Using the Cisco Wireless Controller (Cisco WLC) Web User Interface

Overview

The Web User Interface is built into each Cisco WLC. The Web User Interface enables up to five users simultaneously to browse the built-in controller HTTP or HTTPS ( HTTP + SSL) Web server, configure parameters, and monitor operational status for the Cisco WLC and its associated access points.

Because the Web User Interface works with one Cisco WLC at a time, the Web User Interface is useful when you want to configure or monitor a single Cisco WLC and its associated access points.

The Web User Interface has two views:

Main Dashboard View

Introduced in Release 8.1, the Main Dashboard, which is displayed when you log on to the Cisco WLC, contains the following:

  • AP or Client search bar—Search for an AP or a client by typing its name.
  • Advanced—To go to the Advanced view, that is the classic Web UI mode. In the Advanced View, click Home to return to the Main Dashboard view.
  • Dashboard Settings—Use this to set the landing page, view system information, or log out of Cisco WLC Web UI.
  • A pane on the left hand side with Monitoring menus using which you can monitor the access points and clients and their performance details. The Monitoring pane also contains a link to the Best Practices page.
  • A set of widgets displaying information about wireless networks, access points, active clients, rogues, and interferers. Another set of widgets display status of access points, clients, and information about operating systems and applications. Click the + icon to add a widget.

Monitoring Pane

The Monitoring pane has the following menus:

  • AP Performance —Has four widgets that show the following:

– Coverage—Shows bottom 10 APs based on coverage hole detection (CHD)

– Client Load—Shows top 10 APs based on client count. It also shows AP throughput

– Interference—Shows top 10 APs based on noise

– Channel Utilization—Shows top 10 APs by interference, data traffic, and available capacity

  • Client Performance —Has four widgets that show the following:

– Clients by signal strength

– Client by signal quality

– Client by connection speed

– Client by connectivity state

  • Access Points —Has a table view of all the APs in the network. You can add or remove columns and sort by columns. Click on any AP to verify the AP details.
  • Clients —Has a table view of all the clients in the network. You can add or remove columns and sort by columns. Click on any client to verify the client details.

Best Practices

The Best Practices page offers current compliance assessment and available categories of best practices. The Best Practices are enabled by default if you have used the Cisco WLAN Express Setup to configure the WLC.

Note The Best Practices are not enabled through CLI setup wizard or image upgrades.

The Best Practices categories include:

– Infrastructure

– Security

– RF Management

Click the + icon to select a recommended Best Practice parameter, read an expert recommendation, and click Fix it Now or later reverse the Best Practice configuration option by clicking Restore Default.

Click Learn More to go to the relevant section in the Cisco Wireless Controller Best Practices document.

Advanced View

The Advanced View shows the Cisco WLC in the classic Web UI mode and contains the following:

Menu Bar

The Menu Bar contains the following tabs:

Left Navigation Pane

The left navigation pane enables you to select a new configuration panel under the menu area that you have selected. You may select a single configuration panel from several available choices for data to be displayed or configured. The left navigation pane options vary based on the menu that you select.

Main Data Page

The main data page depends on what information the menu requires. Input fields are of two basic types:

  • Text boxes into which you may enter data using the keyboard
  • Drop-down lists from which you can choose from several available options

To perform an action, you may need to enter or select data on the page. To save your changes in the Cisco WLC, click the Apply button available on the right-hand side, top corner of the page.

Note Microsoft Internet Explorer generates a submit action on the next available button when you press the enter key while you are in an input field. On most menus, this action triggers the apply function.

Toolbar

This area provides shortcuts to the following administrative functions used on a regular basis when configuring a controller through the Web User Interface.

  • Save Configuration—Saves data to the Cisco WLC in nonvolatile RAM (NVRAM) and is preserved in the event of a power cycle. If you reboot the Cisco WLC, all applied changes are lost unless the configuration has been saved. Click Save to save the current configuration.
  • Ping—Sends a ping to a network element.

This alert box enables you to tell the Cisco WLC to send a ping request to a specified IP address to help determine if there is connectivity between the Cisco WLC and a particular IP station. Once you click the Submit button, three pings are sent and the results of the pings are displayed in the alert box. If a reply to the ping is not received, it displays “No Reply Received from IP xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx”; otherwise, it displays “Reply received from IP xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx: (send count = 3, receive count = n).”

  • Logout—Exits the current Web User Interface session.
  • Refresh—Updates the data on the current page from the Cisco WLC.
  • Home—Opens the Main Dashboard.

Buttons

At the right side of the main data page, you can click command buttons to apply or refresh the data that is displayed on the main data page.

Buttons take immediate effect when you select them and information goes to the controller about the state of the menu at that time. The most commonly used buttons are as follows:

  • Apply—Sends data to the Cisco WLC but data is not preserved across a power cycle; these parameters are stored temporarily in volatile RAM.
  • Back—Takes you back to the previously viewed page.

There are additional buttons that perform other actions; not all main data pages have all buttons. The functionality of these buttons is described in the respective help topics.

Navigating Pages with Many APs

If your Cisco WLC is associated with many access points and if they cannot be displayed in a single page, you can use one of the following options to navigate the pages that list the access points by clicking the buttons on the top right-hand corner of the page.

  • Click the individual page number to go to a specific page.
  • Click the forward and backward buttons at the extreme end of the page to go to the first or last pages.
  • Click the forward or backward buttons to skip to the next five pages.

Applying Parameters

After you save the new parameters or settings that you entered, the page is refreshed. However, in some cases, the settings may appear different than the ones that you specified because the affected code takes some time to execute. You should refresh the menu or the page to see the expected results.

Note When applying parameters on a page, some parameters may need to have the network to be down so that they can be applied. When configuring such parameters using the GUI, if the network is up and running, you may see an error message indicating that the network is operational.

Refreshing the Page

Using the refresh function from the Web User Interface refreshes all pages and displays the default initial window in the main data page.

If you want to refresh a page in the main data area, and there is no refresh button present, use your mouse to right-click the main data area page, and select the refresh option.