Know of any WAP custom firmware?

jonesr

Good morning,

A site is decommissioning an older wireless system which may mean I could get my hands on some Meru gear. For what I need the 1 controller and 8 WAPs would be overkill so it would be great if I could use some APs as standalone devices for different locations. I haven't got my hands on them yet so I haven't been able to experiment, and my research turns up nothing - any google results are drowned in links either to the manufacturer or router projects like dd-wrt which doesn't look like an option. There is more than one model of AP but this is one of them - http://www.merunetworks.com/collateral/data-sheets/2012-ds-wireless-lan-wireless-access-point-ap320.pdf

Is anyone aware of any way I might achieve this? Custom firmware, or an open/free system to uncouple the WAP from the controller? Any suggestions most welcome, thank you.

Derelict

Unless you can load DDWRT, Tomato, etc, I suspect you will be SOL unless the APs have a standalone mode. I know Ruckus and Aruba do (At least the current firmwares). Maybe the Merus do too.

If whomever you're buying from has access to a firmware site, have them provide the latest versions for everything.

Looks like they hide their product manuals on their web site pretty well. Good luck with the secondhand gear.

Out of luck I am afraid. OpenWRT shows nothing.

https://wikidevi.com/wiki/Meru_Networks_AP320

http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/prod_summary.jsp?code=MPC8347E

In normal WLAN APs would be also able to acting as a stand alone device, but then the most
WLAN APs are not offering the wide spectrum of security features and other options, that
will be only matching in combination with an real WLAN controller from the same vendor.

This line were cut out off the document shown under the link in your initial post.
No complex channel planning when combined with a Meru controller –
enjoy plug-and-play installation for simple deployment.

This indicates for me that the WLAN AP is able to be used as a stand alone device also
but being sure you should be asking the seller of this devices, it could be that he is
able to power on only one WLAN AP and let you really fast know what is going on.
Why should we do now only guesswork here now, and then you are running in a
trap with this equipment?

jonesr

Thanks all for the advice, I am downloading the documentation and firmware now. I'll take a look at this over the weekend.

jonesr

Thanks again to those who showed interest in this, Meru have advised none of their APs allow any kind of standalone mode.