WLC <-> AP CAPWAP communications and ports

apieee 802.11wlc

According to this document, you need to open UDP 1024 – 65535 between WLC (source) and APs (dest).

And it's correct – I can see these sessions getting dropped on my firewall since I didn't open those ports.

I only opened CAPWAP 5246-5247 from AP to WLC, and it seems to be working just fine. I can see my APs on my WLC, and configuration changes work.

So my question is : what is the WLC trying to send to my APs with those new UDP sessions ? I cannot find any information anywhere, and cannot run a packet capture.

Best Answer

It's right there in the footnote:

Arbitrary port number is assigned to every AP from range 1024 - 65535 when the AP joins the WLC. The WLC uses the number as the Destination Port for CAPWAP Ctl/Data as long as the AP is connected.

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