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We have about 50 Cisco 1242 access-points and we're managing them with a Cisco 4404 Wireless Lan controller. The guy who installed the APs did not assign a location to the access points in the controller.

We are seeing some malicious behavior from one of the APs called "AP27", and we want to find the physical location of this AP. I have tracked down the mac address of the AP and know where the cable is on our PoE switch, but this still leaves about seven possible APs, given the radius of the coverage for that IDF. Unfortunately the same guy who didn't put a location on the APs also did not label the cabling to them.

Is there a way to find exactly where the AP is, other than tracing cables?

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3 Answers 3

Reset to default
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Depending on the version of WLC code that you're running, you can either manually disable the status LED on the AP or flash it by logging into the WLC and issuing a command... Then just walk around with your laptop and turn off / flash LEDs until you find the right AP.

To disable the status LED, use this...

config ap led-state disable AP27

To flash the status LED on two second intervals, you can use this...

config ap led-state flash 2 AP27

Be sure to revert the AP LED back to the original state, otherwise it could cause confusion down the road. You can see the LED configuration of your APs with

show ap led-state
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  • As long as you have a different use of the LED configured on that AP (normal vs. disable vs. flash), you should be able to pick out the one that's use of LEDs "looks" different.
    – YLearn
    Jul 11, 2013 at 17:03
  • I like this feature. I'm running 7.1.91.0 and don't have the ability to flash the LED but I can definitely turn it on and off which is good enough.
    – Rowell
    Jul 12, 2013 at 20:22
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Other options...

  • Wireless site survey using a laptop / cell phone / tablet. Walk around and record the BSSID (ap mac) and signal strengths. (eg. netstumbler)
  • Attach to the console of each AP to get it's name, mac, etc.
  • Unplug each AP in sequence and note which one powers off
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I dont know if it applies to this model but in the web configuration you can go to the top menu: Software then System configuration and there enable "Blink the Access Point LEDs". It will make the leds blink and its easy to identify the AP.

I hope this helps somebody

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