Apple devices not receiving DHCP assignments

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aclawson
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Apple devices not receiving DHCP assignments

#1

Post by aclawson »

Turns out this is a known issue. Apple devices are using ports that the church firewalls are blocking.

No resolution is expected any time soon.
russellhltn
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#2

Post by russellhltn »

I think you'll find it's not uncommon. You might want to Google "Apple DHCP".

Only suggestion I have is to make sure they are current on their OS patches.
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aclawson
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#3

Post by aclawson »

My edited information comes straight from global services. As soon as I mentioned "apple" she said "you can't get an IP". Known issue, not expected to be resolved any time soon. This is something that stake presidents can bring up with their contacts in SLC, but other than that all we can do is wait.

Problem replicated on a handful of different iPhones and iPads.
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aebrown
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#4

Post by aebrown »

aclawson wrote:My edited information comes straight from global services. As soon as I mentioned "apple" she said "you can't get an IP". Known issue, not expected to be resolved any time soon. This is something that stake presidents can bring up with their contacts in SLC, but other than that all we can do is wait.

Problem replicated on a handful of different iPhones and iPads.
We have dozens of people using iPads and iPhones who get IP addresses in our buildings that use the 881W just fine. But we have older Aironet 1200 WAPs. Does this problem only occur when an Apple device connects wirelessly to the 881W itself?
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russellhltn
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#5

Post by russellhltn »

But from my googling the problem it appears the problem is not with the church's network but with Apple.

Princeton has had a number of problems, (see here, here, and here). A more recient blog post point out a more recent problem that could be affecting the church network.

Bottom line, this may not be the fault of the church system. It's Apple that needs to fix or publish the workaround. The standards for DHCP are well known.
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aclawson
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#6

Post by aclawson »

aebrown wrote:We have dozens of people using iPads and iPhones who get IP addresses in our buildings that use the 881W just fine. But we have older Aironet 1200 WAPs. Does this problem only occur when an Apple device connects wirelessly to the 881W itself?

Unknown. In our case all of the users affected have been attempting to connect to the 881W. I am able to connect with an android device and a windows laptop while no iPhone or iPad user are able to connect. The problem seemed to start at about the time that the previous 881W took a bolt of lightning through the WAN (FE0) port and was replaced - best guess, though unconfirmed, is that when the replacement 881W imaged itself it blocked whatever ports apple wants to use.
aclawson
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#7

Post by aclawson »

RussellHltn wrote:But from my googling the problem it appears the problem is not with the church's network but with Apple.

Princeton has had a number of problems, (see here, here, and here). A more recient blog post point out a more recent problem that could be affecting the church network.

Bottom line, this may not be the fault of the church system. It's Apple that needs to fix or publish the workaround. The standards for DHCP are well known.

Yep. I found the Princeton pages.

As a troubleshooting step I had the user manually configure the iPad (running v5 OS whichever one that is) to a static IP, and the gateway/mask/dns used by the admin computer in that room. They were able to connect to the wireless but unable to connect to any websites. Switch back to DHCP and the device once again fails to receive an IP assignment. It shouldn't be doing that, but it is.

Now granted, the DHCP/static IP address was tested only on a single device so replication is an issue. However, multiple users are reporting that they can't connect using Apple devices even as everybody using non-fruity devices have no issues and Global Services reports this to be a known issue so I conclude that something is amiss even if the full extent has yet to be verified.
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aebrown
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#8

Post by aebrown »

RussellHltn wrote:But from my googling the problem it appears the problem is not with the church's network but with Apple.

Clearly if only Apple devices are affected, it has something to do with Apple. But the fact remains that many users of Apple devices successfully connect to the wireless network in our stake's building. I'm pretty sure if even a single person had a problem connecting, I'd hear about it. But I've heard nothing, and I see many people every Sunday using iPads and iPods in church, and I know that most of them are using the WiFi connection (many of the iPads only have a WiFi option).

aclawson's posts seemed to imply that this is a very widespread problem, but I'm not seeing it at all. So I was hoping to gain some understanding of the factors that cause the problem, since it clearly is not a universal problem.
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aclawson
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#9

Post by aclawson »

One way to test would be to reimage one of your firewalls and see if a new rule comes down that blocks the apple devices. Global services was very explicit - there was some port that apple devices want to use that the church firewall blocks. They did not tell me which port it was.
lajackson
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#10

Post by lajackson »

I use an iPod Touch and have never had a problem getting WiFi from the 881W (except after the lightning strike -- seems to be a common problem). Others with Apple products use WiFi in the building without any difficulty at all.
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