Problem seeing smb shares/protocol over wifi with Aruba WAPs; weird issue

[Ericarthurc]

Hey, so I run a small IT department for a small business (about 60 on staff) (roughly 20 computer clients working at any given time). So we had older cisco WAP561 wireless access points but they weren't necessary cutting it for our building size (very large couple of buildings); and Aruba offered us a good deal on 7 IAP-215's. I installed the 7 aruba access points and they are fantastic! Amazing speed, handles our clients well, great range, smart 2.4 - 5.0 allocation, but they have an issue and I haven't been able to resolve it. Last year I installed a synology nas rackstation on our server rack for our creative department. They love it and it's become second nature for them all to use it (they all use Mac's btw). Well, over wifi with the new aruba routers the smb shares from the nas will not show up in both Window's network discovery and Mac's shared discovery; the smb shares shows up instantly over any wireless networks from the old cisco access points. At first I thought maybe an internal dns issue? But on both mac and windows I can manually connect to the nas just fine with the hostname. On windows I can pin the nas in the file explorer, so windows users don't have to worry about the manual connection process. But in mac you can't "pin" network shares in the finder, so manual connects have to be done through there "connect to server" prompt; and this literally freaks everyone out. I have tried teaching and training everyone on how to do the manual connection on Mac but it's constant calls saying they forgot. I have done my best to just hardwire everyone, but it's not perfect; and some clients move around the buildings and wireless access is needed. And besides all that at the end of the day network discovery should be working no matter what. I posted about this on the Aruba Community Forums and they had no idea what was wrong.. and stopped responding. If anyone could shed some light that would be amazing. 

 

Here is our setup:

 

Firewall/DHCP Server: Sonicwall NSA 2600

Switch: Cisco Systems WS-C3750G-48PS (3 vlans, main traffic is all on vlan 1 including the wireless traffic and the nas)

             (vlan 1: 192.168.1.1/24 ---- vlan 20: 192.168.20.1/24 --- vlan 40: 10.10.0.1/23)

Wireless Access Points: Aruba IAP-215-US

 

I attached two screens shots so you can kinda see whats going on; this is from a macbook pro. The wireless network "wildwood" is from the aruba wireless access point. The test 5.0 network is from the cisco wireless access point. The LochNasMonster is the synology nas. You can also see that over the Aruba router no devices will show up. 

 

Thank you in advance for any advice!

[brwainer]

@leadeater is the only person I know of on the forum with Aruba WAP experience. There may be others who just haven’t been vocal yet. My only Aruba experience is using the 7005 controller as a gateway device.

 

Just for general information, do you have an active directory domain set up or is everything using its own local credentials?

[leadeater]

4 hours ago, Ericarthurc said:

On windows I can pin the nas in the file explorer, so windows users don't have to worry about the manual connection process. But in mac you can't "pin" network shares in the finder, so manual connects have to be done through there "connect to server" prompt; and this literally freaks everyone out.

Use Apple Profile Configurator to create a profile that automatically maps the network share and install that on all the Macs, profiles allows you to configure a number of useful things. If you have an Mac server you can install Profile Manager role but the standalone  tool should be fine if you don't have that.

 

https://support.apple.com/en-nz/apple-configurator

 

4 hours ago, Ericarthurc said:

And besides all that at the end of the day network discovery should be working no matter what. I posted about this on the Aruba Community Forums and they had no idea what was wrong.. and stopped responding. If anyone could shed some light that would be amazing. 

You might have to configure firewall rules in the Aruba controller interface, not sure how different it is when using Instant setup versus a Mobility Controller as I've only used Aruba APs managed by a controller but that is where I would look first.

[Ericarthurc]

9 hours ago, brwainer said:

@leadeater is the only person I know of on the forum with Aruba WAP experience. There may be others who just haven’t been vocal yet. My only Aruba experience is using the 7005 controller as a gateway device.

 

Just for general information, do you have an active directory domain set up or is everything using its own local credentials?

I do have an active directory domain setup from a windows 2016 server, but only like 20 clients are apart of that. The rest are their own local credentials. thanks for the replay.

[Ericarthurc]

8 hours ago, leadeater said:

Use Apple Profile Configurator to create a profile that automatically maps the network share and install that on all the Macs, profiles allows you to configure a number of useful things. If you have an Mac server you can install Profile Manager role but the standalone  tool should be fine if you don't have that.

 

https://support.apple.com/en-nz/apple-configurator

 

You might have to configure firewall rules in the Aruba controller interface, not sure how different it is when using Instant setup versus a Mobility Controller as I've only used Aruba APs managed by a controller but that is where I would look first.

Oh wow, didn't even know about that app tool. I will definitely check it out first thing tomorrow. Thank you! and thanks for the advice! 

[Ericarthurc]

22 hours ago, leadeater said:

Use Apple Profile Configurator to create a profile that automatically maps the network share and install that on all the Macs, profiles allows you to configure a number of useful things. If you have an Mac server you can install Profile Manager role but the standalone  tool should be fine if you don't have that.

 

https://support.apple.com/en-nz/apple-configurator

 

You might have to configure firewall rules in the Aruba controller interface, not sure how different it is when using Instant setup versus a Mobility Controller as I've only used Aruba APs managed by a controller but that is where I would look first.

Just wanted to report back; I resolved the issue. On the ssid advanced settings I had Broadcast Filtering enabled and disabling that settings fixed the issue. The Nas is now showing correctly; as well the other computers and shares. Thank you!