Technical data

Adding an ESS with the CLI

The DTIM period can be a value from 1 through 255. The default DTIM period is 1.

Setting the DTIM period to a higher value decreases the frequency of broadcasts

sent by the access point. If power save is enabled on clients that are connected

to access points, clients “wake up” less if fewer broadcasts are sent, which

conserves battery life for the clients.

Only the behavior of clients currently in power-save mode is affected by the DTIM

period value. Because broadcasts are generally wasteful of air resources, the

Meru WLAN has devised mechanisms that mitigate broadcasts either with proxy

services or with more efficient, limited unicasts. As an example, ARP Layer 2

broadcasts received by the wired side are not relayed to all wireless clients.

Instead, the Meru controller maintains a list of IP-MAC address mappings for all

wireless clients and replies with proxy-ARP on behalf of the client.

 Beacon interval—Sets the rate at which beacons are transmitted.

The beacon period setting affects unicasts and broadcasts. The beacon interval

must be between 20 through 1000 milliseconds. For AP300 and AP1000, beacon

interval is a multiple of 20, from 20 to 1000ms. For AP150 and OAP180, the beacon

interval is a multiple of 100, from 100 to 500ms. Setting the beacon interval to a

higher value decreases the frequency of unicasts and broadcasts sent by the

access point. If the power-save feature is enabled on clients that are connected

to access points, clients “wake up” less if fewer unicasts and broadcasts are sent,

which conserves the battery life for the clients. The beacon period setting affects

unicasts and broadcasts.

If your WLAN consists mostly of Wi-Fi phones, and you have a low number of ESSIDs

configured (for example, one or two), Meru Networks recommends setting the

beacon interval to 100.

The following example sets the beacon DTIM period to 10 and beacon interval to

240 TUs:

controller(config-essid)# beacon dtim-period 10

controller(config-essid)# beacon period 240

Configuring ESSID Broadcasting with the CLI

By default, an ESSID is broadcast. When an ESSID is broadcast, it is included in the

advertised beacon. Clients using passive scanning listen for beacons transmitted by

access points. If ESSID broadcasting an is disabled, those clients listening for beacons

cannot receive ESSID information.

Clients using active scanning send probe requests and wait for probe responses from

access points. If broadcasting an ESSID is disabled, access points do not respond to

probe requests, unless the probe request includes the ESSID.

To prevent the ESSID from being broadcast, use the no publish-essid command.

The following example prevents the ESSID from being broadcast:

controller(config-essid)# no publish-essid