Concept Guide

Parameter Description
When an AP is configured to use the decrypt-
tunnel forwarding mode, that AP decrypts and
decapsulates all 802.11 frames from a client and
sends the 802.3 frames through the GRE tunnel to
to the controller, which then applies firewall
policies to the user traffic. When the controller
sends traffic to a client, the controller sends 802.3
traffic through the GRE tunnel to the AP, which
then converts it to encrypted 802.11 and forwards
to the client.
Allowed band
The band(s) on which to use the virtual AP:
l a—802.11a band only (5 GHz)
l g—802.11b/g band only (2.4 GHz)
l all—both 802.11a and 802.11b/g bands (5 GHz
and 2.4 GHz)
Band Steering
If enabled, ARM’s band steering feature
encourages dual-band capable clients to stay on
the 5GHz band on dual-band APs. This frees up
resources on the 2.4GHz band for single band
clients like VoIP phones.
Steering Mode
Band steering supports three different band steering
modes.
l Force-5GHz: When the AP is configured in
force-5GHz band steering mode, the AP will try
to force 5Ghz-capable APs to use that radio
band.
l Prefer-5GHz (Default): If you configure the AP
to use prefer-5GHz band steering mode, the
AP will try to steer the client to 5G band (if the
client is 5G capable) but will let the client
connect on the 2.4G band if the client persists
in 2.4G association attempts.
l Balance-bands: In this band steering mode,
the AP tries to balance the clients across the
two radios in order to best utilize the available
2.4G bandwidth. This feature takes into account
the fact that the 5Ghz band has more channels
than the 2.4 Ghz band, and that the 5Ghz
channels operate in 40MHz while the 2.5Ghz
band operates in 20MHz.
NOTE: Steering modes do not take effect until the
band steering feature has been enabled. The band
steering feature in ArubaOS versions 3.3.2-5.0
does not support multiple band-steering modes.
The band-steering feature in these versions of
ArubaOS functions the same way as the default
prefer-5GHz steering mode available in ArubaOS
6.0 and later.
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