Wireless Access Point Serial Numbers

I swapped out a firewall yesterday. I did not think to screenshot the page with the WAP serial numbers on it.

The new firewall did not pick up the existing access points. Everyone at Church today asked me for the password to the Meraki AP activation site. (The Liahona password does not work, of course.)

The Global Services Department has kindly told me I need the serial numbers to use to register the WAPs in the new firewall.

Is there any way to get those serial numbers without physically climbing into the attic, searching around because I do not know exactly where the WAPs are located, and physically reading the serial numbers off of the boxes? I may not have access, but certainly someone should be able to read those serial numbers online. Normally at this point I would just ask the FM Group to do it, but they are several hundred miles away from here.

And if not, it has been nice knowing all of you. I am not certain any of the parents in our ward are willing to sacrifice a deacon to the cause. And I would not blame them. Jumanji.

lajackson wrote:The new firewall did not pick up the existing access points.

Interesting. Did you verify you put the right switch is on the right firewall in TM? I'd start comparing those serial numbers. It's possible a firewall is in the wrong building.

I accidently added a switch to the wrong building and messed things up. I was able to activate OK, but then things started going sideways.

So far I've done two building and didn't have to do anything with the WAPs. But I did plug them in directly to the managed switch and not though the power supplies.

Otherwise, the only way I can think of to get the serial number is go find the boxes they came in.

russellhltn wrote:So far I've done two building and didn't have to do anything with the WAPs. But I did plug them in directly to the managed switch and not though the power supplies.

Otherwise, the only way I can think of to get the serial number is go find the boxes they came in.

The other building I did yesterday is fine, but I did not have to replace the firewall there. It seems that the WAP serial number information is associated with the firewall itself, and everything stayed with the firewall after I added the managed switch there.

in the first building, I lost the WAP information when the old firewall was removed from TM. Ironically, I could not remove the old firewall. I had to call the GSD and they did it for me. I wish I had waited to call them until after today.

Also, sadly, the WAPs were still working yesterday after I swapped the firewall and installed the managed switch. The system had not yet caught up to the fact that they technically now were unregistered. That seems to have happened overnight.

The FM Group installed the WAPs several years ago. I am certain they will not have the boxes. But I do have an email into them to see if they kept a record of the serial numbers. I am expecting the answer to come back that I should look in TM. [Sigh]

lajackson wrote:but I did not have to replace the firewall there.

I missed that part.

I suspect there's a "right way" and a "wrong way" to do that. I've had experience where the "after hours" team has led me down the wrong path. When I called back during the day, the day team immediately pointed me the right way. And yes, I was installing a new firewall into a Institute building that had anobsolete firewall. The night team was having me "add" the firewall instead of replacing it which messed up the FM zone IP range.

I'd suggest calling back during Utah working hours on Monday. I doubt if you can do anything but make it worse today.

russellhltn wrote:I suspect there's a "right way" and a "wrong way" to do that [replace a firewall].

I should have called the GSD first.

I added the new firewall, then the managed switch, wired everything properly, walked to the foyers and got the normal Liahona signal and required sign in. I called GSD because I could not find a managed switch port option for the Special section. They added it to the new firewall and I was then able to properly assign the FHC.

Since i had them on the phone, I had the GSD remove the old switch from the listing, since I could not. That was my mistake.

I saw a place where it appeared I could change or correct the serial number of the firewall. I probably should have tried that first. I have no idea if it would have worked or not.

I think the proper procedure is TM > Firewalls > Activate > Firewall. At some point it's going to say "Hey, there's already a firewall at this location - are you replacing it?" Although, if I go to a location and click "add" I seem to be directed to the same page. Hmmmm.

Among the issues you'll have is you've lost the static IP assignments and the printer in the FHC probably won't work because now that IP range is all different.

It knew there was a firewall and that I was replacing it. It just added the new one to the collection, making two. That is why I am a tad bit miffed.
I had to add in all of the provider contact information again, as well. But I had screenshots with all of that information because I remembered having to do it last time. I just forgot to get a shot of the old WAP page.

I do not believe any of our FHC printers have static IP addresses.

lajackson wrote:It knew there was a firewall and that I was replacing it. It just added the new one to the collection, making two. That is why I am a tad bit miffed.

I'd be pretty miffed too. I'd certainly be bending support's ear and asking how they plan on fixing their mistake.

russellhltn wrote:I'd be pretty miffed too. I'd certainly be bending support's ear and asking how they plan on fixing their mistake.

The answer from support is that if I cannot obtain the serial numbers, it becomes the responsibility of the FM Group to solve the problem.
I disagree, but my vote does not count, although it may affect how quickly the problem gets solved.

I'd call again Monday during UT working hours. The day crew may have some additional tricks up their sleeves.

russellhltn wrote:I'd call again Monday during UT working hours. The day crew may have some additional tricks up their sleeves.

Great suggestion, and I did it. Alas, even the A-Team has no way to recover the serial numbers.

They did happen to mention that when they assist with a firewall swap they take a screen shot of the Access Point page so that they can add the wireless access points back in to the system. As I mentioned earlier, I wish I had thought of that myself. And there is not a "change the serial number" option. You just add the new firewall, set it up, and then ask the GSD to delete the old firewall.

The FM Group stepped right up and offered to gather the serial numbers from the attic. But I recruited an extraordinarily heroic and brave assistant to explore the jungle with me. We spent the afternoon in the attic and found the WAPs. That was a trick. They were well hidden. But find them we did, gathered the serial numbers, got them into TM and all is well again.

Although Liahona has returned, there is still an option to access Meraki Setup at each of the access points. Of course, neither I no anyone else has guessed the password to the Meraki cloud. I hope the Meraki registration option goes away now that the boxes are properly registered through the firewall. Perhaps in a day or two everything will settle down.

lajackson wrote:Although Liahona has returned, there is still an option to access Meraki Setup at each of the access points. Of course, neither I no anyone else has guessed the password to the Meraki cloud. I hope the Meraki registration option goes away now that the boxes are properly registered through the firewall. Perhaps in a day or two everything will settle down.

A power-off reboot of the whole thing may speed things up.

russellhltn wrote:I'd call again Monday during UT working hours. The day crew may have some additional tricks up their sleeves.

That is what I did when I was not satisfied with the first answer I received concerning the Windows local user accounts disappearing from the login screen. The day shift answer was supremely better than the night shift answer.

lajackson wrote:They did happen to mention that when they assist with a firewall swap they take a screen shot of the Access Point page so that they can add the wireless access points back in to the system.

As soon as I read your first message on this subject, I immediately opened TM, and copied and pasted all my WAP serial numbers into an email to my STS. So now we both have that info.

lajackson wrote:I do not believe any of our FHC printers have static IP addresses.

That's unusual for two reasons. First, assuming these printers are on the network and not attached via USB, how do the computers find the printers if their IPs keep changing?

Second, the Family History Department wants to monitor the printer they sent so as to send supplies when it runs low. To do that, the printer has to be at a fixed 10.x.x.x IP that's registered with them.

It's possible that the static IP is programmed into the printer instead of the firewall. But that still would create problems if the IP range changed because the firewall was "added" instead of "replaced".

russellhltn wrote:

lajackson wrote:I do not believe any of our FHC printers have static IP addresses.

That's unusual for two reasons.

I suppose i need to look into it. I know the IP addresses were not reserved in TM.