Designing the topology

When the WLAN profile is assigned by the WLC, the slave APs simultaneously receive information about how their P2P links in the meshed network are to be established. The topology results directly from the hierarchy of the P2P connections established between the APs. The WLC offers the following management modes for this:

Automatic: The WLC automatically generates a P2P configuration. The device ignores manually specified P2P links.
Semi automatic: The WLC only generates a P2P configuration if no manual P2P configuration exists for the unassociated AP. Otherwise the WLC uses the manual configuration.
Manual: The WLC does not automatically generate a P2P configuration. A manual P2P configuration is taken, if available. Otherwise, the WLC does not transmit a P2P configuration to the AP.

Normally, the WLC handles the automatic calculation of the topology, where a slave AP generally connects with the closest master AP. Calculated in real-time, the topology is recorded by the WLC in the status table AutoWDS-Auto-Topology. If you use semi-automatic or manual management, you define the static P2P links in the setup table AutoWDS-Topology. To achieve this, you specify the relationships between the individual master APs and slave APs in a similar manner to a normal P2P connection. For more on this, see the section Manual topology management.

Note: The automatic generation of a P2P configuration (e.g., for initial connection or reconnection of an AP) replaces any existing entry in the AutoWDS-Auto-Topology table.

Note: The automatically generated topology entries are not boot-persistent. The table is emptied when the WLC is restarted.

Note: For manual topology configuration, it is important for a configured P2P master AP within the topology to be closer to the WLC than a corresponding P2P slave AP. This is because a brief interruption to the P2P connection will cause the slave AP to scan for the master AP.