First Published: June 12, 2020

Introduction

This release notes document describes what is new or changed in this release. The document is updated as needed to provide information about new features, caveats, potential software deferrals, and related documents for the Cisco Aironet 1800S Active Sensor for this release.

We recommend that you view the field notices for this release to check whether your software or hardware platforms are affected. If you have an account on Cisco.com, you can find the field notices at: http://www.cisco.com/en/US/customer/support/tsd_products_field_notice_summary.html.

However, if you do not have a Cisco.com account, you can find the field notices at: http://www.cisco.com/en/US/support/tsd_products_field_notice_summary.html.

Overview of Cisco Aironet 1800S Active Sensor

The Cisco Aironet 1800S Active Sensor is a part of the Cisco DNA Center Assurance solution. The DNA Center Assurance platform has three components—Wireless Performance Analytics, Real-time Client Troubleshooting, and Proactive Health Assessment.

In this document, the term Network Sensor or sensor refers to the Cisco Aironet 1800S Active Sensor.

The Cisco Aironet 1800S Active Sensor is an 802.11a/b/g/n/ac (Wave 2) sensor with internal antennas. The sensor can be mounted, in a vertical orientation, on a wall or a desk, and supports 2x2:2 SS. The sensor is capable of joining an infrastructure access point as a client. The sensor can be used to monitor, measure, and troubleshoot a wireless network's overall performance.

For more information about the sensor, including mounting instructions and limited troubleshooting procedures, setup, and configuration, see the Cisco Aironet 1800S Active Sensor Getting Started Guide.

What's New in Cisco Wireless Release 2.1.1.0

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

Automated SCEP for EAP-TLS and PEAP-TLS

Beginning with Cisco Wireless Release 2.1.1.0, the Cisco Aironet 1800s Active Sensor can download the Secure Certificate Enrollment Profile (SCEP) from Cisco DNA Center. The sensor can also directly communicate with the SCEP server to provision certificates for 802.1x EAP-TLS and EAP-PEAP. This SCEP-based certificate can be used for wireless connection testing and wireless backhaul connection.

iPerf3 Support for Wireless Intranet Performance Testing

Beginning with Cisco Wireless Release 2.1.1.0, the Cisco Aironet 1800s Active Sensor supports using a private iPerf3 server for wireless intranet (campus, branch, or WAN) performance testing. In addition to the current cloud-based, internet speed tests using the NDT server, the private iPerf3 server can be used to test the performance of the LAN or WAN.

Third Party Access Point and External Wireless SSID Test

Beginning with Cisco Wireless Release 2.1.1.0, the Cisco Aironet 1800s Active Sensor can be used for testing third party access points and external SSIDs. Once you provide the SSID and security type, the sensor will automatically discover, connect, and report test results.

This enables the Cisco Aironet 1800s Active Sensor to test non-Cisco DNA Center registered Cisco wireless networks containing legacy controllers like the Cisco Wireless Controller 5508 or 8510. This feature also provides the sensor the capability to test Meraki Wireless or other networks containing third-party access points.

The following tests are not available while testing third party access points and external SSIDs:

  • IP SLA test

  • Sensor 360 neighbor map

  • Manual, deterministic target AP selection

Sensor Dashboard Enhancements

Beginning with Cisco Wireless Release 2.1.1.0, Cisco Aironet 1800s Active Sensor has added Dashboard enhancements for destination target servers which include:

  • Test target server-based drill-down views

  • Drill-down test results detailing sensor test failure reasons

The sensor Dashboard provides test results per target server. This enhances the ability to understand server performance and reliability. The health of the server performance is indicated by the percentage of sensor test failures per server. Degradation is depicted by a higher number of test failures. This is extremely useful when a sensor test spans multiple services and destinations.

Also, the sensor test result contains a descriptive failure reason for the test. This enables you to gather a detailed analysis of the sensor test failure, allowing you to quickly identify the root cause for a test failure and mitigate the degradation of the Wireless service.

Limitations and Caveats

Known Limitations

  • The sensor fails to detect broadcasted beacons by other APs while scanning its RF environment. However, this behavior occurs intermittently with low probability. It does not associate with the target SSID when it cannot see the beacons and skips the test. The DNAC logs show the detection success rates. For more information, see CSCwa25257.

  • Problem If you configure the Hexadecimal password option on the controller for pre-shared key (PSK) authentication on the WLAN, the sensor might fail to onboard. As a result, the sensor performs a synthetic test on the WLAN.

    Solution To avoid this issue in the WLAN, configure the ASCII password (passphrase) corresponding to the Hex password (PSK).

  • Problem If you configure the Wi-Fi Protected Access-Temporal Key Integrity Protocol (WPA-TKIP) on the WLAN, you may face issues during wireless network onboarding resulting in the sensor failing the synthetic tests.

    Solution To avoid this issue, disable TKIP.

  • Problem If you enable P2P blocking on the controller, or set it to forward upstream, you might observe IP Service-Level Agreement (SLA) test failures on the Cisco DNA Center sensor dashboard.

    Solution To avoid this issue, disable P2P on the controller.

Caveats

Caveats describe unexpected behavior in the Cisco Wireless Network Sensor software. The severity categories are: Severity 1 caveats are the most serious, Severity 2 caveats are less serious and Severity 3 caveats are moderately serious and only select severity 3 caveats are listed here.

The Open Caveats and Resolved Caveats sections in this release notes list the caveats for this release. The following information is provided for each caveat:

  • Identifier—Each caveat is assigned a unique identifier (ID) with a pattern of CSCxxNNNNN, where x is any letter (a-z) and N is any number (0-9). These IDs are frequently referenced in Cisco documentation, such as Security Advisories, Field Notices and other Cisco support documents. Technical Assistance Center (TAC) engineers or other Cisco staff can also provide you with the ID for a specific caveat.

  • Description—A description of what is observed when the caveat occurs.

Cisco Bug Search Tool

The Cisco Bug Search Tool (BST), which is the online successor to the Bug Toolkit, is designed to improve the effectiveness in network risk management and device troubleshooting. The BST allows partners and customers to search for software bugs based on product, release, and keyword, and aggregates key data, such as bug details, product, and version. The tool has a provision to filter bugs based on credentials to provide external and internal bug views for the search input.

For more information about how to use the Cisco Bug Search Tool effectively, including how to set email alerts for bugs, filter bugs, and save bugs and searches, see the Bug Search Tool Help & FAQ page.

You can access the listed bugs through the BST. This web-based tool provides you access to the Cisco bug tracking system, which maintains information about bugs and vulnerabilities in the Cisco Wireless Network Sensor software and other Cisco hardware and software products.

Click the Caveat Identifier number in the table. The corresponding BST page is displayed with details of the bug.


Note

If you are not logged in, you will be redirected to a Log In page where you need to enter your registered Cisco.com username and password to log In. If you do not have a Cisco.com account, you can register for one.

If the defect that you have selected cannot be displayed, this may be due to one or more of the following reasons:

  • The defect number does not exist

  • The defect does not have a customer-visible description yet

  • The defect has been marked Cisco Confidential

Open Caveats

This section lists the open caveats in Cisco Wireless Release 2.1.1.0.

Table 1. Cisco Aironet Network Sensor: Open Caveats in Cisco Wireless Release 2.1.1.0

Caveat Identifier

Caveat Description

CSCvt18455

Outlook sensor test says enter URL but test fails if http:// or https:// is prefixed to the URL.

CSCvt32126

Sensor fails to enroll with ISE via SCEP. Displays error: sscep: wrong MIME content type

CSCvt43886

Failure of SCEP enrollment with ISE sending wrong error message

Resolved Caveats

There are no resolved caveats in this release.

Service and Support

For all support-related information, see http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/index.html.

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Cisco Bug Search Tool

Cisco Bug Search Tool (BST) is a web-based tool that acts as a gateway to the Cisco bug tracking system that maintains a comprehensive list of defects and vulnerabilities in Cisco products and software. BST provides you with detailed defect information about your products and software.