I’m not posting here to rant but it’ll sound like that anyway so here goes….

I’m after a simple nicety. A public certificate for web-authentication on a Cisco anchor controller. It shouldn’t be rocket science and yet first of all, the address I chose – 192.0.2.1 (as opposed to the poorly chosen 1.1.1.1 in Cisco documentation) is unable to be signed by Public CA’s thanks to restrictions in policy set through IANA – apparently this address can only be used in documentation.

This address is for a “virtual” interface that is never actually routed onto a real network, it’s more of a capture mechanism within the controller itself for things like DHCP and Web Authentication/Redirection.

So I have gone for the next best thing – an RFC1918 address in the 192.168.x.x space. Got it signed by a Public CA – I even managed to bind the chained, signed cert with the private key through OpenSSL (version 0.9.8 according to Cisco’s instructions – the fact I have to use a version this specific is a worry in itself) and uploaded successfully to the wireless controller – reloaded the box and this should have been it.

So why does my controller persist in telling me on wireless device(s) that the website I am connected to, does not match my certificate? ….over to you Cisco… I await your reply. Though to date my experience of trying to do guest wireless in a best practice way is being met by a rather problematic platform. I remember the day when Cisco stuff just worked – you could rely on the fact that the code on the box was design for the purpose you chose. My doubts increase with each passing day.

I’m not saying Cisco should be a Pariah, just that I am increasingly having to lean on TAC to get things done. It’s becoming more of an uphill struggle to do some of the simplest things.

Is it me? Am I becoming more of an idiot with technology?