installing new(er) network

Question

Level 1

4 points

installing new(er) network

Hi all-

Thought I'd get a few professional opinions before starting this. 🙂

The existing network at my school is as follows...

We have 8 or 9 Airport Extremes in classrooms and the library. All of these are in bridge mode under the network name XXXXStudents. Teachers can traverse the campus and get on easily.

What I need to do....

We're moving to a mobile environment and I'd like to 'attach' the Chromebooks and iPads in the classrooms to the AP that's in the class. In bridge mode, I can't really see which clients are accessing the AP in their room or the one next door. Having all clients in the classroom connected to the class AP would facilitate dropped connections/troubleshooting etc. However, along with the kids devices, the teachers laptop will be tied to the class AP as well, nixing the campus traversing that I mentioned. Any ideas on this?

Thanks,

Mark

Posted on Sep 2, 2015 2:25 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Tesserax

Level 10

148,805 points

Sep 2, 2015 3:38 PM in response to newtie2

In bridge mode, I can't really see which clients are accessing the AP in their room or the one next door.

Actually you can. Select the desired base station from the AirPort Utility, and then, BEFORE clicking on Edit hold down the Option key. All wireless clients connected to that base station will be listed in the Wireless Clients window. It shouldn't matter that the base station is configured as a bridge or not.

Reply

Answer 2

newtie2 Author

Level 1

4 points

Sep 2, 2015 3:44 PM in response to Tesserax

Thanks, but that's not what I'm looking for.

I want to know that every client in that room is logged into that AP without have to use the airport utility.

I want to be sure that devices in adjacent rooms aren't roaming to the next door AP.

Thanks

Reply

Answer 3

Tesserax

Level 10

148,805 points

Sep 2, 2015 3:52 PM in response to newtie2

I want to know that every client in that room is logged into that AP without have to use the airport utility.

Not sure what you are trying to do here. Verifying connectivity to a particular AP would require that either you use a utility that can access the AP OR you would have to do that verification from the client itself.

I want to be sure that devices in adjacent rooms aren't roaming to the next door AP.

That, most likely, will not be possible. As you already must know, wireless clients will tend to connect to the AP with the strongest signal. Some devices once connected may have more difficulty switching to another AP. That is, for example, iOS devices tend to 'stick" to an AP even if you move it to another nearby AP.

Reply

Answer 4

newtie2 Author

Level 1

4 points

Sep 2, 2015 5:11 PM in response to Tesserax

Thinking about this this afternoon, I think I've answered my own question.

The only way to insure/verify connectivity is to set up separate SSIDs in each room with it's own passkey.

The only AP kids can connect to is that one.This disables the roaming feature for teachers, but maybe that might not be such a big deal.

Thanks,

Mark

Reply