How to Configure a Cisco Wireless Access-Point (AP) from Scratch

Cisco APs are strong and reliable but require a little more configuration than your typical Linksys, Dlink, or Netgear. In this article, you will find out how to configure this enterprise grade wireless AP (a Cisco 1242G) to allow your wireless users to connect to your LAN, through your Wireless LAN (WLAN). Lots of photos are included!

This article was originally published at SearchNetworking.com

I just unboxed my new Cisco 1242AG (part number AIR-AP1242AG-A-K9). This is a business-grade wireless AP that retails for about $500. Before I show you how I configured this wireless AP, let me give you a brief rundown of its capabilities.

What does the Cisco 1242AG AP offer me?

This Cisco 1242 wireless access-point (AP) is a wireless AP for business-grade users. If you have a lot of traffic, you need reliability, and some advanced features, this AP is for you. For a business, personally, I wouldn’t ever install any consumer grade AP unless you are asking for trouble. The reason being is that those consumer grade APs (the ones you can buy at your local electronics store), just don’t have the capabilities, the reliability of connections, the troubleshooting, or the throughput to do what you need them to do.

Here is a photo of my actual 1242AG that I configured in this video:

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Here is a photo of the front of the AP:

As you can see, this AP has an power connection port (which goes to an AC/DC adaptor), a console port, Ethernet port (to connect to the physical LAN), and indicator lights. You can also power the AP over the Ethernet wire with PoE (802.3af) On this model of AP, you will notice 4 black rubber covers. These cover the connectors for the wireless antennas (2 on the front and 2 on the back). On the front of the AP are the 2 antenna connectors for the 2.4Ghz network with the right connector being the primary. On the back, are the connectors for the 5Ghz network. These antennas can be bought separately and are only required if you want to extend the range in some way or do point to point bridging between APs. Many times, in a business you do want to extend or shape the wireless range, both for coverage and security. In that case, you would want to investigate and use the external antennas.

The 1242 offers the following:

• A, B, and G wireless protocols in the 2.4 and 5Ghz wireless ranges
• A long list of security protocols that you won’t find in consumer grade APs
• Intrusion Detection & Prevention
• Hardware assisted AES encryption
• Locking mounting bracket and a rugged NEMA metal case
• Compatibility with Cisco’s wireless management applications
• That Cisco IOS CLI look and feel that we are used to configuring (or a web browser interface if you so desire)

You can find more specifics on these APs at the Cisco homepage for the Aironet 1242 series.

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Configuring the 1242 Wireless AP

Here are the steps I took to get my wireless AP functioning on my network:

1. Connect to power and LAN Ethernet
2. AP obtains IP address from DHCP server. I went to my DHCP server and found the IP address that it had obtained:

1. Point your web browser to the AP. In my case, the DHCP-obtained IP address was 192.168.1.106. The default login (console or web) is Cisco and Cisco (not cisco and cisco) for the username & password. Here is what I saw:

Notice how both the 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz radios show to be “down”. On APs with version 12.3(4)JA and above, the wireless radio is disabled by default and there is no SSID configured. This is for security reasons.

Also, note on the menu selections for the interface that there are options for Express Setup and Express Security. If these are available, why not use them?

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1. Click on Express Set-up. Notice the changes I made in the following screen. Not all of these are required. I changed the AP’s name, set it to a static IP, changed the SNMP community string, and took the default of “Access Point” for both radios.

Next, I clicked Apply. I was redirected to the new IP address of the AP and I had to login again.

1. Next, I clicked on Express Security and set the SSID, the SSID to be broadcast, and 40bit WEP encryption with a static key (basic I know but just an example).

1. Still, there are two important things left to do- change the admin password and enable the radios. To enable the radios, I clicked in Network Interfaces, on the left. In my case, I was only using the 2.4Ghz radio so I clicked on Radio0-802.11G, then on the Settings tab. I clicked on Enable for the radio and took all the other default settings.

At the bottom of the page, I clicked Apply.

1. Finally, let’s change the admin password so that no one else can get into our AP. To do this, I clicked on Security on the left hand side, then Admin Access. From here, I changed the default Authentication password and clicked Apply. I had to reauthenticate to the AP.

Then, I created a new account called Admin with a secure password, and Read-Write capability (clicked Apply). After that, I deleted the default Cisco account (clicked Apply).

Here is what is looked like:

Note that we are still using a single global password for all users instead of individual users having their own passwords. You may want to change this.

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1. At this point, I could see the wireless network from my Windows computer and was successfully able to connect to it using the configured WEP key. My computer received a DHCP IP address from my DHCP server.

Configuration Successful!

Article Summary

In this article, we learned what the Cisco 1242 wireless AP can do for you and how to configure one from scratch. We applied basic security settings to it, enabled the wireless radios, and successfully connected to it. The 1242AG is a powerful business-grade wireless AP and lots of features. While it costs much more than a consumer grade wireless AP, I believe you will find the features are well worth it.

Complete Cisco documentation for the Cisco AP1242 is available at: http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/product/wireless/airo1240/index.htm