Reboot Meraki APs

Joseph JenkinsLeave a comment

I have found myself several times over the last couple of months needing to reboot all of the APs within a Meraki network. Sometimes due to changes or sometimes due to them not responding for some reason. There really isn’t a clean way of going through and rebooting them aside from one a time within the console. I thought hey I can make this one better and do it via the API. So I went through and built this script to allow someone to put in the Org id and then it will pull back all of the networks that are in that Org and allow you to choose one to reboot all of the APs. It will ask should it go as fast as possible or would you like to put in a delay so that they all don’t go down at the same time. I’ve tested it a couple of times and everything works as its supposed to. As always I look forward to any comments or updates that I can put into the code to make it better.

https://github.com/undrwatr/MERAKI_AP_REBOOT

As usually my code isn’t fancy or special, just serviceable and able to get done what I need and save me some time and headaches.

Retrieve SSID info from Meraki Wireless Network

Joseph JenkinsLeave a comment

I support multiple Meraki Wireless networks and I wanted the ability to pull in pertinent data from the wireless networks that I support. This will allow me to pull in the data and then upload it into the wireless mapping programs and design software. This will also allow me to easily pull the channels, power settings, SSIDs, and other pertinent information. Here is the link to my GitHub site where I will be keeping the most up to date program as I fix things and work to improve it.

#!/usr/bin/env python


#import necessary modules

import cred

import requests


#Meraki site information

MERAKI_DASHBOARD = 'https://api.meraki.com'

HEADERS = {'X-Cisco-Meraki-API-Key': (cred.key), 'Content-Type': 'application/json'}


#NETWORK = input(str("What network are we looking at? "))

NETWORK = cred.network


NETWORK_URL = MERAKI_DASHBOARD + '/api/v0/networks/%s/devices' % NETWORK

NETWORK_GET = requests.get(NETWORK_URL, headers=HEADERS)

NETWORK_RESPONSE = NETWORK_GET.json()


#Create a function pull in the information

def WIRELESS_SETTINGS():

    WIRELESS_SETTINGS_URL = MERAKI_DASHBOARD + '/api/v0/networks/%s/devices/%s/wireless/status' % (NETWORK, DEVICE['serial'])

    WIRELESS_SETTINGS_GET = requests.get(WIRELESS_SETTINGS_URL, headers=HEADERS)

    WIRELESS_SETTINGS_RESPONSE = WIRELESS_SETTINGS_GET.json()

    for SSIDS in WIRELESS_SETTINGS_RESPONSE['basicServiceSets']:

        if SSIDS['enabled'] == True:

            print("SSID "  + (SSIDS['ssidName']) + " BAND " + (SSIDS['band']) + " BSSID " + str(SSIDS['bssid']) + " Channel " + str(SSIDS['channel']) + " Power " + str(SSIDS['power']))


#Loops through the network and the devices to find all of the information.

for DEVICE in NETWORK_RESPONSE:

    if DEVICE['model'] == "MR42":

        print("AP " + DEVICE['name'])

        WIRELESS_SETTINGS()

Passing the CWAP

Joseph JenkinsLeave a comment

Last weekend I was able to pass the CWAP exam on my second attempt. The first time through the exam I was thrown by some of the questions and didn’t have as good a grasp on some of the random things that were asked for. So I spent 2 weeks between exam takes watching all of the videos again and then going through all of my notes and flash cards that I had made. I also spent a good amount of time looking at packet traces and figuring out where all of the information and how Transmit Beamforming works with NDP. Overall I felt it was a good exam even though it took me two times to pass it. I definitely feel a lot better now about the information and that I was able to absorb it for the exam. So now I get to use the cool CWAP image for things:Cwap 200x200 My next exam will be the CWSP exam as I work my through to the CWNP.

Here are some of the resources that I used while for the CWAP:
CWNP – Video training
CWNP – Practice Tests
WIFItraining – CWAP Workbook
CWNP – Official CWAP Study Guide

Lessons Learned from our Nutanix Install

Joseph Jenkins1 Comment

We received our 3 node Nutanix cluster last week. I did contract for professional services to help with the install, but given that professional services getting scheduled is still a week out I decided it was better if I started the process myself. I figured how difficult could it be to build out a Nutanix Cluster using AHV for the hypervisor. Really how difficult can it be to learn a new platform and everything that goes along with it. This is the list of things that I learned while doing the install myself and working through the problems that I encountered.

  • It helps to validate the port configuration on the back of the unit, the only support case I needed was to find out what ports were data, which were data/ipmi, and which were ipmi only. That wasn’t information that I was able to find on my own easily. So I opened a ticket with support and they gave me the exact information that I needed.

  • Make sure all of the ports are correctly configured on the network. Don’t just follow the QuickStart guide, because when it says you only need a data port in a dumb switch that isn’t necessarily correct or at least wasn’t in my case. I lost a few hours to the networking side, just figuring out that I needed the final trunked network connection to get everything talking correctly.
  • Put the IPMI onto it’s own network so that it is separate, and should be on a completely private network. In my case I hooked it up to our Opengear Serial Console with a 24 port switch that is a separate admin network.
  • Keep the Hypervisor and CVM on the same network and it will make life easier
  • Make sure to run the health check a few times and correct everything it says, just so things aren’t annoying. I had some that were info and just wanted them all cleaned up.
  • Realize that it will take time for all of the health alerts to cycle out of the console. So sometimes just waiting a day makes all the difference when trying to clear up the alerts. So if the health check comes back fine on the command line or console, it just might need some time.
  • Create a new local admin to resolve the annoying API alert that keeps popping up and that they don’t have you do anything with during the quick start install.

    • I’ll keep updating as I go and find new things, just as reminder for myself for the next install that we will most likely be doing in our Cold or Distribution Center.