From Ekahau to Cisco WLC

I have created a small Python script to in a simple way (according to myself) make a plan in Ekahau Site Survey and convert it to someting i can paste in to Cisco Wireless Lan Controler (WLC). The script is created after my specific needs, i have for example only AP2700 and AP2600 in the network and live in Sweden. If you have a other accesspoint look at the code to update the powerlevels for the specific AP and region. I have also made the decision to only have 20MHz channels in the network to lower the risk of CCI.

In Ekahau Site Survey make a plan of your network, add Access Points to the map and set ther name exacly as the name in the controller. Set channel and power level, i have changed the settings in Ekahau to show the power level as dBm to reflect the way Cisco has done it in the configuration. If you whant to disable a radio, set the power level to -100dBm. If you just set it to ‘off’ it will still get configured with 1dBm power.

Today the way to export the information from Ekahau is a bit tedious. They have on there ‘to do list’ to make a simpler way but right now you have to go to File -> Export to Cisco Prime.. -> Export plan (someting simular on Mac). Open the .zip file and find the project.xml in the catalog /xmlDir/ copy the  file to the same catalog as the Python script.

The script uses one package to help with the parsing of the xml-file. If it’s not allredy installed you might have to ”pip install xmltodict”

import xmltodict

# To disable a radio set the power level of the radio to -100 for the specific channel in Ekahau Site Survey Planning mode.

filename = 'project.xml'
chan_width = 20   # 5GHz Channel width [20, 40, 80, 160]

# This part of the code has to be update based on your AP-model and regulatory domain.
# The easy way is to look in the WLC to get your power-levels.
# For 5GHz
# grep include APNAME "show advanced 802.11a txpower"
#
# For 2.4GHz
# grep include APNAME "show advanced 802.11b txpower"
#
# The model value is from Ekahau-xml-export-file for the AP you have chosen there
def calculate_power(model, ifType, power):
    if model.startswith('AP2700'):
        if ifType.startswith('802.11a'):
            s = [17, 14, 11, 8, 5, 2, 2, 2]  # 5GHz
        else:
            s = [16, 13, 10, 7, 4, 1, 1, 1]  # 2.4GHz

    elif model.startswith('AP2600'):
        if ifType.startswith('802.11a'):
            s = [17, 14, 11, 8, 5, 5, 5, 5]  # 5GHz
        else:
            s = [16, 13, 10, 7, 4, 4, 4, 4]  # 2.4GHz

    elif model.startswith('AP1140'):
        s = [17, 14, 11, 8, 5, 2, -1, 0]  # 5GHz and 2.4GHz

    else:
        print 'I dont recognice the AP Type: %s' % model
        exit()

    ciscoPower = 1
    for i in s:
        if i <= int(power):
            return ciscoPower
        ciscoPower += 1

    return 8  # If the power is not recognized, return the lowest value.


def main():
    with open(filename) as fd:
        doc = xmltodict.parse(fd.read())

    floor = doc['CiscoUnifiedInterchange']['Maps']['Site']['Building']['Floor']
    floor = floor if type(floor) is list else [floor]

    for i in floor:
        for ap in i['PlannedAp']:
            name = ap['@name']
            model = ap['@apModel']
            for radio in ap['Radio']:
                ifType = radio['@ifType']
                power = radio['@txPowerLevel']
                channel = radio['ChannelDefinition']['@channelNumber']

                if ifType.startswith('802.11 a/n'):
                    ifType = '802.11a'
                    width = chan_width  # Global config from above
                else:
                    ifType = '802.11b'
                    width = 20  # 40 should not be used for 2.4GHz

                # Disable Radio
                print 'config %s disable %s' % (ifType, name)

                # If power level is N/A then just disable the radio.
                if not power.startswith('N/A'):
                    # Set AP channel
                    print 'config %s channel ap %s %s' % (ifType, name, channel)

                    # Set Channel Width
                    print 'config %s chan_width %s %i' % (ifType, name, width)

                    # Set AP power level
                    ciscopower = calculate_power(model, ifType, power)
                    print 'config %s txPower ap %s %s' % (ifType, name, ciscopower)

                    # Enable AP
                    print 'config %s enable %s' % (ifType, name)

                print


if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

Annons