Ruckus AP Naming & N4L

[Matt Strickland]

Hi all,

I give our a few of our office staff read only access to Virtual SmartZone for tracking of lost/misplaced phones so they can track which AP they are attached to.

I originally moved the N4L naming convention of the AP to the description and appended the classroom/building location to the AP Name so office staff can still use Monitor > Wireless clients to search for a client and discover its AP attachment (therefore room).

However N4L do not want us to change the AP name. (The N4L name has no reference to the physical room/location). We can use description but this field isn't available on the Wireless client menu.

Do other schools here just cross-reference N4L AP names to location? Or is there an external API or other way we can still make it easy to find lost devices without a meaningless AP name?

Matt

[Pete Mundy]

Heya Matt

Did they prepare a graphic for the map feature for you? When I click on 'map' instead of 'list' at the top of the access points page I get an overlay of where all of the APs are physically within the school's floorplan map.

Pete

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[Robert Smith]

Hopefully you have a map like Pete mentioned. Also check the description column, this is usually used by N4L to see what the AP is associated with and can be updated to show where it is placed.

The name refers to the access point sticker,

If you select an AP and look at the full information below in you can see details around the access point

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[Matt Strickland]

This is an example of what I am referring to:  in Monitor > Clients > Wireless Clients I can set a table list for host / username / AP Name. (this is for the office staff)

You can't add the description field for AP's here since this table is not related, but its the most useful to simply filter for a device and show which AP its connected to.

Then its the AP name I am referring too for which from a simple view, meaningless.

I guess we are forced to use N4L names for something we use every day to make life easier for our staff.

Matt

[Matt Strickland]

Pete/Robert no maps were uploaded but I did add the GPS coordinates to all our AP locations and have them overlaid on Google maps so its easy to spot when/where an AP goes down. Those are mostly only useful to IT and I don't have an issue looking up location of AP's within the school.

I guess my next question would be, can I find a better (external ) way to find usernames / associated AP without using the console, external API?

I might be able to pull the AP's description (school room name location) for this purpose.

Regards,

Matt

[Jonathan Churton]

Hi Matt,

We fought this battle many years ago with no success. I can confirm you can pull this information using the VSZ API. https://{ControllerHostName}:8443/wsg/apiDoc/

There are some hacks to get the ZoneID and DomainID, but once you have them you'll be away laughing.

We access the API multiple times every day to pull client and backup switch information. This is especially useful for implementing phone bans.

Cheers,

Jonathan.

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[Ben Green]

You're a braver person than I to go changing the N4L-defined AP names. Note that those names are unique NZ-wide, and it's probably a bit of a headache for N4L if we go changing them randomly.

We typed the room/location info into the Description field. Then N4L wiped this information during an upgrade phase. Then we typed it into the Description field again.

As you've noted, the Description isn't shown in most places. In some views (the minority), the AP MAC address is a clickable link to view that AP (which does show the Description).

Ngā mihi,

Ben Green

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From: 'Matt Strickland' via Techies for schools <techies-f...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, 31 March 2026 7:39 am
To: Techies for schools <techies-f...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: [techies-for-schools] Ruckus AP Naming & N4L

 

		Ben Green ICT Technician +64 3 348 5003 ext 207 Gre...@staff.cbhs.school.nz
www.cbhs.school.nz

[Matt Strickland]

Thanks Ben - MAC will work for now, as its not often but usually for office staff something 2, 3, 4 times a day. And Jonathan ill get some python working to suck some data out :)

Does anyone here have a list from N4L of what can and cannot be modified? (I don't have any detail)

eg can we use AP Groups? - Mine are in groups by the network cabinet they are connected to, which can be determined by the name. I did also used to have some AP's with 2.4 intentionally turned off but without knowing or wanting to change anything we shouldn't or will get lost I haven't touched anything other than scheduling etc.

Matt

[Ben Green]

For what should/shouldn't be modified, I think your best bet is to ask this group (someone is likely to have pondered the same previously), and otherwise ask N4L.

For AP Groups ("AG"), yes you can create/adjust those and move APs between them, BUT be aware that there are some settings defined at the AG level, so you should be fully familiar with what those are - and what they're currently set to - before changing anything.

AGs are the best place to configure any non-default radio settings (e.g. WLAN Group) for an area of the campus (rather than setting such overrides for each individual AP).

You could easily have some APs with 2.4 disabled to reduce interference. Hopefully those make sense when looking at the physical AP layout. Check with N4L before arbitrarily re-enabling (or adjusting Tx power, or channelization settings).

Ngā mihi,

Ben Green

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From: 'Matt Strickland' via Techies for schools <techies-f...@googlegroups.com>

Sent: Tuesday, 31 March 2026 2:50 pm

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Subject: Re: [techies-for-schools] Ruckus AP Naming & N4L

 

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