Cisco – AP does not have assigned IP address by DHCP

ciscocisco-iosdhcpip address

I have aironet-1242 and air-cap2600i AP's, infact I'm trying to upload image on to my PC through TFTP, as I assign static IP address to fastethernet or BVI interfaces and start uploading, AP connectivity gets drop and AP reverted back to DHCP, find this message "Could not discover WLC using static IP. Forcing AP to use DHCP" now issue is when I do "show ip int brief fa0/BVI1 " I get this
Interface IP-Address OK? Method Status Prot ocol
FastEthernet0 unassigned YES DHCP up up

Please give me the solution, how can i get DHCP assigned address, I will be very thankful.

Best Answer

Your access point are the controller based version, I.E. lightweight, that means they are supposed to connect to a Wireless Lan Controller ("WLC")

At startup the access points get an IP from DHCP then try (by several methods) to join a WLC. When they fell to do so, they reset their network interface and try again until they succeed.

You cannot use such AP (with this software) without a WLC.

They can be converted to autonomous (standalone) mode by uploading another software into the AP. The easiest way to do so is... ...from a WLC, and it requires that you do have the software available (trough a Cisco support contract).

Such AP have in their product name either "L" (for "LightWeight") or a "C" (for "CAPWAP based").

A standalone AP (without L or C in the name) may have been converted to lightweight mode. In this case the original software may still be present in flash, and you can reconfigure the AP to boot from the original software rather than the lightweight one.