Anchor Group

Location in GUI: Design » Network Settings » Wireless » Anchor Groups

Anchor Groups are used in non-SDA-fabric (traditional/FlexConnect) deployments for guest traffic tunneling via the foreign-anchor WLC architecture. In SDA fabric deployments, guest traffic is handled natively by the fabric and anchor groups are not needed. Anchor Groups are referenced by Wireless Profiles via the anchor_group_name field in ssid_details — see Wireless Network Profiles.

Example 1: Anchor group with a single managed anchor WLC (controller managed by Catalyst Center):

catalyst_center:
  wireless:
    anchor_groups:
      - name: AG_Guest
        mobility_anchors:
          - device_name: C9800-CL-WLC
            ip_address: 10.0.0.1
            anchor_priority: PRIMARY
            managed_anchor_wlc: true

Example 2: Anchor group with multiple managed anchors for redundancy:

catalyst_center:
  wireless:
    anchor_groups:
      - name: AG_Guest_HA
        mobility_anchors:
          - device_name: WLC-ANCHOR-1
            ip_address: 10.0.0.1
            anchor_priority: PRIMARY
            managed_anchor_wlc: true
          - device_name: WLC-ANCHOR-2
            ip_address: 10.0.0.2
            anchor_priority: SECONDARY
            managed_anchor_wlc: true

Example 3: Anchor group with an external (unmanaged) anchor WLC requiring additional mobility fields:

catalyst_center:
  wireless:
    anchor_groups:
      - name: AG_External
        mobility_anchors:
          - device_name: EXT-WLC-ANCHOR
            ip_address: 172.16.0.1
            anchor_priority: PRIMARY
            managed_anchor_wlc: false
            peer_device_type: IOS-XE
            mac_address: "aa:bb:cc:00:00:01"
            mobility_group_name: default

Note: Anchor groups support up to 3 mobility anchors per group. When managed_anchor_wlc is false (external anchor), the fields peer_device_type, mac_address, and mobility_group_name are required by the API. For managed anchors, the device_name can be the short hostname — the module automatically resolves it to the FQDN from the Catalyst Center inventory.