Hi Marlon — sorry you’re hitting the “stuck getting a license / nothing after approve” loop; it’s showing up a lot in the Oct rush. Double-check Anchor sync/slots and that the on-prem build matches what Anchor expects. If you’d rather not fight the DIY VM path alone, we run hosted cnMaestro On-Prem cutovers with guided migration collection: https://cloudwlc.com — happy to help in-thread.
The anchor setup guide provides instructions for deploying an AWS instance using AMI version 5.2.0. Anyone know if it’s possible to upgrade this version to 6.0?
Hi David,
If the Cambium Cloud shut down, how will you onboard new devices on your CnMaestro hosted service ?
Regards,
Hi Laurent — fair question.
Hosted cnMaestro on CloudWLC is the stopgap: get your estate collected and reporting to our hosted controller while Cambium Cloud is still up. Once the APs are on our stack, we can migrate them onto Optaro’s own native WLC (CloudWLC Control / Open Controller) — that launches this Friday and doesn’t need Cambium Cloud or Anchor for adding/replacing devices.
Capability matrix + what’s in Control vs Manage vs Optimise: CloudWLC Open Controller — an independent controller for Cambium access points · CloudWLC
Hi all, so Oct 1, no more cloud cnMaestro. But my question is since the Anchor is attached to the cloud, wont the anchor disappear as well? Yes one will have everything on the on prem but won’t adding or deleting devices be obsolete as well?
Yep.. thats what it seems. If you miss the Oct 1st deadline - paper weights and pc-load-letter status.
Cambium Administration did mention, if no finalized buyer by October 1st or there after; they’ll supposedly release a new on-prem version that removes the backend cloud calls. So perhaps with that fully featured release - we will be okay. Thinking similar to Unifi on-prem controller
I’m not the most proficient with this, sort of stumbling through this process and learning along the way. I’m encountering some issues with the test devices I’m moving to on-prem.
Firstly, I have followed the steps with a EX2052-P switch to delete it from cnMaestro and onboard it with the on-prem. I had to access the switch through a web browser and change the Remote Management URL to the IP of the on-prem. The switch briefly came online in the on-prem but will not stay online. The static URL field reverts to blank and under status the Remote Manager Connection Sate shows “Access Denied” and Last Action shows “Connect failed: Already owned by an On-Premises instance”. I have made sure this device is fully removed from cnMaestro and is not connected to any other on-prem instance. I have removed it and re-added it a few times waiting a day between attempts to be sure it is fully removed. What am I missing here?
Additionally, trying to move over an XE3-4 AP I have not accessed the device to change the remote management, however every time I onboard it to the on-prem by serial or mac it does not come online and the device name is always a different product (most recently it is named XV3-8). I’m not sure if I am missing a step, or perhaps trying with a misbehaving device. I’d like to get this process down with the non-deployed hardware before I start breaking things with the APs on the ceiling.
Advice is appreciated, criticism as well.
Hey Nate
It appears the on-prem release 6.0 version has a few bugs and less newer features than the current cloud version. I too noticed some odd device hardware descriptions - mainly for the XV2-2 AP which showed as XE3-AP. Can ignore it.
For devices that got stuck with waiting subscription [access points] – I found if they wouldnt adopt or get stuck. If you re-try it – ONLY assign them the site or to default, with NO config. Do not worry, as device will still be operational with the running config.
Once successfully on boarded, you can then move to correct site and apply config.
We’ve not yet migrated customers EX2052-P switches.. we’re scared haha. But needful to do it this week. God speed..
Will I need to log into each individual AP to change the remote management URL like I seem to need to do with the switches?
Mark, check out this other thread where people are discussing running the OVA on alternate hypervisors. You’ll need to “crack open” (it’s just a gzip or tarball or similar) the OVA file, and then you’ll need to convert the disk images in there to a format that Azure / Hyper-V can handle.
Once you have the OnPrem running and talking to your Anchor, go over to the “Manage Subscriptions” section of the OnPrem controller (bottom icon in the top section of icons, little piece of paper with a $ on it). You should have a big button in there that says “upgrade to cnMaestro X” or similar. This will pull down and apply the “90 day” trial licenses (which are actually tied to the day your Anchor was spun up, so for me at least they’re down to 87 days now).
If you can set appropriate DHCP options so the APs grab their controller from DHCP/DNS, then you shouldn’t need to do anything manual (although you likely need to reboot the APs to get them to switch controller URLs). Theoretically this should work for switches too, AFAIK.
Further ramblings from me, I think the first AP I was testing with was misbehaving. I have found with further attempts that if I delete them from cnMaestro and log into the device and change the management URL to https://(ip of on-prem) it will show up in the onboarding list without being added by serial or mac. The onboarding mode will show as “unsolicited”. Working on APs for now as the switches are raising my blood pressure.
I too am growing gray hairs on migrating the cnmatrix switches for customers. Pucker fest moments
I’m currently most worried about our ~150 AP site that uses MarketApps. I’m not really sure how we can salvage that, the functionality certainly won’t be the same if I move it all to onprem.
If I don’t move it to onprem it goes poof on 10/1; if I move it to onprem before that I can at least manage the APs but can’t provide the same experience to the customers/tenants of the site. Screwed either way…
We have the 90-day licensed option with new cloud anchor. Hopefully Cambium pulls head out the sand and releases a full version for on-prem; no restrictions - is the dream.
Otherwise we all lose, as we sold solutions to end customers based on features and capabilities of their product. They took our money for hardware and subscription entitlements….took it all to close their doors
If they don’t find a buyer, we hope they release full version and we be unchained and be okay.
I’m in a pickle for a campground deployment that was 80% done - hold up was invading SKUs being back ordered….now it’s never. And we will now have mixed environment to complete the AP installs,…. Ruins the guest easy pass plan….. sigh.
If you use legacy onprem version of CnMaestro (example 3.0.0) there is no anchor account required.
Limited functionality but you can onboard (already onboarded in the cloud) APs and switches by pointing the devices to the legacy local version of onprem.
This is being used as a DR plan for all our schools if cambium dont release a recent version of CnMaestro without requirement anchor accounts.
We dont want to have to move our infrastructure twice so we are waiting till it maybe goes dark..
Not sure we have the resources to get this done before Oct1,
What actually happens if we dont move to onprem and cloud goes away?
Instore wifi will still work for our customers I assume, they will just be isolated from us remotely?
Would we be able to connect to the local gui still?
Any info is appreciated,
Today has yielded mixed results. Access points move over trivially easy by simply pointing management to the on-prem and deleting them from cloud.
Switches have been a different story. When moved over they briefly come online in the on-prem until they try to sync either manually or automatically. Upon syncing they go offline and are unreachable by IP for a time. Once they are reachable by IP they show that the management configuration has reverted and show an error that mentions already being claimed.
A note for anyone who may find it useful:
I have found that certain XE and XV access points on 7.x.x firmware versions won’t sync configurations properly when moved to the on-prem management. Logging into the device through a browser and using the firmware upgrade tool to apply 6.6.2.1-r5 (can be downloaded from the support page) seems to fix the issue.
A hint if anyone wishes to migrate from an old Anchor account (e.g. made before 17th September) to a new one with cnMaestro X enabled:
- Create new Anchor account.
- Disconnect the on-prem cnMaestro instance from the cloud (Settings->Cloud Connectivity).
- Go into the old Anchor account and delete the cnMaestro instance (Settings->On-Prem Instances).
- Reconnect the on-prem cnMaestro instance to the cloud (Settings->Cloud Connectivity).
- An error will be reported, and you will be given the opportunity to enter the ID and onboarding key for the new Anchor account with cnMaestro X privileges.
All settings (WLANs, AP Groups etc.) and devices seem to migrate with the server. When you activate cnMaestro X, they get slots.
There doesn’t seem to be doco for this, and I hope that helps someone.
In theory it could also be used to push out the date of expiry for cnMaestro X by +2 weeks, by doing this on Sep 30th.