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Wi-fi 9800 WLC KPI Weblog – Half 3

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Half 3 of the 3-part Wi-fi Catalyst 9800 WLC KPIs

In earlier blogs, Wi-fi Catalyst 9800 WLC KPIs, Half 1 and Wi-fi Catalyst 9800 WLC KPIs, Half 2, we shared the way to examine WLC and connections to different gadgets in addition to the way to examine AP and RF well being standing.

On this weblog, we’ll give attention to Key Efficiency Indicators for consumer evaluation, WLC packet drops, and packets punted to WLC CPU.  I’ll share methodical steps and outputs that we will accumulate from WLC to measure the well being of shoppers’ connectivity and WLC forwarding efficiency.

KPIs completely different buckets or areas:

  • WLC checks
  • Reference to different gadgets
  • AP checks
  • RF checks
  • Shopper checks
  • Packet Drops

Shopper Checks

After we have now verified AP and RF well being then we will give attention to consumer connectivity. Utilizing “present wi-fi abstract” we will see the overall variety of shoppers related. As well as, we will discover out if there are any excluded, disabled, and  international/anchored shoppers. We are able to hold monitoring this command periodically. Verify if the variety of shoppers is inside the anticipated values for our deployment. We are able to additionally determine if there are any drastic modifications for any of the values. The command additionally reveals the variety of APs, roles, radios, and their standing.

Gladius1#sh wi-fi abstract
Max APs supported          : 2000
Max shoppers supported      : 32000
Entry Level Abstract
Whole    Up    Down
------------------------------------------
802.11 2.4GHz             1     1       0
802.11 5GHz               4     3       1
802.11 dual-band          2     2       0
802.11 rx-dual-band       0     0       0

Shopper Serving(2.4GHz)    3     3       0
Shopper Serving(5GHz)      4     3       1
Monitor                   0     0       0
Sensor                    0     0       0

Shopper Abstract
Whole Shoppers : 6
Excluded      : 0
Disabled      : 0
Overseas       : 0
Anchor        : 0
Native         : 6

Verify for complete variety of shoppers, excluded shoppers, and radio down APs.

In case we see excluded shoppers, we have to dig additional to determine the explanation for that. Decide if excluded shoppers have any misconfiguration or if exclusion might be resulting from another motive. Causes for excluding shoppers might be resulting from incorrect password, ip tackle matching different shoppers’ IP tackle, a number of affiliation failures, and so on. We are able to see the checklist of consumer exclusion insurance policies and standing utilizing the command “sh wi-fi wps abstract”.

We are able to break down the variety of related shoppers within the completely different situations of the consumer state machine. It will assist us to slender down if there are too many consumers caught in transient states like Authenticating, IP learns, Mobility, or Webauth Pending. Use the command: “present wi-fi stats consumer element | i Authenticating         :|Mobility               :|IP Be taught               :|Webauth Pending        :|Run                    :|Delete-in-Progress     :”

Gladius1#present wi-fi stats consumer element | i Authenticating         :|Mobility               :|IP Be taught               :|Webauth Pending        :|Run                    :|Delete-in-Progress     :
Authenticating         : 0
Mobility               : 0
IP Be taught               : 1
Webauth Pending        : 0
Run                    : 5
Delete-in-Progress     : 0

Verify for shoppers in transient states. On this case, we see the consumer in IP study state.

We might want to do an extra investigation if the variety of shoppers in transient states just isn’t lowering. The identical will apply if a lot of the shoppers stay in the identical transient state for an extended time period.

One instance might be if we see a excessive variety of shoppers caught in “IP study”. Then we should always overview the DHCP server standing and connectivity between WLC and DHCP server. For static IP tackle allowed situations, we will overview ARP forwarding.

One other instance might be if the variety of shoppers caught in “Webauth” is excessive. There are a number of causes that may trigger this. One motive might be internet web page redirects not being acquired or not accessible by shoppers. Another choice might be authentication failures when doing internet login for visitor SSIDs.

The final instance might be if we see numerous shoppers caught in “Authenticating”. If shoppers related to dot1x SSIDs have authentication points then we should always overview the Radius server. We have to decide if the problem happens with a concrete Radius server or if the problem happens in numerous servers on the identical time. Within the under sections, I’ll describe the way to confirm Radius server standing.

We are able to additionally overview consumer delete causes and determine any sudden motive with counters rising. “Idle timeout” or “Session timeout” can be anticipated causes for shoppers to disconnect. Nonetheless, “DOT11 denied knowledge charges” or “MIC validation failed” can be sudden and should require some additional evaluation. Use the command: “present wi-fi stats consumer delete causes | e :_0”

Gladius1#present wi-fi stats consumer delete causes | e :_0
Whole consumer delete causes
---------------------------
Controller deletes
---------------------------
As a consequence of mobility failure                                         : 1
DOT11 denied knowledge charges                                         : 5781192
L2-AUTH connection timeout                                      : 2
IP-LEARN connection timeout                                     : 968
Mobility peer delete                                            : 134
----------------------------
Informational Delete Motive
-----------------------------
AP down/disjoin                                                 : 690
Session timeout                                                 : 661
-----------------------------
Shopper provoke delete
-----------------------------
AP Deletes
-----------------------------
AP initiated delete for DHCP timeout                            : 1
AP initiated delete for reassociation timeout                   : 266

Verify for sudden delete causes with excessive depend and rising. On this case, denied knowledge charges

In one of many largest worldwide wi-fi occasions, we monitored delete causes excluding ones displaying zero hits. We might spot a delete motive that was constantly rising over time. Utilizing always-on-tracing we might discover that shoppers deleted resulting from that motive have been all connecting to a concrete SSID. When reviewing SSID configuration we might isolate a configuration mistake inflicting the disconnections. After addressing the configuration, no additional consumer deletes for sudden motive have been seen. We might proactively spot a difficulty, discover the basis trigger and repair it. Above all, with out having to attend for finish shoppers to complain to start out the troubleshooting course of.

WLC has additionally an inventory of predefined potential failures with counters.  We are able to examine counters to determine potential points and be proactive in problem detection. Utilizing the command: “present wi-fi stats trace-on-failure | ex :_0”

Gladius1#present wi-fi stats trace-on-failure | ex :_0
----------------------------------------------------------
Wi-fi Hint On Failure Statistics
----------------------------------------------------------
006. Export consumer MM....................................: 1
018. Capwap configuration standing failure.................: 46136
020. Shopper affiliation failure..........................: 5
021. Shopper MAB authentication failure...................: 5781677
023. Shopper stage timeout................................: 1642
025. Shopper mobility clear up............................: 1
027. DTLS handshake failure..............................: 2
030. DTLS no configuration packet drop...................: 5
032. DTLS invalid hiya packet drop......................: 168
034. SANET AUTHC failure.................................: 6

Verify for failures with excessive depend and rising. On this case, MAB authentication failures.

If we’re utilizing dot1x and Radius servers, we might want to monitor the standing of the Radius servers. IOS-XE is utilizing dead-time and lifeless standards to find out standing of Radius server. These parameters permit the gadget to determine a Radius server that’s not responding to requests, and carry out a switchover to a secondary Radius server. The server can be declared as lifeless as soon as the lifeless standards is met. Lifeless standards specifies the variety of tries that ought to fail, and the time with no response from the server. Each standards ought to be met to declare the server as lifeless. The server will stay in lifeless standing till dead-time expire.

We are able to examine if there’s any lifeless server at this second and the variety of instances a server has been declared as lifeless. It will assist us to diagnose points with the concrete Radius server resulting from lack of connectivity or misbehaviors from Radius or WLC. Use the command: “present aaa servers | i Platform Lifeless: complete|RADIUS: id”

Gladius1#present aaa servers | i Platform Lifeless: complete|RADIUS: id
RADIUS: id 1, precedence 1, host 192.168.0.98, auth-port 1645, acct-port 1646, hostname ISE
SMD Platform Lifeless: complete time 301s, depend 2
Platform Lifeless: complete time 179s, depend 10UP
RADIUS: id 2, precedence 2, host 192.168.0.99, auth-port 1812, acct-port 1813, hostname ISE3
SMD Platform Lifeless: complete time 0s, depend 0
Platform Lifeless: complete time 0s, depend 0

Verify for platform lifeless time and depend to determine Radius servers that had points.

Radius standing is displayed per WNCD. It’s potential that the identical Radius server is marked as lifeless for some WNCDs and alive for others. Every AP belongs to a WNCD. There’s a command to examine APs assigned per WNCD “present wi-fi load-balance ap affinity WNCD <0-7>”. If shoppers related to APs in a single concrete WNCD ship Radius requests, and people requests don’t have a response then Radius standing for that WNCD can be DEAD. On the identical time, shoppers in different WNCD couldn’t be sending any Radius requests or getting a response.

For Radius marked as DEAD, we have to examine if the Radius server is reachable and replying to authentication and accounting requests. Radius statistics will assist us to determine if we’re lacking any responses for authentication or for accounting, the common time to answer, the variety of entry rejects and accepts, and latency distribution. Use the command: “present radius statistics”

Gladius1#present radius statistics
Auth.      Acct.       Each
Most inQ size:         NA         NA          1
Most waitQ size:         NA         NA         14
Most doneQ size:         NA         NA          1
Whole responses seen:        279          0        279
Packets with responses:        279          0        279
Packets with out responses:          0        396        396
Entry Rejects           :          2
Entry Accepts           :         20
Common response delay(ms):         10          0         10
Most response delay(ms):        173          0        173
Variety of Radius timeouts:          0       4542       4542
Duplicate ID detects:          0          0          0
Buffer Allocation Failures:          0          0          0
Most Buffer Dimension (bytes):        764        780        780
Malformed Responses        :          0          0          0
Unhealthy Authenticators         :          0          0          0
Unknown Responses          :          0          0          0
Supply Port Vary: (2 ports solely)
1645 - 1646
Final used Supply Port/Identifier:
1645/0
1646/3
Elapsed time since counters final cleared: 3w3d20h41m
Radius Latency Distribution:
<= 2ms :        181          0
3-5ms  :         32          0
5-10ms :         13          0
10-20ms:         14          0
20-50ms:         17          0
50-100m:         20          0
100ms :          2          0

Verify for requests with out response, timeouts, excessive latency

In a single buyer we have been troubleshooting dot1x consumer’s connectivity points and located the explanation for failures was the Radius server marked as lifeless. When reviewing the outputs, we might see that Radius was replying to authentications however was now not replying to accounting packets. A workaround to reduce affect was to disable the accounting checklist to keep away from WLC sending accounting packets. Whereas Radius directors have been troubleshooting accounting points within the server.

Packet drops and punted to CPU Checks

Now we will examine if there are any scalability points as a result of oversubscription of any of the WLC elements. I might begin by wanting on the quantity of visitors acquired and transmitted by bodily interfaces. Then reviewing the variety of broadcast/multicast and enter or output drops. If we have now a baseline we will examine the amount of visitors with the baseline and attempt to discover out any discrepancies. Use command: “present int po1 | i line protocol|put charge|drops|broadcast”. Exchange Po1 together with your setup bodily or logical interface.

Gladius1#present int po1 | i line protocol|put charge|drops|broadcast
Port-channel1 is up, line protocol is up
  Enter queue: 0/375/0/0 (dimension/max/drops/flushes); Whole output drops: 0
  5 minute enter charge 39000 bits/sec, 42 packets/sec
  5 minute output charge 14000 bits/sec, 12 packets/sec
     Acquired 9389675 broadcasts (34521510 multicasts)
     Output 45735 broadcasts (1075205 multicasts)
     0 unknown protocol drops

Verify for the amount of visitors enter/output, drops, and broadcasts tx/rx

We are able to overview packets dropped by WLC and the explanations for these drops. When monitoring drops you will need to examine that are the explanations for the excessive quantity of packet drops. Subsequently, we will discover how briskly these drop counters are rising. We have to accumulate the identical output a number of instances with time reference. Enabling “terminal exec immediate timestamps” or accumulating “present clock” will assist us to have time references. These time referenced outputs can be key to isolate impacting drops. Use the command: “present platform {hardware} chassis energetic qfp statistics drop”

Gladius1#present platform {hardware} chassis energetic qfp statistics drop
Final clearing of QFP drops statistics : by no means
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Drop Stats                         Packets                  Octets 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
CGACLDrop                                      31                    7812 
Disabled                                      635                  105934 
InvL2Hdr                                      701                  206223 
IpFormatErr                                    68                    4488 
Ipv4NoAdj                                   67749                 6910538 
Ipv4NoRoute                                     6                     376 
Ipv6NoRoute                                  1096                   61376 
Ipv6mcNoRoute                               77683                 9477326 
SWPortMacConflict                           50316                 5874782 
SwitchL2mLookupMiss                         17568                 6681680 
TailDrop                                    54199                29501684 
UnconfiguredIpv4Fia                             3                     242 
UnconfiguredIpv6Fia                       1564372               186850863 
WlsCapwapError                               1018                  233293 
WlsCapwapReassFragConsume                    1064                 1231968 
WlsClientError                               3116                  112631

Verify for drop causes with a excessive variety of packets, and fragmentation/reassembly drops.

Another examine that we should always do is to investigate the variety of packets despatched to the management airplane (punted) of the WLC for processing. We are able to monitor the variety of packets punted for every motive and examine for irregular quantity.  We are able to correlate a rise of punted packets with excessive CPU utilization occasions. Use the command: “present platform {hardware} chassis energetic qfp function wi-fi punt statistics”

Gladius1#present platform {hardware} chassis energetic qfp function wi-fi punt statistics
CPP Wi-fi Punt stats:
                                 App Tag     Packet Rely
                                 -------     ------------
         CAPWAP_PKT_TYPE_DOT11_PROBE_REQ           986190
              CAPWAP_PKT_TYPE_DOT11_MGMT            10031
              CAPWAP_PKT_TYPE_DOT11_IAPP          2975298
             CAPWAP_PKT_TYPE_DOT11_DOT1X            24901
        CAPWAP_PKT_TYPE_CAPWAP_KEEPALIVE           228099
            CAPWAP_PKT_TYPE_CAPWAP_CNTRL          1628480
         CAPWAP_PKT_TYPE_CAPWAP_DATA_PAT               33
          CAPWAP_PKT_TYPE_MOBILITY_CNTRL            58091
                       SISF_PKT_TYPE_ARP        218545290
                      SISF_PKT_TYPE_DHCP            15455
                     SISF_PKT_TYPE_DHCP6             7772
                   SISF_PKT_TYPE_IPV6_ND           199108
                SISF_PKT_TYPE_DATA_GLEAN                7
             SISF_PKT_TYPE_DATA_GLEAN_V6              100

Verify for a excessive variety of punted packets and rising extra time.

We might additionally determine if we’re seeing any buffer failures and decide which is the scale for these buffers which might be reaching the utmost worth. Use the command: “present buffers | i buffers|failures”

Gladius1#present buffers | i buffers|failures
Small buffers, 104 bytes (complete 1200, everlasting 1200):
     0 failures (0 no reminiscence)
Center buffers, 600 bytes (complete 900, everlasting 900):
     35 failures (35 no reminiscence)
Huge buffers, 1536 bytes (complete 900, everlasting 900, peak 901 @ 2w6d):
     0 failures (0 no reminiscence)
VeryBig buffers, 4520 bytes (complete 100, everlasting 100, peak 101 @ 2w6d):
     0 failures (0 no reminiscence)
Massive buffers, 5024 bytes (complete 100, everlasting 100, peak 101 @ 2w6d):
     0 failures (0 no reminiscence)
VeryLarge buffers, 8304 bytes (complete 100, everlasting 100):
     0 failures (0 no reminiscence)
Big buffers, 18024 bytes (complete 20, everlasting 20, peak 21 @ 2w6d):
     0 failures (0 no reminiscence)

Verify for buffer failures and determine buffer dimension.

The final examine might be knowledge airplane utilization. We are able to discover if the WLC is having knowledge airplane efficiency points resulting from visitors quantity, or some concrete options enabled. Use command shared in WLC checks: “present platform {hardware} chassis energetic qfp datapath utilization | i Load”

These KPIs have been useful to determine a buyer problem. The client noticed a periodical excessive enhance within the variety of ARPs packets punted to the CPU. By monitoring the counter for ARPs punted to the CPU, and accumulating packet seize within the management airplane we might determine that these ARPs have been despatched from some concrete mac addresses that have been doing malicious ARP scanning.

With this closing bucket, we end the Key Efficiency Indicators (KPIs) for Catalyst 9800 WLC.

Checklist of instructions to make use of for KPIs and automation scripts

Within the doc under, there’s additionally a hyperlink to a script that can robotically accumulate all of the instructions. It should accumulate instructions primarily based on platform and launch, save them in a file, and export the file. The script is utilizing the “Visitor-shell” function that for now could be solely accessible in bodily WLCs 9800-40/80 and 9800-L.

The doc additionally gives an instance of an EEM script to gather logs periodically. In conclusion, EEM together with the “Visitor-shell” script will assist to gather 9800 WLC KPIs and have a baseline in your Catalyst 9800 WLC.

 

For the checklist of instructions used to observe these KPIs

 

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