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Client handle on controllers if I use GRE tunnel between them

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  • 1.  Client handle on controllers if I use GRE tunnel between them

    Posted Nov 18, 2025 04:44 AM
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    Hi Guys, 

    We have an Aruba AOS8 wireless network what is built before I came to the company as the same approach as the Cisco recommended practice (Foreign and Anchor WLC, guest traffic tunneled to the Anchor). All the controllers is managed by a Conductor. Local controllers (cluster) in on the local site (Foreign), and the other controller (Anchor) is on the DMZ zone, GRE tunnels built between them. Guest network traffic is not permitted on local site switches, so guest VLANs not placed on local controller's trunks.

    I tried to build a same network in a lab environment, however I experience something slightly different in practice. In a live network, wireless clients are visible in both the local and DMZ controllers. They appear as wireless clients in the local controller and as wired clients in the DMZ controller. In the lab network, clients only appear as wireless clients in the local controller, not in the DMZ controller. Regardless, traffic is sent through the DMZ controller to the wired network through the GRE tunnel. 

    What setting could cause this, and what could I not set up similarly to the live network?

    Guest WLAN is configured in tunnel mode, so the traffic flow:

                wireless         GRE tunnel                             GRE tunnel                   
    Client ----------> AP ------------> Local Controller -----------> DMZ controller ----------> Internet

    The ultimate goal is to convert the network to Multizone operation as recommended by Aruba. (Local controllers going to stay under MM, DMZ controllers going to be converted to standalone operation) As a first step, I would like to test the conversion in the lab, so I would like to achieve identical operation as the current.

    I attached a topology about the current operation/connections.



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