Cisco WLC AP license

I had a site that needs 10 access points (APs) but was given a Cisco WLC 2504 that only supports 5 APs by default. Cisco's website mentioned that AP license can be added in increments of 1, 5 and 25. So I availed for a 25 AP license (L-LIC-CT2504-25A) in order to accommodate the future growth of the wireless system. I followed these steps to apply the AP license.

The first step is to go to Cisco's licensing portal and register the license Product Authorization Key (PAK) that was sent via e-mail in PDF form (e-license) or hard copy.  Register the license PAK using the Product ID (PID) and serial number found in the WLC by going to Controller > Inventory. The same info can be seen using the show license udi command.

Be extra careful and double check the info that was typed in the licensing portal to avoid issues with the license not taking effect even after reboot. I've personally encountered this mistake a couple of times and had to go through Cisco TAC to re-issue a new license. TAC usually respond within a day or two.

To install the AP license, go to Management > Software Activation > Commands > Actions > Install License, and for or some strange reason only 3CDaemon works. After transferring the license via TFTP, the WLC will prompt to restart in order for the license to take effect. You can also optionally save the license.

After WLC has been rebooted, you can verify the license by going to Management > Software Activation > License. Click on the license to show more details.

Here are some useful WLC CLI commands to verify the license.

(Cisco Controller) >show license ?
              
all            Displays All The License(s).
capacity       Displays License currently used by AP
detail         Displays Details Of A Given License.
evaluation     Displays Evaluation License(s).
expiring       Displays Expiring License(s).
feature        Displays License Enabled Features.
file           Displays All The License File(s).
handle         Displays License Handles.
image-level    Display the image level
in-use         Displays License That Are In-Use.
permanent      Displays Permanent License(s).
statistics     Displays License Statistics.
status         Displays License Status.
summary        Displays Brief Summary Of All License(s).
udi            Displays UDI Values For Licenses.

(Cisco Controller) >show license summary

License Store: Primary License Storage
StoreIndex:  0  Feature: base                              Version: 1.0
        License Type: Permanent
        License State: Active, Not in Use
        License Count: Non-Counted
        License Priority: Medium
License Store: Primary License Storage
StoreIndex:  1  Feature: base-ap-count                     Version: 1.0
        License Type: Permanent
        License State: Inactive
        License Count: 5 / 0 (Active/In-use)
        License Priority: Medium
License Store: Primary License Storage
StoreIndex:  2  Feature: base-ap-count                     Version: 1.0
        License Type: Permanent
        License State: Active, In Use
        License Count: 30 /30 (Active/In-use)
        License Priority: Medium
License Store: Evaluation License Storage
StoreIndex:  0  Feature: base-ap-count                     Version: 1.0
        License Type: Evaluation
        License State: Inactive
            Evaluation total period: 12 weeks  6 days
            Evaluation period left: 12 weeks  5 days
        License Count: 75 / 0 (Active/In-use)
        License Priority: Low


(Cisco Controller) >show license feature

Feature name        Enforcement   Evaluation  Clear Allowed  Enabled
base-ap-count       yes           yes         yes            yes   
data_encryption     yes           no          yes            no    


(Cisco Controller) >show license capacity


Licensed Feature    Max Count         Current Count     Remaining Count
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
AP Count            30                5                 25