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I was gifted a nice HP ProCurve 420ww Access Point and I'd like to set it up in my home to improve wifi reception upstairs. The AP was configured for use in its old location (some office) including a password I didn't get, so I have performed a factory reset as per the manual.

I'm unsure how to interpret the manual -- it seems to say that I need a serial cable in order to telnet to it, is this true? Can I not access it via a browser URL after a factory reset?

Additionally, the manual states that the default IP address is 192.168.1.1 but my cheap home router is hardcoded to use 10.0.0.xxx addresses. Even so, the router's list of clients does not list the AP, and DHCP did not assign any new IP to anything.

Do I need a serial connection to set this up?
And is it not possible to use this device in a home LAN?

Hennes
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Torben Gundtofte-Bruun
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  • I'm looking over the manual now...is the AP plugged into your home router currently and did you turn the AP off and back on with it plugged into your home router to get a DHCP address after resetting it? – TheCleaner Oct 30 '14 at 14:08
  • I'd just go with a direct connection from your laptop to the 192.168.x.x address. It's possible that you didn't completely do a factory reset and it still holds the previous setup's IP info. But connecting directly via LAN cable or preferably serial cable will tell you that. Or try doing another factory reset per the manual again. – TheCleaner Oct 30 '14 at 15:42
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    I just discovered that my router (mandatory, from ISP) has somehow reserved LAN port 1+2 for IPTV or something :-( When I plug the AP into port 3, it gets a DHCP lease and I can access it just fine, even through the browser! Now it turns out that the telnet console is horrible, and the browser interface uses a Java plugin that is broken on my Ubuntu/Chrome system :-/ – Torben Gundtofte-Bruun Oct 30 '14 at 15:57
  • lol ok...fun times – TheCleaner Oct 30 '14 at 16:28
  • SOrry to keep this going in comments, but my current issue is that "Radio Status : Inactive" and I can't find any description of how to turn the damn thing on. It has a DHCP lease, it has a SSID, it has everything as far as I can tell. But it's not broadcasting anything. – Torben Gundtofte-Bruun Oct 30 '14 at 16:36
  • http://i.imgur.com/826JbNp.png << try that. I've never messed with these APs before, so I'd have to really dive into the manual, but that's my guess. If not there, look around on those pages to see if there's a setting to make the radio enabled/active – TheCleaner Oct 30 '14 at 17:06
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    http://i.imgur.com/kuS4MSt.png << This was the culprit! HP has never bewen famous for logical UI's... Not sure how I missed that earlier, but it's not mentioned in the manual! :-o – Torben Gundtofte-Bruun Oct 30 '14 at 17:29

1 Answers1

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The manual states:

In the factory default configuration, the access point is configured as a DHCP client. If the access point fails to obtain an IP address from the DHCP server, its IP address defaults to 192.168.1.1.

So it should grab a DHCP address from your home router assuming it is connected via an ethernet cable to the home router and then the AP is reset to factory settings and reboots.

If you still don't see it in the DHCP address table on your home router, then assume it set it to 192.168.1.1. At that point, take your laptop and statically assign its ethernet nic to 192.168.1.2 subnet mask 255.255.255.0 (no gateway needed or dns). Then try and ping 192.168.1.1 from a command line to confirm connectivity. If you get connectivity try to pull up http://192.168.1.1. If that doesn't work, try and telnet into 192.168.1.1 using Putty or command line.

See page 3-9 and on from the manual once you get a network connection to the AP.

If you still get stuck with no network connectivity to it, then you'll need a serial cable and putty to establish a serial console connection to it where you'll then follow the guides starting at 3-1 in the manual.

TheCleaner
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