Hey guys, im hoping someone can shed light on my question, first here is context:
I have unifi ap pro for patient waiting area. Ssid1 and another uap pro for doctor use, ssid2. Each uap are plugged into cisco switch. I use cisco 2960 as backbone. Also use vm unifi controller to manage uap. What i want is the one uap to broadcast two ssid. SSID1, SSID2. i know with unifi switches i can have both ssids seperate traffic, and have isolation. Can this be accomplished with cisco switch or is this exclusove to unifi switching ? Hope i made sense. Thanks.
Assuming these two SSID are using two different vlans, then you would need to trunk the vlans on the 2960 switch for both of those access points.
The basics of Cisco trunking https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/switches/lan/catalyst2960x/software/15-2_2_e/vlan/configuration_guide/b_vlan_1522e_2960x_cg/b_vlan_152ex_2960-x_cg_chapter_0100.pdf
Should apply to the older 2960 and 2960s.
As far as setting the AP to do this, no idea but the controller software will probably walk you through the configuration.
To add., to Greg_E post your router / firewall needs to understand vlans
Hello Greg_E,
Thanks for the reply. in your sentence you wrote “both of those access points”
i think perhaps i didn’t articulate my situation fully LOL
as of now, lets say i have two access points, one broadcasting for for patients and the other broadcasting for staff/doctors. my scope is to have patient access use a wan2 for internet and staff/doctors to use wan1 for internet, but that’s not my concern or question.
my idea is to eliminate one of the access points with its ethernet cable and have the remaining access point broadcast the two SSIDs. unifi controller can provision this, but i think i need the unifi switch to keep the two SSIDs/network seperate, or can this be done with cisco switch vlans ? if so, would the unifi switch be doing this ?
If the office is small enough to be served by a single AP, then certainly you can do that. I was just thinking that if you have 2 AP now, you could use both for better signal over the entire area. Even in my small home, I’d like to have multiple APs installed for better coverage. I’d like one in the house, one in the garage, and one in the back yard unless the garage AP covered the yard enough that I didn’t need the extra.
But I also need to keep home “basic” enough that other people can manage it if something happens to me. I need to work on getting different equipment to make it easy and possible.
As far as the cisco switch, yes it can trunk multiple vlans to a single port and then the AP should be able to use both of those (trunked) vlans, one for each SSID. And as mentioned, yes the router will need another trunked port from the cisco switch and vlans set up on the router.
For other wired devices on the cisco switch, you may need to set their ports to statically be on a specific vlan, other things you might be able to use tags. I’d probably put everything wired on the doctor vlan and have the guest only have permissions/access between AP and router (wan).
Hey Greg,
thanks for the clarification, now I’m almost certain i can do what i need. but just to be sure, in this video:
what you are saying is i can easily replace the unifi switch with a Cisco using vlans and trunks.
Either switch should be able to handle vlans, but if the plan was to move to the Cisco switch anyway, yes. Keeping everything in the Unifi “system” would be easier to manage.