Comments on: Add Wireless Capability to Existing Business Network

By: linuxciscoman

linuxciscoman — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 04:02:38 +0000

Almost all of the Cisco and HP Procurve access points will allow bridging like this. One will act as a primary and the other as a repeater. If it was necessary to add more than a few, I would suggest looking into a wireless lan controller which is just a device to centrally manage multiple satellite ap’s.

By: koohiisan

koohiisan — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 13:58:51 +0000

What they want is to have one SSID and be able to move about the building and not even have to think about connecting to a different SSID. We want it to just automatically switch over to the stronger of the APs.

I did this some time back with two APs, both flashed with DD-WRT firmware. IIRC, one was configured as a standard AP and the other one was configured as a wireless client bridge/repeater. They both had the same SSID, and security key, and my transition between APs was seamless. I didn’t have an existing wired network in place like you do, but I imagine that won’t present a major issue for you.

By: jinteik

jinteik — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 03:43:06 +0000

Hi Totustek,

I cannot comment any further as I have never done this implementation before, but maybe you can take a look at this site as below to get an idea on how to set it up.

http://danielmiessler.com/blog/wireless-wpa2-enterprise-integration-with-active-directory-2008

http://www.jadota.com/2010/11/setting-up-wireless-802-1x-with-windows-server-2008-and-nps/

By: totustek

totustek — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 15:20:59 +0000

Thanks Jinteik and Ingram87. The company is willing to spend the money to get it done correctly. They only want one SSID for both APs. Is there any type of special setup that I’m going to need to allow the laptops to login using their active directory credentials and access shared resources like wired workstations do? Like I said the APs will be going directly into the switch. There are approximately 40-50 users that will need to access the wireless at any given time. What they want is to have one SSID and be able to move about the building and not even have to think about connecting to a different SSID. We want it to just automatically switch over to the stronger of the APs. Any suggestions with this?

Happy Thanksgiving!

By: jinteik

jinteik — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 05:12:20 +0000

I guess you got to know the budget of the company on how much they allocate for both the AP’s..But like what Ingram87 say, get those AP’s with wireless N.