The fact that you are here most likely means that you already have the AP on your desk, and you are readying for a site survey. Let’s skip all product detail this time and go straight into the survey part.
Choose the right site survey mode
All Cisco Wi-Fi 7 APs, including the CW9179F, support cloud-managed (think Meraki Dashboard) and controller-managed mode (think Catalyst). You can easily switch between them. This gives you access to Catalyst Site Survey mode, or Meraki Site Survey mode.
As of September 2025, the Catalyst Site Survey mode supports all software-configurable beam patterns – Boresight, Wide, Front-and-back. That’s what we are aiming for.
Kit list
- CW9179F access point
- Power injector CW-INJ-8, switch, or PoE battery back and a couple of twisted pair cables
- Wired internet connectivity
- Console cable – the blue RJ-45 to USB-C or USB-A one
- TFTP server on your laptop – Transfer on macOS is great
- Terminal app on your laptop – Royal TSX, Putty, SecureCRT or the screen command
- Download 17.18.1 Lightweight access point image from Cisco.com download section
- No controller needed
Let’s do this
Power your AP by a switch, power injector or battery pack and connect it to internet. I am using Cisco’s 802.3bt power injector CW-INJ-8 here, and Internet Sharing feature on my Mac to get the AP online.
Create a new network on Meraki Dashboard, select the right country, and claim the AP in Dashboard using its Cloud ID (previously known as Meraki Serial Number). Make sure the AP connects to Dashboard and shows as online. The AP will set its country code and regulatory domain. Verify.
Switch the AP from Meraki mode to Catalyst mode using the Migrate to WLC button on Dashboard.
Don’t switch the AP mode using Meraki Local Status Page (LSP)! The AP might not broadcast the survey SSID if you go down that route.
Remove the grey Console port cap and console into the AP using RJ-45 console cable and your favourite terminal app.
We are now in Catalyst Lightweight access point mode. Log in using username cisco, password Cisco, type enable command, and enter default enable password Cisco.
Download the CW9179F lightweight access point image. Upgrade the AP to 17.18.1 release (or newer) which has all the survey features we need. The link is correct, this AP uses the exact same image as CW9178I.
Start a TFTP server on your laptop, and move the image file to your TFTP root folder.
Now, instruct the AP to download the image from TFTP server and upgrade its code to 17.18.1.
archive download-sw /reload tftp://192.168.2.1/ap3g4-k9w8-tar.17_18_1_8.tar
After it reboots, check its software version using show version command. Happy days we are running 17.18.1 now.
Finally, switch the AP to site survey mode using ap-type site-survey command. When asked for reboot, press y and enter.
In Site Survey mode, both the front and the back LEDs follow this pattern.
Set a static IP address on the Ethernet interface. This is important, without static IP address on the AP, you won’t be able to access its web interface.
Log in and use this command:
capwap ap ip 192.168.2.20 255.255.255.0 192.168.2.1 208.67.222.222 208.67.220.220
The format is:
capwap ap ip <IP-address> <Mask> <Gateway> <Pri-DNS-server> <Sec-DNS-server>
The AP is now broadcasting site survey SSID.
Connect to it wirelessly.
And access the Site Survey mode web interface running on https://10.0.23.1. Username admin, password admin. Change the password after first login and save it to your notes or print a label.
That’s where we make the beam pattern selection.
Adjust the SSID name, Tx Power, channel number, enable/disable features to your needs.
Or even enable WPA2 pre-shared key security.
You’ve done it! Happy surveying!
Revert to standard client-serving mode
If you need to switch the AP back to Lightweight Catalyst mode, or Meraki mode, just use the ap-type capwap, or ap-type meraki command.
