MR 26.1 Beta Available

[NolanHerring]

Just noticed its available as of yesterday/today:

Not sure what Mandatory DHCP is yet though lol

New features

• Initial stable firmware for MR42E/53E/20/70
• Auto external antenna detection for C/D/E/F series antennas
• Mandatory DHCP
• Umbrella Integration with MR
• MR no longer disassociates client upon receipt of CoA packet
• Alternate Management VLAN. Contact Support.
• Maximum speed limit of “75+ Mbps” removed from Local Status Page speed test
• Added the ability to download diagnostic information from the device local status page for the Meraki Support team to examine

Security fixes

• CVE-2018-16986 (MR42E/MR53E)
• Fixes provided for Local Status Page Vulnerability issue (MR20/MR42E/MR53E/MR70): https://meraki.cisco.com/blog/cisco-meraki-customer-advisories/

Bug fixes

• VoIP RTP packet loss (MR42/MR52/MR53)
• A corner case causes lower than expected throughput on the 2.4GHz radio (MR26/MR34)
• A corner case where radios become unresponsive for 5 seconds in high density networks (MR34/MR32/MR72/MR26)
• A corner case where radios to become unresponsive (MR26/MR72)
• Client signal strengths for some clients were incorrectly reported by AP (MR34)
• Air Marshal erroneously reported rogue for MAC 00:00:00:00:00:00 (All MRs)
• APs sent empty 802.11k neighbor reports (MR42)
• A corner case where APs reboot under certain conditions (MR32/MR52/MR74)
• Magic ARP no longer counted as Rogue SSID events (All MRs)
• Mesh neighbors no longer shown in RF Spectrum view (All MRs)
• A corner case where additional hidden SSID was broadcasted from APs (MR26/MR32/MR34/MR72)
• No longer classify mobile hotspot SSID’s as Rogue SSID in Air Marshal (All MRs)
• A corner case where factory reset causes the AP to go offline until manual reboot (All MRs)
• Facebook app not blocked by Layer 7 firewall rules (All MRs)
• A corner case where APs rebooted (MR32/MR52)
• A corner case where Cisco 8821 phones have issues roaming on certain APs (MR30H/MR33/MR42/MR52/MR53/MR42E/MR53E)
• APs do not correctly report TX power on Dashboard in certain cases (MR26/MR32/MR34/MR72)
• Group Policy not applied when client FT roams on 802.11r SSID (All MRs)
• A corner case where APs rebooted after AutoTX Power change (MR72)
• A corner case where APs reboot when large number of clients are connected to an AP (MR34)
• A corner case where APs would not broadcast SSIDs after firmware upgrade (MR34)
• Transmit power on APs is reported as 0 on Radio Settings page (MR32/34/72)
• APs on MR25.11 broadcasting incorrect spatial stream supported (MR34)
• A corner case where AP stops broadcasting SSIDs (MR32)
• Ability to extend 802.11r PMKID lifetime beyond the default timer of 1 hour. Contact Support (All MRs)
• DHCP Inform packets causing issues with Layer 2 LAN isolation (All MRs)
• Corner case where the default gateway mapped for Layer 2 LAN isolation would never age out (All MRs)
• AP failing to connect when link speed is less than 1Gbps (MR42E)
• AP failing to connect when link speed is configured for 2.5 Gbps (MR53E)

Known issues

• Mesh instability (MR18, MR20, MR33, MR34, MR42, MR52, MR53, MR53E, MR70, MR74, MR84)
• Sporadic packet loss & instability on Layer 3 roaming & Teleworker VPN SSID’s (All MR’s)

Other

• General performance, security and stability improvements.

[BrechtSchamp]

I'm going to guess mandatory DHCP means that packets coming from clients for which no DHCP lease is known are dropped. I often use static IP addresses on hotel Wi-Fi with exhausted DHCP ranges (common problem). This would stop me from doing that...

[NolanHerring]

Found it 😃

Upgraded my lab just now, the option only shows up when you upgrade to 26.1

My assumption is that it is equivalent to the Cisco WLC option (if your familiar) called DHCP Required, which I personally think is great. Another layer of security (so to speak).

[BrechtSchamp]

"won't be able to associate" -> interesting

Since DHCP takes place after association I'm not sure if that's even possible.

[NolanHerring]

haha

Probably just syntax, but for the sake of curiosity, I'm planning on testing it tonight when I get home 😃

[NolanHerring]

Interestingly enough, when I set it to Enabled, hit save, it doesn't seem to 'stick'.

Refresh the page, or go to another page and come back, and it keeps putting it back to Disabled.

[jdsilva]

Aruba has this setting. You can associate, but if you have a static it won't pass your traffic. It's sorta like what Dynamic ARP Inspection and IP Source Guard do on the wired side. 

[NolanHerring]

Yup 😃

On the Cisco WLC side, you'll associate, but if it does not detect the DHCP REQ / ACK back, it won't put you into the RUN state.

[PhilipDAth]

Good discovery @NolanHerring  - thanks for letting everyone know.

[Bossnine]

So with this enabled, if a client on this VLAN had a static IP set it would not allow them network access?

[NolanHerring]

If the device is using a static IP on the device itself (manually configured) then I would imagine it won't allow it. I'm not certain however, is if you do a reservation on the MX for example under DHCP, if it overrides it or not (I would hope so). Basically if the system does not detect the DHCP/DORA process it isn't going to let him pass traffic (in theory).

[Bossnine]

Thanks, not sure if I have any static clients out there................there shouldn't be but you never know.

[BrechtSchamp]

---

@Bossnine wrote:

So with this enabled, if a client on this VLAN had a static IP set it would not allow them network access?

---

Don't think you should generalize that. I think it's specifically for clients that are wirelessly connected.

[NolanHerring]

Sorry I thought that it was implied since the setting is specifically under the Access Control settings for an SSID

[Bossnine]

Sorry if I didn't make that clear as well, it was implied since we were discussing wifi.

[BrechtSchamp]

---

@Bossnine wrote:

Sorry if I didn't make that clear as well, it was implied since we were discussing wifi.

---

Okay, just wanted to make sure 🤓.

[cmr]

We tried this but I hadn't noticed the known issue of sporadic packet loss etc. for L3 roaming, took down half a site so rolled back!  A second less busy site seems okay though...

[NolanHerring]

Call me crazy but I always thought the L3 roaming that Meraki has was always half-baked and never worked well. Thought I saw something recently about something coming down the pike in the next 3 months or so about it being improved.

[ZacApplegate]

Is anyone having issues with clients getting DHCP on 26.1?

Most of our APs seem to be working fine but several of our MR72s are having issues right now. Rebooting them seems to help for a while.

[Gumby]

I had half our wifi phones drop offline the morning after the upgrade.  Rolled back and figured I would wait for .2 before taking another look.  Never investigated the issue but DHCP could have been one of the causes.

[NolanHerring]

I'm more of the mindset of waiting for like .4 or later lol

[cmr]

We've tried 26.1 through 26.4 and none are usable with Apple and Cisco mobiles in particular as they simply drop off the network far too often and don't reconnect.  I'm guessing this is due to the known L3 roaming issue.

[vassallon]

FYI, I received this message on a ticket of mine with Apple for wireless issues with iPads.

Hi Nathan,

Apologies for the lack of updates on this. The issue we identified in this case that can cause intermittent failures to connect to a PSK Wi-Fi network has been resolved in the iOS 13 beta.

If you have an opportunity to test, please let us know if you see improvements.

[cmr]

Yes, I also saw that but as the Cisco WiFi phones also drop at the same time (and don't reconnect until AP reboot) I think something bigger is at large.

We will try each new release as it comes due to needing the 26.x improvements but it is a bit of a chore...