Wi-Fi Roaming

A while back I picked up a few Aruba APs. While deploying them I looked into the roaming settings, which was a good chance to compare them with my existing UniFi APs.

For Wi-Fi roaming, we can refer to Apple’s explanation of the 802.11k, 802.11r and 802.11v protocols.

Note: in my own environment every AP location has a physical Ethernet cable run to it, so I don’t consider using wireless to chain multiple APs together.

UniFi Access Point

In the UniFi Network settings interface -> WiFi -> AP Site Settings, turn off Wireless Meshing, since everything runs over wired networking.

Go into an individual WiFi’s Advanced settings and, under WiFi Features, enable Fast Roaming — this uses the 802.11r protocol.

Enabling BSS Transition uses the 802.11v protocol.

As for the 802.11k protocol, it’s enabled by default with no related setting in the interface; by inspecting packets you can see that the Neighbor Report is enabled.

Aruba IAP

Note: IAPs can form a cluster with a virtual controller, so there’s no need for a separate machine to run a controller.

802.11k, 802.11r and 802.11v can basically all be configured on the same page.

Once the Client Match option is enabled it basically bundles a few things together:

  • Load Balancing (balancing the number of clients across APs)
  • Sticky Clients (kicking off clients with a poor experience so they connect to an AP with a better signal)
  • Band Steering/Band Balancing (balancing the number of clients on 2.4 GHz vs 5 GHz)

It essentially implements 802.11k and 802.11v, so that even devices that don’t support a specific protocol can still get roaming functionality.

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