin at:

Table 2: Upgrade Path to Cisco Wireless Release 8.9.100.0

Upgrading Cisco Wireless Release

This section describes the guidelines and limitations that you must be aware of when you are upgrading the Cisco Wireless release and the procedure to upgrade.

Guidelines and Limitations

• Before downgrading or upgrading the Cisco Controller to another release check for APs or AP modes support. Ensure that only supported APs are connected and also the APs are moved to supported modes on the release that the controller is upgraded or downgraded to.
• On executing the show tech-support command on a Cisco 9100 AP, if the displayed result is empty, as a workaround, logout and relogin to the same access point using SSH and run the command. For more information, see CSCvo28881.
• Legacy clients that require RC4 or 3DES encryption type are not supported in Local EAP authentication.
• If you are upgrading from Release 8.0.140.0 or 8.0.15x.0 to a later release and also have the multiple country code feature configured, the feature configuration is corrupted after the upgrade. For more information, see CSCve41740.
• After downloading the new software to the Cisco APs, it is possible that a Cisco AP may get stuck in an upgrading image state. In such a scenario, it might be necessary to forcefully reboot the controller to download a new controller software image or to reboot the controller after the download of the new controller software image. You can forcefully reboot the controller by entering the reset system forced command.
• It is not possible to download some of the older configurations from the controller because of the Multicast and IP address validations. See the "Restrictions on Configuring Multicast Mode" section in the Cisco Wireless Controller Configuration Guide for detailed information about platform support for global multicast and multicast mode.
• If you are downgrading from Release 8.9 to an earlier release, any local policy to WLAN ID mapping wherein the local policy ID is greater than 255 is lost after the downgrade. If necessary, you can modify the policy mapping so that a local policy whose ID is greater than 255 is not used. You can check for the local policy ID in either of the following ways:
  • CLI: Enter the show policy summary command.
  • GUI: Navigate to Security > Local Policies. On the Policy List page, the policy ID is displayed along with the policy name.
• When a client sends an HTTP request, the controller intercepts it for redirection to the login page. If the HTTP GET request that is intercepted by the controller is longer than 2000 bytes, the controller drops the packet. Track the Caveat ID CSCuy81133 for a possible enhancement to address this restriction.
• When downgrading from one release to an earlier release, you might lose the configuration from your current release. The workaround is to reload the previous controller configuration files that are saved in the backup server, or to reconfigure the controller.
• When you upgrade a controller to an intermediate release, wait until all the APs that are associated with the controller are upgraded to the intermediate release before you install the latest controller software. In large networks, it can take some time to download the software on each AP.
• You can upgrade to a new release of the controller software or downgrade to an earlier release even if FIPS is enabled.
• When you upgrade to the latest software release, the software on the APs associated with the controller is also automatically upgraded. When an AP is loading software, each of its LEDs blinks in succession.
• Controllers support standard SNMP MIB files. MIBs can be downloaded from the software download page on Cisco.com.
• The controller software that is factory-installed on your controller and is automatically downloaded to the APs after a release upgrade and whenever an AP joins a controller. We recommend that you install the latest software version available for maximum operational benefit.
• Ensure that you have a TFTP, HTTP, FTP, or SFTP server available for the software upgrade. Follow these guidelines when setting up a server: Ensure that your TFTP server supports files that are larger than the size of controller software image. Some TFTP servers that support files of this size are tftpd32 and the TFTP server within Cisco Prime Infrastructure. If you attempt to download the controller software image and your TFTP server does not support files of this size, the following error message appears: TFTP failure while storing in flash
• If you are upgrading through the distribution system network port, the TFTP or FTP server can be on the same subnet or a different subnet because the distribution system port is routable.
• The controller Bootloader stores a copy of the active primary image and the backup image. If the primary image becomes corrupted, you can use the Bootloader to boot with the backup image. With the backup image stored before rebooting, from the Boot Options menu, choose Option 2: Run Backup Image to boot from the backup image. Then, upgrade with a known working image and reboot controller.
• You can control the addresses that are sent in the Control and Provisioning of Wireless Access Points (CAPWAP) discovery responses when NAT is enabled on the Management Interface, using the following command: config network ap-discovery nat-ip-only {enable | disable} The following are the details of the command: enable—Enables use of NAT IP only in a discovery response. This is the default. Use this command if all the APs are outside the NAT gateway. disable—Enables use of both NAT IP and non-NAT IP in a discovery response. Use this command if APs are on the inside and outside the NAT gateway, for example, Local Mode and OfficeExtend APs are on the same controller.
• To avoid stranding of APs, you must disable the AP link latency (if enabled) before you use the disable option in the config network ap-discovery nat-ip-only command. To disable AP link latency, use the config ap link-latency disable all command.
• Do not power down the controller or any AP during the upgrade process. If you do this, the software image might get corrupted. Upgrading the controller with a large number of APs can take as long as 30 minutes, depending on the size of your network. However, with the increased number of concurrent AP upgrades supported, the upgrade time should be significantly reduced. The APs must remain powered, and controller must not be reset during this time.
• After you perform the following functions on the controller, reboot it for the changes to take effect:
  • Enable or disable LAG.
  • Enable a feature that is dependent on certificates (such as HTTPS and web authentication).
  • Add a new license or modify an existing license.
  Note: Reboot is not required if you are using Right-to-Use licenses.
• Increase the priority of a license.
• Enable HA.
• Install the SSL certificate.
• Configure the database size.
• Install the vendor-device certificate.
• Download the CA certificate.
• Upload the configuration file.
• Install the Web Authentication certificate.
• Make changes to the management interface or the virtual interface.

Upgrading Cisco Wireless Software (GUI)

Procedure

1. Upload your controller configuration files to a server to back up the configuration files. Note: We highly recommend that you back up your controller configuration files prior to upgrading the controller software.
2. Follow these steps to obtain controller software:
   • a) Browse to the Software Download portal at: https://software.cisco.com/download/home.
   • b) Search for the controller model.
   • c) Click Wireless LAN Controller Software.
   • d) The software releases are labeled as described here to help you determine which release to download. Click a controller software release number:
     • Early Deployment (ED)—These software releases provide new features and new hardware platform support as well as bug fixes.
     • Maintenance Deployment (MD)—These software releases provide bug fixes and ongoing software maintenance.
     • Deferred (DF)—These software releases have been deferred. We recommend that you migrate to an upgraded release.
   • e) Click the filename <filename.aes>.
   • f) Click Download.
   • g) Read the Cisco End User Software License Agreement and click Agree.
   • h) Save the file to your hard drive.
   • i) Repeat steps a through h to download the remaining file.
3. Copy the controller software file <filename.aes> to the default directory on your TFTP, FTP, SFTP, or USB server.
4. (Optional) Disable the controller 802.11 networks. Note: For busy networks, controllers on high utilization, and small controller platforms, we recommend that you disable the 802.11 networks as a precautionary measure.
5. Choose Commands > Download File to open the Download File to Controller page.
6. From the File Type drop-down list, choose Code.
7. From the Transfer Mode drop-down list, choose TFTP, FTP, SFTP, HTTP, or USB.
8. Enter the corresponding server details as prompted. Note: Server details are not required if you choose HTTP as the transfer mode.
9. Click Download to download the software to the controller. A message indicating the status of the download is displayed. Note: Ensure that you choose the File Type as Code for both the images.
10. After the download is complete, click Reboot.
11. If you are prompted to save your changes, click Save and Reboot.
12. Click OK to confirm your decision to reboot the controller.
13. If you have disabled the 802.11 networks, reenable them.
14. (Optional) To verify that the controller software is installed on your controller, on the controller GUI, click Monitor and view the Software Version field under Controller Summary.

CIMC Utility Upgrade for 5520 and 8540 Controllers

The AIR-CT5520-K9 and AIR-CT8540-K9 controller models are based on Cisco UCS server C series, C220 and C240 M4 respectively. These controller models have CIMC utility that can edit or monitor low-level physical parts such as power, memory, disks, fan, temperature, and provide remote console access to the controllers.

We recommend that you upgrade the CIMC utility to Version 3.0(4d) that has been certified to be used with these controllers. Controllers that have older versions of CIMC installed are susceptible to rebooting without being able to access FlexFlash, with the result that the manufacturing certificates are unavailable, and thus SSH and HTTPS connections will fail, and access points will be unable to join. See: CSCvo33873.

The CIMC 3.0(4d) images are available at the following locations:

Table 3: CIMC Utility Software Image Information

For information about upgrading the CIMC utility, see the "Updating the Firmware on Cisco UCS C-Series Servers" chapter in the Cisco Host Upgrade Utility 3.0 User Guide: https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/unified_computing/ucs/c/sw/lomug/2-0-x/3_0/b_huu_3_0_1/b_huu_2_0_13_chapter_011.html

Updating Firmware Using the Update All Option

This section mentions specific details when using CIMC utility with Cisco 5520 or 8540 controllers. For general information about the software and UCS chassis, see Release Notes for Cisco UCS C-Series Software, Release 3.0(4) at: https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/unified_computing/ucs/release/notes/b_UCS_C-Series_Release_Notes_3_0_4.html

Table 4: Open Caveats for Release 3.0(4d)

Table 5: Resolved Caveats for Release 3.0(4d)

Interoperability with Other Clients

This section describes the interoperability of controller software with other client devices. The following table describes the configuration that is used for testing the client devices.

Table 6: Test Bed Configuration for Interoperability

The following table lists the client types on which the tests were conducted. Client types included laptops, handheld devices, phones, and printers.

Table 7: Client Types

Key Features Not Supported in Controller Platforms

This section lists the features that are not supported on various controller platforms:

Key Features Not Supported in Cisco 3504 WLC

Note: In a converged access environment that has controllers running AireOS code, High Availability Client SSO and native IPv6 are not supported.

• Cisco WLAN Express Setup Over-the-Air Provisioning
• Mobility controller functionality in converged access mode
• VPN Termination (such as IPsec and L2TP)

Key Features Not Supported in Cisco 5520 and 8540 WLCs

• Internal DHCP Server
• Mobility controller functionality in converged access mode
• VPN termination (such as IPsec and L2TP)
• Fragmented pings on any interface

Key Features Not Supported in Cisco Virtual WLC

• Cisco Umbrella
• Software-defined access
• Domain-based ACLs
• Internal DHCP server
• Cisco TrustSec
• Access points in local mode
• Mobility or Guest Anchor role
• Wired Guest
• Multicast

Note: FlexConnect locally switched multicast traffic is bridged transparently for both wired and wireless on the same VLAN. FlexConnect APs do not limit traffic based on IGMP or MLD snooping.

• FlexConnect central switching in large-scale deployments

Key Features Not Supported in Access Point Platforms

This section lists the features that are not supported on various Cisco Aironet AP platforms:

Key Features Not Supported in Cisco Aironet 1800i, 1810 OEAP, 1810W, 1815, 1830, 1850, 2800, 3800, and 4800 Series APs

For detailed information about feature support on Cisco Aironet Wave 2 APs, see: https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/wireless/controller/technotes/8-7/b_feature_matrix_for_802_11ac_wave2_access_points.html.

Table 8: Key Features Not Supported in Cisco Aironet 1800i, 1810 OEAP, 1810W, 1815, 1830, 1850, 2800, 3800, and 4800 Series APs

Key Features Not Supported in Cisco Aironet 1800i, 1810 OEAP, and 1810W Series APs

Key Features Not Supported in Mesh Networks

• Load-based call admission control (CAC). Mesh networks support only bandwidth-based CAC or static CAC
• High availability (Fast heartbeat and primary discovery join timer)
• AP acting as supplicant with EAP-FASTv1 and 802.1X authentication
• AP join priority (Mesh APs have a fixed priority)
• Location-based services

Key Features Not Supported in Cisco Aironet 1540 Mesh APs

• Dynamic Mesh backhaul data rate. Note: We recommend that you keep the Bridge data rate of the AP as auto.
• Background scanning
• Noise-tolerant fast convergence

Key Features Not Supported on Cisco Aironet 1560 APs

• MAC Authentication FlexConnect Local Authentication
• Noise-tolerant fast convergence
• Static WEP

Caveats

Open Caveats

Table 11: Open Caveats

Resolved Caveats

Table 12: Resolved Caveats

Related Documentation

Wireless Products Comparison

• Use this tool to compare the specifications of Cisco wireless access points and controllers: https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/wireless/wireless-lan-controller/product-comparison.html
• Product Approval Status: https://prdapp.cloudapps.cisco.com/cse/prdapp/jsp/externalsearch.do?action=externalsearch&page=EXTERNAL_SEARCH
• Wireless LAN Compliance Lookup: https://www.cisco.com/c/dam/assets/prod/wireless/wireless-compliance-tool/index.html

Cisco Wireless Controller

For more information about the Cisco WLCs, lightweight APs, and mesh APs, see these documents:

• The quick start guide or installation guide for your particular Cisco WLC or access point
• Cisco Wireless Solutions Software Compatibility Matrix
• Cisco Wireless Controller Configuration Guide
• Cisco Wireless Controller Command Reference
• Cisco Wireless Controller System Message Guide

For all Cisco WLC software related documentation, see: http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/wireless/wireless-lan-controller-software/tsd-products-support-series-home.html

Cisco Mobility Express

• Cisco Mobility Express Release Notes
• Cisco Mobility Express User Guide
• Cisco Aironet Universal AP Priming and Cisco AirProvision User Guide

Cisco Aironet Access Points for Cisco IOS Releases

• Release Notes for Cisco Aironet Access Points for Cisco IOS Releases
• Cisco IOS Configuration Guides for Autonomous Aironet Access Points
• Cisco IOS Command References for Autonomous Aironet Access Points

Open Source Used in Controller and Access Point Software

Click this link to access the documents that describe the open source used in controller and access point software: https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/about/legal/open-source-documentation-responsive.html

Cisco Prime Infrastructure

Cisco Prime Infrastructure Documentation

Cisco Connected Mobile Experiences

Cisco Connected Mobile Experiences Documentation

Obtaining Documentation and Submitting a Service Request

For information on obtaining documentation, using the Cisco Bug Search Tool (BST), submitting a service request, and gathering additional information, see What's New in Cisco Product Documentation. To receive new and revised Cisco technical content directly to your desktop, you can subscribe to the What's New in Cisco Product Documentation RSS feed. RSS feeds are a free service.