SSID Broadcasting - Tied to WAN1 Status

NolanHerring
Kind of a big deal

SSID Broadcasting - Tied to WAN1 Status

I could have sworn I had read an old thread by someone else about this, but I can't seem to find it.

 

Was just thinking how one could disable an SSID if the primary link (WAN1) goes down.

 

I have a cellular backup link, and we don't allow guest traffic to traverse it for bandwidth concerns, only business.

 

Would prefer the SSID to automagically turn off when WAN1 goes down.

 

Thinking maybe using a web-hook, tied into a trigger for a Python script that would API call to disable the SSID, when WAN1 goes down, and re-enable when WAN1 comes back online.

 

Might be biting off more than I can chew on this one though. However I think this would be preferred that the devices on the guest auto-fail-over to their own cell connection instead of being stuck in a dead zone.  I know some phones are smart enough to auto let go of the wireless if its not working, but some are bad at doing this.

 

Thoughts?

Nolan Herring | nolanwifi.com
TwitterLinkedIn
3 Replies 3
SoCalRacer
Kind of a big deal

My suggestion is to setup a VLAN for guest ssid. Then use a flow preference on the MX to force the guest VLAN traffic out WAN1.

 

https://documentation.meraki.com/MX/Firewall_and_Traffic_Shaping/MX_Load_Balancing_and_Flow_Preferen...

I have a dedicated VLAN.
Yeah I kind of went down that road in my head, but there is no WAN2. Only WAN1 and Cellular (mx67c), so I have a firewall rule under cellular that hard blocks guest VLAN going outbound.

So when WAN1 goes down, corporate SSID will failover to 4G no problem, but guest will die. The death part is a tricky phase for some mobile devices, so its almost better that the SSID isn't available at all in that case.

Also (i could be wrong) but even if WAN2 was my backup link, I'm pretty sure the flow preference doesn't actually stop traffic from using WAN2 if WAN1 goes down, right?

Nolan Herring | nolanwifi.com
TwitterLinkedIn
PhilipDAth
Kind of a big deal
Kind of a big deal

>Thinking maybe using a web-hook, tied into a trigger for a Python script that would API call to disable the SSID, when WAN1 goes down, and re-enable when WAN1 comes back online.

 

That would be a great approach.  You could also write a script that simply polled for the status (say every 5 minutes).  Either way you just need a server to run the script on.

 

It's a little advanced, but Amazon AWS Lambda is great for these kinds of things.

Get notified when there are additional replies to this discussion.
Welcome to the Meraki Community!
To start contributing, simply sign in with your Cisco account. If you don't yet have a Cisco account, you can sign up.
Labels