Deploying a Wireless Local-Area Network
Hello, how are you?
In this post, you will follow me in a Wireless Local-Area Network (WLAN) deployment.
For this topic, you need to know WiFi terms and the devices used to deploy a WLAN.
The software used is Cisco Packet Tracer.
Let’s get started!
Building our network topology
You will need to add the following devices:
1- A 3560 Switch (it is a layer 2 switch)
2- A PC to manage a Wireless LAN controller (WLC)
3- A server to act as a DHCP server and allocate addresses to Wireless Access Points.
4- A 3504 Wireless Lan Controller ( A WLC manages wireless network access points that allow wireless devices to connect to the network.)
5- Two 3702i Lightweight Access Points
Next:
Connect the devices with Copper straight-through cables.
Starting the configuration
We have to configure the WLC with a Default-Gateway and DNS Server IP address. In Packet Tracer, you will notice that the IPv4 Address and Subnet Mask comes already configured. However, you can make some changes if you would like. For example, you can change the subnet mask of your WLC.
In the real world, you will configure based on the network requirements you are working on.
WLC: 192.168.1.1
Default Gateway: 192.168.1.254
DNS Server: 192.168.1.253
On the PC we will assign an IP address on the same subnet. In my example, I assigned 192.168.1.5.
Click on the PC and follow this path: PC0 > Config > Interface > FastEthernet0.
Still, on the PC, we will go to Desktop > Web Browser and type the WLC IP address <http://192.168.1.1>.
In Packet Tracer, it will take some time to load the page, so if you are in a hurry you can press the fast forward time button. You find it in the lower left corner of the main window.
After loading, this is the page you will see. You are prompted to create an admin username and password.
I will use username = admin, password = Cisco123
After clicking on Start, you will see the WLC configuration page.
In the Set Up Your Controller section, you have to enter a name for your system and choose the country and timezone correctly (in packet tracer you may not find your real location). In addition, you have to choose a Management IP Address. In my example, I am using the same address that I configured initially, however, in the real world you can choose a different IP address. Besides that, you might want to separate in VLANs your Access Points, so you would need to assign a Management VLAN ID.
Next, is the Create Your Wireless Networks section. Choose a name for your network and passphrase.
You will also need to choose what type of security will be used. WPA2 Personal is recommended for home and small offices network and doesn’t require an authentication server. On the other hand, WPA2 Enterprise will require a RADIUS authentication server and is recommended for enterprise networks.
In my example, I will be running WPA2 Personal security. My Network name is employees and my passphrase is Cisco123
After that, you are prompted to choose a Virtual IP Address. Cisco by default shows us 192.0.2.1. Go with that and click Next.
When you finish all this setup, you will see a summary of what you have done and you will be requested to confirm your settings by clicking Apply.
You will see a confirmation message letting you know that your system will reboot after you click to apply these configurations. Just click ok.
The configuration in Packet Tracer might take a lot of time. Be patient!
However, here in this part of the process, you can close the web browser after a few minutes, even if it shows like still saving the configuration (In real life, it is better to wait to avoid redoing your job). After that, use the PC to ping the WLC to check if it is working fine. When all packets are received and your ping works 100%, you can open the web browser and <https> to the WLC (https://192.168.1.1). This will open the Wireless LAN Controller and you can log in with the credentials you created.
If you managed to do it, this is the page you will see after login.
Now it is time to add access points to the WLC. Access Points can be added manually or with a DHCP server, for instance. In our tutorial, we will use DHCP.
Configuring the DHCP server
In the DHCP server, click on Services > DHCP and enable it.
Assign a default gateway to the WLC. Here I assign the Switch as the default gateway (192.168.1.254).
In the switch, enter the proper configuration to set up it as the default gateway:
S1>en
S1#conf t
S1(config)#int vlan 1
S1(config-if)#ip address 192.168.1.254 255.255.255.0
S1(config-if)#no shut
S1(config-if)#endComing back to the DHCP server, enter the DNS server IP address (192.168.1.253). I chose the Server as the DNS server, so it is needed to enter this same address on the Server Config > Interface > FastEthernet0. That means we are assigning an IP address to the server.
Finishing the configuration, return to Services > DHCP and choose a start IP address to the server allocate, the maximum number of users (in my example 60 users), the WLC address, and save.
This is what it looks like:
You can also <ping> the WLC just to check that everything is working fine. Desktop > Command Prompt > ping 192.168.1.1
Configuring Access Points
The first step is to configure the Acess Point (AP) to use an IP address from a DHCP server. Config > Global > Settings > DHCP
Both APs are configured.
Checking APs on the Computer
After finishing the APs configuration, we can come back to the PC and refresh the page to check if the Access Point Summary was updated.
And there we go! APs information is there.
Pay attention that we still don’t have any clients.
Before bringing clients, let’s create a new Wireless LAN network. Go to WLANs > Create New > Go.
Choose the name of your choice and Apply. My SSID is “guest”.
After that, enable it and Apply:
We now have 2 Wireless Networks. See that for our guest network we didn’t choose any security, it was a simple configuration.
Clients on the network
Let’s add clients to the topology. Add two laptops to the network.
We will start with Laptop 1. We will connect this one to the guest network.
Packet tracer has old laptops, so you need to exchange the Ethernet interface card for a Wireless interface card.
To do it, first, turn off the laptop. You will see the light green light disappear when you click the power off button (pink circle in the picture). Then, swap out the Ethernet module and swap in the WPC300N (this is the Wireless network adapter). I hope the below picture makes sense to you.
You can turn the laptop on again.
In Config > Interface > Wireless0, write the SSID of the network you would like to join. Here it is “guest”.
It is also noticeable in the screenshot below that our laptop was allocated with an IP address using DHCP in the range of addresses configured earlier.
When you elect the network, you can see the laptop connected to the wireless network in Packet Tracer.
Pinging the switch from our recently configured laptop, we can see that everything is fine.
Laptop 2:
Following this, we will configure the second laptop in the same way as we did initially with the first one. You have to enable the laptop in Packet Tracer to be able to connect to wireless networks.
However, this laptop we are connecting to the “employees” network. Therefore, we have to match the configuration to work out. For example, the authentication must be WPA2-PSK, encryption type AES, and we have to enter the passphrase we created before.
Running ipconfig in Laptop 2, we have to be able to ping Laptop 1.
Besides that, back on the PC, we can see on our WLC page that 2 clients joined the network.
Congrats to us! We have finished the whole configuration.
Important Information
In this packet tracer lab, we configured a simple network. In the real world, from a security point of view, it is important to separate both networks in separate VLANs. You wouldn’t like to have a guest network having access to the company’s network.
Thank you for reading!
