Wireless Firmware 32.1.1 Beta - Several New Features/Enhancements

[Mloraditch]

New feature

• Support for OWE Transition mode
• Support for AAA accounting + Fast roaming (802.11r)
• Support for Mandatory DHCP + Fast roaming (802.11r)
• Support COA Support + Fast roaming (802.11r)
• Support for Client Exclusion Policies (Manual)
• Support for DHCP Option 82

Enhancement

• Client Analytics support for Zebra devices
• 6GHz Support for Transition mode with SAE SSIDs
• MLO Support with 802.3at power for CW9178/CW9176
• Support for AP Auto Locate new Wi-Fi 7 HW support
• AP Auto Locate (UWB AP-to-AP Ranging)
• Safe Config Override for Site Surveying
• Support for AP name in beacon without CCX

Bug fixes

• General stability, performance, and experience improvements
• MAB-based wired clients not re-authenticated after port reset (Wi-Fi 6, Wi-Fi 6E, Wi-Fi 7 APs)
• Gateway MR to source RADIUS traffic from AMI (Wi-Fi 6, Wi-Fi 6E, Wi-Fi 7 APs)

[rhbirkelund]

Just as I been explaining to a customer that CoA and 11r will not be a possibility. XD

[Mloraditch]

I've had the same conversation in the past month!

[RaphaelL]

Edited cause I'm dumb. 

AAA accounting + Fast roaming is the key.  I would guess that on every roam the AP will send Accounting to the RADIUS server to inform the RADIUS server the IP of the AP the client is currently connected.

[rhbirkelund]

While it's supported in firmware, it may seem that the dashboard still hasn't added support for CoA and 11r.

[rhbirkelund]

Forgot to enable External DHCP, and then the setting showed up, but greyed out.

[rhbirkelund]

Now, where's that release note button for Dashboard changes....... 😉 

[Mloraditch]

Yeah I noticed the same thing, wish they would coordinate some of these things better

[KarstenI]

These are my three favorites in this release:

• Support COA Support + Fast roaming (802.11r)

• MLO Support with 802.3at power for CW9178/CW9176
• Support for AP name in beacon without CCX

But I was also hoping for iPSK with RADIUS and WPA3.

[MrCado]

We managed to achieve seamless roaming with RADIUS and WPA3, 802.11r and 802.11w active on CW9176i AP's. 

Other than helping with roaming is there any reason to look into COA Support?

[Mloraditch]

COA is what allows you to nearly immediately change the access level of a device. You can blacklist a device in your radius server and with COA it should get cut off the network within moments, rather than trying to find the device and kick it off another way. You can also just change the access level and again it should be updated right away.

[LG]

There's something odd going on with this firmware when I have a 9162 and 9172 in the same network... they keep rebooting.

Had to isolate them in different networks.

And it looks like it still doesn't support different SSIDs/encryptions on the 9172 for Wifi 7, I mean, I have the WPA3 compliant SSID for wifi 7, but if I enable a wpa2 SSID, it downgrades to Wifi 6

[lotsofdots]

The MR32.1.1 performs significantly better than the previous MR31.x release train in my environment.

All the issues I encountered with MR36(H) have been resolved, at least to the best of my knowledge in my environment. Connecting around 20 clients to one AP no longer causes stability issues (for example, I encountered during long Webex calls, where with release MR31.x I faced reconnects or lags). So 

thumbs up for the current MR32.x release.

[RaphaelL]

This was added : 

Important note

• MR45/55 APs are not supported on MR 32.x.x and will instead upgrade to the backup version (MR 31.1.7) if they are in networks configured for MR 32.x.x versions, and thus, new features will not be available.

[cmr]

I saw that and it means I can't test most of the new features as I have an MR55 that is part of my main test (home) network... 😞

[Mloraditch]

The below have all been deleted from the list:

 

New feature

• Support for OWE Transition mode
• Support COA Support + Fast roaming (802.11r)
• Support for DHCP Option 82

Enhancement

• Client Analytics support for Zebra devices
• MLO Support with 802.3at power for CW9176 (CW9178 Stayed)
• Support for AP Auto Locate new Wi-Fi 7 HW support
• AP Auto Locate (UWB AP-to-AP Ranging)

Documentation seems to still exist, I presume perhaps because something wasn't ready or its possible they are related to announcements at Cisco Live next week.