The Cruft Of My Brain » Wireless

CAPWAP is here?

scott — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 17:47:52 +0000

I got an interesting comment on a year old post of mine regarding CAPWAP.

Matt from Aerohive had some interesting things to say about CAPWAP and the state of things. I wrote a somewhat lengthy response so I thought I’d put up a new post on it.

As you can see further up in the comments, someone suggested an open source CAPWAP based app. The site is still barren, aside from some fairly old files and a basic update about 30 days ago. You’d think CAPWAP would be an area that has a lot of open source interest and yet I’m unable to really find anything. There are vague references but no one seems to be moving forward with anything.

Matt also made the comment that CAPWAP is about AP’s and not controllers. I can understand that a traditional “controller” might not be necessary but I would think some form of a management platform would be important. If you have a single AP and no management platform, what’s the point of CAPWAP?

CAPWAP, where is it?

scott — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 14:12:51 +0000

I’m experienced with Cisco LWAPP enough to know it works pretty nicely. There are some quirks to be sure but for almost every wireless implementation it’s the preferred solution. It’s unfortunate then that both Cisco’s LWAPP and Aruba’s protocol (whatever that’s called) are closed protocols. CAPWAP’s in the works and does seem to be making some progress as an open standard, despite some concerns about hidden patent coverage in some of the standard.

Still, you’d think the standard had progressed enough to start seeing some products. Nope. I just read that Cisco’s new Mobility product supports some portion of CAPWAP, which is interesting by itself. But where are the open source controllers? Controllers are really expensive! It sure would be nice to have a cheaper solution for home, for instance. This is one of those times I wish I was more of a programmer so I could just build it for myself.