If you are using Cisco Aironet 2800, 3800, and 4800 series APs with FIPS in enabled state, we recommend that you do not upgrade to Release 8.10.112.0 because of the issue described in CSCvt17801, where the APs go into a loop after trying to join the controller. This issue will require manual recovery of APs using Mode button to factory reset the APs. Therefore, we advise the FIPS customers to use Release 8.5.161.0. Follow the software guidance for FIPS customers at:

In this release, support is introduced for the following new access point:

• Cisco Catalyst 9130E Access Points (C9130AXE-x) with Digital Analog Radio Termination (DART) Antenna Support

  • C9130AXE: VID 02 or earlier

Cisco Catalyst 9130E Access Points (C9130AXE-x) support the following features:

• 1x1 mode is supported when the AP is powered by 802.3af PoE

• 2x2, 3x3, and 4x4 antenna configurations for the 2.4-GHz radio

• 2x2, 3x3, 4x4, 6x6, and 8x8 antenna configurations for the 5-GHz radio

• Self-Identifiable Antennas (SIA) using 8-port Digital Analog Radio Termination (DART) plug

• 8-port DART Smart Antenna connector

Note	If you configure the 9130 AP to operate in 160-MHz channel width, only 2x2, 3x3, and 4x4 antenna configurations are supported. The Cisco Catalyst 9130E Access Points have 3 dBm less Tx power range than the Cisco Catalyst 9130I Access Points.

Basic Service Set (BSS) Coloring is a new provision that allows devices operating in the same frequency space to quickly distinguish between packets from their own BSS and packets from an Overlapping BSS (OBSS).

For more information on BSS Coloring, see https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/wireless/controller/8-10/config-guide/b_cg810/managing_aps.html#bss_coloring

The Cisco FastLocate feature enables higher location refresh rates by collecting RSSI or location information through data packets received by the APs. Using these data packets, location-based service (LBS) updates are initiated by the network, and these data packets are available more frequently.

For more information about FastLocate on 802.11ax APs, see https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/wireless/controller/8-10/config-guide/b_cg810/location_services.html#fast-locate_9100ap

Having multiple antennas at the transmitter and receiver ends of access points results in greater performance and reliability of the APs. Multiple antennas improve reception through the selection of the stronger signal or a combination of individual signals at the receiver end. Therefore, detection of physical breakage of antennas is critical to the reliability of APs.

This feature is based on the signal strength delta across the antennas in the receiver. If the delta is more than the defined limit for a specific duration, the antenna is considered to have issues.

For instructions on how to configure this feature, see https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/wireless/controller/8-10/config-guide/b_cg810/managing_aps.html#ap-antenna-monitoring

From this release onwards, Cisco Wave 2 access points in WGB mode can auto enroll CA certificates.

For instructions on how to configure this feature, see https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/wireless/controller/8-10/config-guide/b_cg810/workgroup_bridges.html#cisco-wave2-ap-as-wgb.

From release 8.10.112.0 onwards, supporting Cisco Access Points switch to using High Availability RSA (HARSA) certificate to join the controller. This new certificate has a validity up to year 2099.

If the AP is migrated from 8.10.112.0 release to an older release or to Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless Controllers, the AP attempts to join using the HARSA certificate and fails, then the AP loads the RSA certificate and join the controller.

Note	Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless Controllers and Controllers running 8.10.100.0 and earlier release software do not support HARSA certificate.

Cisco Access Points supporting HARSA certificate are:

• Cisco Catalyst 9100 Series Access Points

• Cisco 6300 Series Embedded Services Access Points

• Cisco Catalyst IW6300 Heavy Duty Series Access Points

In this release, TLS v1.2 support extends to EAP-FAST authentication protocol. The authentication behavior changes are as follows:

• Cisco Wave 1 Mesh APs continue to use TLS v1.0. If it is disabled, these APs fail to authenticate and do not join the network.

• Cisco Wave 2 Mesh APs authenticate using TLS v1.2 and join the network.

Note	Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) requires an update to support controllers with TLS v1.2.

To enable controllers to support Cisco TrustSec with TLS v1.2, ensure that you validate and apply the fix available for Cisco ISE in CSCvm03681.

• From release 8.10.112.0 onwards, the console access to the AP using the default username and password is not supported. You must explicitly configure the controller AP global credentials with non-default username and password to get access to the AP console.

• From release 8.10.112.0 onwards, sensor mode in Cisco AP is not supported. When an AP in sensor mode is upgraded to 8.10.112.0, the AP is switched to local or bridge mode depending on the AP platform type.

  Note	To continue using the sensor functionality, we recommend that you use the Cisco 1800S dedicated sensor with its supported APs.

• After you upgrade to Release 8.10.112.0, the AP-specific SSH setting changes to disabled state. However, the APs that have global SSH settings are not impacted.

  If you want to retain AP-specific SSH setting, you must explicitly enable SSH on those APs.

• From this release, a new gateway reachability check is introduced. The APs send periodic ICMP echo requests (ping) to the default gateway to check for connectivity. You need to ensure traffic filtering between the APs and the default gateway (like ACLs) allow ICMP pings between the AP and the default gateway. If these pings are blocked, even if the connectivity between the controller and the AP is active, the APs will reload at 4 hours interval.

• For Cisco Aironet 2800, 3800, and 4800 APs with FIPS in enabled state, see the important upgrade advisory in the Important Upgrade Information section.

• An existing WLAN with ? in its name continues to be supported with this upgrade. However, you cannot include ? in the name when creating a new WLAN.

• If an AP locks out the console due to default management user credentials, you must configure the controller AP global credential with non-default username and password to get access to the AP console.

• WPA3 upgrade and downgrade guidelines:

  • If you downgrade from Release 8.10 to Release 8.5, if any AKM for SAE is configured, the AKM validation fails after the downgrade. The security is set to WPA2 and AKM to 802.1X. However, PMF configuration is retained, which results in an error.

  • FT set to enabled state and PMF set to Required state is allowed in Release 8.10 because PMF and FT configurations are decoupled. However, in Release 8.5, this configuration invalid. Therefore, upon downgrading to Release 8.5, the WLAN might be disabled.

  • If you want to upgrade from Release 8.5 to 8.10 and have WPA1 configured with none of the WPA1 AKM that are valid for Release 8.10, the WPA1 configuration is disabled after the upgrade because it impacts the status of the WLAN. Valid AKM for WPA1 in Release 8.5 are 802.1X, PSK, and CCKM.

• Software downgrade guidelines for Release 8.10:

  • If you plan to downgrade the Cisco controller from Release 8.10 software, we recommend you to downgrade to Release 8.5.151.0 or later to prevent the controller configuration files from being corrupted.

  • If you have configured new country codes in Release 8.10 and if you plan to downgrade to an earlier release, then we recommend that you remove the new country code configurations prior to the downgrade. For more information, see CSCvq91895.

• Before downgrading or upgrading the Cisco Controller to another release check for APs or AP modes support. Ensure that only supported APs are connected and also the APs are moved to supported modes on the release that the controller is upgraded or downgraded to.

• Legacy clients that require RC4 or 3DES encryption type are not supported in Local EAP authentication.

• If you downgrade to Release 8.0.140.0 or 8.0.15x.0, and later upgrade to a later release and and also have the multiple country code feature configured, then the configuration file could get corrupted. When you try to upgrade to a later release, special characters are added in the country list causing issues when loading the configuation. For more information, see CSCve41740.

  Note	Upgrade and downgrade between other releases does not result in this issue.

• After downloading the new software to the Cisco APs, it is possible that a Cisco AP may get stuck in an upgrading image state. In such a scenario, it might be necessary to forcefully reboot the controller to download a new controller software image or to reboot the controller after the download of the new controller software image. You can forcefully reboot the controller by entering the reset system forced command.

• It is not possible to download some of the older configurations from the controller because of the Multicast and IP address validations. See the "Restrictions on Configuring Multicast Mode" section in the Cisco Wireless Controller Configuration Guide for detailed information about platform support for global multicast and multicast mode.

• When a client sends an HTTP request, the controller intercepts it for redirection to the login page. If the HTTP GET request that is intercepted by the controller is longer than 2000 bytes, the controller drops the packet. Track the Caveat ID CSCuy81133 for a possible enhancement to address this restriction.

• When downgrading from one release to an earlier release, you might lose the configuration from your current release. The workaround is to reload the previous controller configuration files that are saved in the backup server, or to reconfigure the controller.

• When you upgrade a controller to an intermediate release, wait until all the APs that are associated with the controller are upgraded to the intermediate release before you install the latest controller software. In large networks, it can take some time to download the software on each AP.

• You can upgrade to a new release of the controller software or downgrade to an earlier release even if FIPS is enabled.

• When you upgrade to the latest software release, the software on the APs associated with the controller is also automatically upgraded. When an AP is loading software, each of its LEDs blinks in succession.

• Controllers support standard SNMP MIB files. MIBs can be downloaded from the software download page on Cisco.com.

• The controller software that is factory-installed on your controller and is automatically downloaded to the APs after a release upgrade and whenever an AP joins a controller. We recommend that you install the latest software version available for maximum operational benefit.

• Ensure that you have a TFTP, HTTP, FTP, or SFTP server available for the software upgrade. Follow these guidelines when setting up a server:

  • Ensure that your TFTP server supports files that are larger than the size of controller software image. Some TFTP servers that support files of this size are tftpd32 and the TFTP server within Cisco Prime Infrastructure. If you attempt to download the controller software image and your TFTP server does not support files of this size, the following error message appears:

    TFTP failure while storing in flash

  • If you are upgrading through the distribution system network port, the TFTP or FTP server can be on the same subnet or a different subnet because the distribution system port is routable.

• The controller Bootloader stores a copy of the active primary image and the backup image. If the primary image becomes corrupted, you can use the Bootloader to boot with the backup image.

  With the backup image stored before rebooting, from the Boot Options menu, choose Option 2: Run Backup Image to boot from the backup image. Then, upgrade with a known working image and reboot controller.

• You can control the addresses that are sent in the Control and Provisioning of Wireless Access Points (CAPWAP) discovery responses when NAT is enabled on the Management Interface, using the following command:

  config network ap-discovery nat-ip-only {enable | disable}

  The following are the details of the command:

  enable —Enables use of NAT IP only in a discovery response. This is the default. Use this command if all the APs are outside the NAT gateway.

  disable —Enables use of both NAT IP and non-NAT IP in a discovery response. Use this command if APs are on the inside and outside the NAT gateway, for example, Local Mode and OfficeExtend APs are on the same controller.

  Note	To avoid stranding of APs, you must disable the AP link latency (if enabled) before you use the disable option in the config network ap-discovery nat-ip-only command. To disable AP link latency, use the config ap link-latency disable all command.

• Do not power down the controller or any AP during the upgrade process. If you do this, the software image might get corrupted. Upgrading the controller with a large number of APs can take as long as 30 minutes, depending on the size of your network. However, with the increased number of concurrent AP upgrades supported, the upgrade time should be significantly reduced. The APs must remain powered, and controller must not be reset during this time.

• After you perform the following functions on the controller, reboot it for the changes to take effect:

  • Enable or disable LAG.

  • Enable a feature that is dependent on certificates (such as HTTPS and web authentication).

  • Add a new license or modify an existing license.

    Note	Reboot is not required if you are using Right-to-Use licenses.

  • Increase the priority of a license.

  • Enable HA.

  • Install the SSL certificate.

  • Configure the database size.

  • Install the vendor-device certificate.

  • Download the CA certificate.

  • Upload the configuration file.

  • Install the Web Authentication certificate.

  • Make changes to the management interface or the virtual interface.

• Cisco WLAN Express Setup Over-the-Air Provisioning

• Mobility controller functionality in converged access mode

• VPN Termination (such as IPsec and L2TP)

• Internal DHCP Server

• Mobility controller functionality in converged access mode

• VPN termination (such as IPsec and L2TP)

• Fragmented pings on any interface

• Cisco Umbrella

• Software-defined access

• Domain-based ACLs

• Internal DHCP server

• Cisco TrustSec

• Access points in local mode

• Mobility or Guest Anchor role

• Wired Guest

• Multicast

  Note	FlexConnect locally switched multicast traffic is bridged transparently for both wired and wireless on the same VLAN. FlexConnect APs do not limit traffic based on IGMP or MLD snooping.

• FlexConnect central switching in large-scale deployments

  Note	FlexConnect central switching is supported in only small-scale deployments, wherein the total traffic on controller ports is not more than 500 Mbps. FlexConnect local switching is supported.

• Central switching on Microsoft Hyper-V deployments

• AP and Client SSO in High Availability

• PMIPv6

• Datagram Transport Layer Security (DTLS)

• EoGRE (Supported only in local switching mode)

• Workgroup bridges

• Client downstream rate limiting for central switching

• SHA2 certificates

• Controller integration with Lync SDN API

• Cisco OfficeExtend Access Points

• Load-based call admission control (CAC). Mesh networks support only bandwidth-based CAC or static CAC

• High availability (Fast heartbeat and primary discovery join timer)

• AP acting as supplicant with EAP-FASTv1 and 802.1X authentication

• AP join priority (Mesh APs have a fixed priority)

• Location-based services

• Dynamic Mesh backhaul data rate.

  Note	We recommend that you keep the Bridge data rate of the AP as auto.

• Background scanning

• Noise-tolerant fast convergence

• MAC Authentication FlexConnect Local Authentication

• Noise-tolerant fast convergence

• Static WEP

• MAC Authentication FlexConnect Local Authentication

• Noise-tolerant fast convergence

• Static WEP