I’ve seen a number of walkthroughs detailing how to convert an Aironet Wireless Access Point that’s using the lightweight firmware (the firmware which relies on something like a CAPWAP server to provide configuration so there’s not much in the way of local config options) to the autonomous firmware (one with local config & a management GUI). A few people encounter issues because downloading firmware requires a TACACS agreement — great if you’re a network engineer at a company, not great if you’ve bought a single access point somewhere.

While “google it and find someone who has posted the file … then verify the MD5 sum checks out” is an answer, a lot of the newer firmwares appear to have a major bug where any attempt to commit changes yields a 404 error. ap3g2-k9w7-tar.153-3.JF12.tar, ap3g2-k9w7-tar.153-3.JF15.tar, ap3g2-k9w7-tar.153-3.JPI4.tar — all very buggy.  While it may be possible to use the CLI to “copy ru star” and write the running config into the startup config … that’s going to be difficult to explain to someone else. Something else odd — the built-in Cisco account is a ‘read only’ user — this may be normal where the GUI shows it as read only but it’s actually got management permission?

What I’ve realized, in our attempt to convert into a fully functional autonomous firmware, is that the specific version referenced in one of the walkthroughs (ap3g2-k9w7-tar.153-3.JH.tar) is a deliberate selection — it’s a security update firmware release. Which means it’s available for download for anyone with a Cisco account that’s OK for encryption download (i.e. not residing in one of those countries to which American companies are not allowed to ‘export’ good encryption stuff) even if you don’t have a TACACS account.

Luckily, the JH iteration of the firmware doesn’t have the 404 error on committing changes. The Cisco account is still showing up as read-only, but we were able to make our own read-write user & implement changes.