WPA/TKIP only going away in Cisco WLC release 8.0

Cisco is readying the next major release of their WLC code, version 8.0. At the advocation of the WFA, this will bring with it a very significant change in security capabilities that you may find impacting if you’re caught unaware. In an attempt to raise awareness, Cisco has approved an discussion of this change first mentioned here. Cisco, in accordance with the new WFA guidelines, will no longer be allowing an SSID configuration with WPA/TKIP only security. If you are currently using an SSID that has WPA/TKIP only security, your configuration will automatically be updated to enable WPA2/AES connectivity as well as WPA/TKIP. You may want to start validation testing now if you are currently supporting legacy devices on a WPA/TKIP only SSID today. The easiest way to ensure you’re not caught by this change is to enable WPA2/AES along with WPA/TKIP and check to make sure your devices still behave as expected. I have confirmed in the lab that this change will be automatic:

WPA-TKIP only SSID configuration, Pre-8.0

Same SSID with WPA2/AES enabled post-update.

To summarize of the variety of allowed and disallowed potential configuration options you have available and if they’ll be supported in WLC 8.0:

WPA1-TKIP (Disallowed due to eliminating TKIP)
WPA1-AES (Allowed by Extension Policy)
WPA1-TKIP/AES (Disallowed since not used in conjunction with WPA2-AES)
WPA2-TKIP (Disallowed due to eliminating TKIP)
WPA2-AES (Certified and allowed)
WPA2-TKIP/AES (Disallowed due to WPA2-TKIP)
WPA1-TKIP + WPA2-TKIP (Disallowed – no AES support)
WPA1-TKIP + WPA2-AES (Certified and allowed)
WPA1-TKIP + WPA2-TKIP/AES (Disallowed due to WPA2-TKIP)
WPA1-AES + WPA2-TKIP (Disallowed due to WPA2-TKIP)
WPA1-AES + WPA2-AES (Allowed by Extension Policy)
WPA1-AES + WPA2-TKIP/AES (Disallowed due to WPA2-TKIP)
WPA1-TKIP/AES + WPA2-TKIP (Disallowed due to WPA2-TKIP)
WPA1-TKIP/AES + WPA2-AES (Allowed by Extension Policy)
WPA1-TKIP/AES + WPA2-TKIP/AES (Disallowed due to WPA2-TKIP)

Other SSIDs and security configurations are not impacted, including Open SSIDs, any SSID that currently has AES enabled, and WEP SSIDs.

UPDATE: Due to user feedback, Cisco and the WFA finally settled on making the above restrictions in the GUI only. If you still have a business need for a WPA/TKIP SSID, you can configure it from the CLI. If you were building an SSID on a Cisco WLC with an ID of 6, you would use the following commands for example:

config wlan create 6 TKIP-ONLY
config wlan security wpa wpa2 disable 6
config wlan security wpa wpa1 enable 6
config wlan security wpa wpa1 ciphers tkip enable 6

Using the show commands you can validate that this configuration took at the CLI:

show wlan 6
…
Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA/WPA2)…………. Enabled
WPA (SSN IE)…………………………. Enabled
TKIP Cipher……………………….. Enabled
AES Cipher………………………… Disabled
WPA2 (RSN IE)………………………… Disabled