FortiWiFi 20C as a thinAP?

[joe4agze]

Hello All.

I have a 20C which I want to use as a ThinAP. Can this be done?

I have a FortiWiFi 60D connected to the internet and I want it to manage the SSID's on the 20C.

Please see attached image to help explain.

I tried entering the 20C's serial into the Wifi manager but it would not accept it. It just kept returning the warning that "this is not a valid serial number" or something to that effect.

I wanted to utilize the hand off ability so a user can roam between both AP's and maintain connection without having to re-auth to a different AP's.

Any ideas?

Thanks.

[Dave_Hall]

Make sure the 20C is on the same/similar firmware path as the main Fortigate.  You will need to enable client wireless mode on the 20C, which is explained here.  Aftet that, you should be able to add the 20C as an AP to the main Fortigate.

[joe4agze]

Hi David.

Thanks once again for the reply.

Unfortunately this was not quite what I was looking for.

In client mode Wifi Devices can not connect to the 20C.

I want the 20C to be managed by the 60D via the wired network and for both devices to have the same wireless profiles and SSID's.

Is there a way to do this?

Thanks.

[Dave_Hall]

The 20C has a build-in wifi controller -- you need to disable that and turn the 20C into a "dumb" AP that can be managed by the 60D.  Check out the wifi profiles on the 60C-- you will see a default one for the 20C (or at least you should).

Edit: you just need to run the actual code to turn the wireless controller off. (at least that's how it worked in 4.3.x.)

config system global
set wireless-mode client
end

edit2:

[joe4agze]

Thanks David.

I'll give that a go. It looks exactly what I want to do.

I'll let you know how I go when I get a chance later to have a go at it.

[joe4agze]

After looking at what Doco I could find it does appear that "wireless-mode wtp" has been removed from V5.

Painful, I'm not sure why it would have been removed it seems like a useful option to have.

I might try back flashing to the latest version of 4, but I can then only assume that the 60D on 5.2 still won't pick it up and I really don't want to back flash the 60D even if there is a v4 firmware for it.

Looks like I have a few things to try.

I will update.

Thanks.

[rwpatterson]

Not sure if this is possible, but if you created a softswitch on the 20C then the wireless traffic could be routed through the wire to the 60D. The low end 20C may not be capable of making softswitches.

[joe4agze]

Thanks for the info.

I tried last night to back flash the 20C to v4 MR3 patch 18 which worked fine but then I tried to take the steps to change the wireless mode to WTP but it kept failing saying I needed to remove the Virtual AP.

I tried to figure out how to do that but everything failed.

I also reset the 20C back to factory defaults but same story, it wanted me to delete the VAP.

I tried several CLI commands to do this within the wireless VAP setting using Delete and Purge but it kept coming back telling me that they were used. I could not find where they were used unless the defaults setting of the 20C has the WIFI binded to something.

Does anyone know how to get eh VAP's cleared out so the "Set Wireless-mode wtp" Works?

Thanks.

[joe4agze]

Ok I got it sorted.

a few things I needed to do though.

1. Back flash the 20C to V4 MR3 Patch 18.

2. Reset back to Factory defaults.

3. Remove DHCP servers on Wifi interfaces.

4. Remove any policies using the Wifi interfaces.

5. Delete the wifi and guestwifi VAP's

6. Change wifi mode to WTP.

7. at this point the 60D found the 20C and a AP then I could authorize it and assign the AP profile I had made.

All good happy days.

Thanks all for your assistance.

[AlexFeren]

I'm trying to connect FWF-20C-ADSL-A (4.0 MR3 Patch 19, with "wireless-mode wtp" set) to FWF61E (5.6.11) and am unsuccessful.

Executing "get wireless-controller wtp" on 61E doesn't show 20C. When I try to force create it using "config wireless-controller wtp" and "edit FW20CA3X..." I'm unable to set any wtp-profile.

Is it possible that 5.6 is preventing any non-AP device from being discovered or managed?