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we have a NCS (Cisco Prime Network Control System) to monitor our wireless network.

To update AP names and location i have to search for the ap mac address in the web interface, and configure them one by one.

Is there a way to do this programmatically? That is, build a piece of software that reads a tab seperated file with AP mac-address, wanted name and location, that connects to the NCS and update this information?

I have programming experience, but I've never done anything with SNMP or similar.

What is the best approach here?

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Nope. Due to Cisco's awesome logic and planning there is no such feature in NCS or any of their other monitoring products. I have been looking in the past and still looking now. –  onxx Dec 6 '12 at 0:25
Thanks for the reply. Let me know if you find anything. I'm thinking about writing some javascript to search and autoupdate the AP configuration through the web interface. –  randoms Dec 6 '12 at 7:18
Will probably be easier to write something, I would be interested to see how it work outs... :) good luck. –  onxx Dec 6 '12 at 20:43
You can update AP names, Location, Primary, Secondary, Tertiary, etc.. info if you SSH into a wireless controller. Review the config/ap commands... –  dave peckham Aug 29 at 16:36

2 Answers 2


Yes, you can do this with the capabilites of wget or curl - both are capable of acting as HTML clients (of course, no Javascript), accepting cookies and the like.

But No, the time required to create such a script, identifying how you need to talk to the web interface may be longer than just doing the mouse monkey...

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yeah, i've looked at it, but i've not completed the javascript code. We do however have about 3000 APs, so it takes quite some time do do it manually. –  randoms Feb 21 '13 at 16:03
Hoozah, then it's definitively worth the effort. Good luck! –  Roman Feb 21 '13 at 16:05
up vote 0 down vote accepted

There is actually a function on the NCS to mass update AP configurations.

Go to

Configure -> Access Points

, and in the drop down in the top right select

Import AP Config

The import takes a comma seperated file (csv).

Sample File Header: AP Name,Ethernet MAC,Location,Primary Controller,Secondary Controller,Tertiary Controller

ap-1, 00:1c:58:74:8c:22, sjc-14-a, controller-4404-1, controller-4404-2, controller-4404-3 The CSV file can contain following fields. AP Ethernet MAC Address is mandatory, Optional fields are AP Name, Location, Primary Controller, Secondary Controller and Tertiary Controller. Optional fields can be empty. AP Config Import will ignore empty optional field values. However, if Primary Controller and Secondary Controller entries are empty then Unified AP update is not done

Ethernet MAC: AP Ethernet MAC Address AP Name:AP Name Location:AP Location Primary Controller:Primary Controller Name Secondary Controller:Secondary Controller Name Tertiary Controller:Tertiary Controller Name

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