cisco-wnc-cli

A command-line interface for Cisco Catalyst 9800 Wireless Network Controllers.

Overview

This CLI manages wireless LANs across multiple Cisco Catalyst 9800 Wireless Network Controllers.

🌐 Unified Views: Reads multiple WLCs at once, so load-balanced APs share one table
🔭 Joined Rows: Combines several RESTCONF models into one row per radio, AP or client
💻️ Shell Friendly: Provides borderless tables for grep, awk, sed and cut, and JSON for jq
🎨 Flexible Output: Supports --pretty for humans, and --format json for machines and AIs

Supported Environment

Cisco Catalyst 9800 Wireless Network Controller running on:

Cisco IOS-XE 17.12.5 or later – Last verified on 17.12.8, with no wnc deauth before 17.15.6
Cisco IOS-XE 17.15.6 or later – Last verified on 17.15.6
Cisco IOS-XE 17.18.4a or later – Last verified on 17.18.4a

Important

This CLI requires these minimum versions due to RESTCONF defects in earlier releases.
It fails on 17.15.4b and 17.18.1.
See cisco-ios-xe-wireless-go #28 and cisco-ios-xe-wireless-go #29 for details.

Installation

This CLI supports container images and OS-specific binaries.

docker pull ghcr.io/umatare5/wnc

Or, download the binaries from Releases.
(linux|darwin)_(amd64|arm64) and windows_amd64 are supported.

Quick Start

This CLI requires RESTCONF and HTTPS to be enabled on the Cisco Catalyst 9800 beforehand.

See the Programmability Configuration Guide, Cisco IOS XE 17.15.x – RESTCONF for enabling them.

1. Generate a Basic Auth token

read -rs WNC_PASSWORD # < your-password
printf '%s' "$WNC_PASSWORD" | wnc generate-token -u admin
# Output: YWRtaW46eW91ci1wYXNzd29yZA== (admin:your-password)

2. Set the environment variables

export WNC_CONTROLLER="wnc1.example.internal"
export WNC_ACCESS_TOKEN="YWRtaW46eW91ci1wYXNzd29yZA=="

3. Print a wireless overview

wnc show overview

Tip

wnc completion <shell> writes the script to stdout, and --help names each shell and the line it needs.

CLI Reference

This CLI groups commands by purpose. Each links to a section showing its output.

Show commands

These commands read a controller and print a table or JSON. See Show commands for details.

Command	Description
`wnc show overview`	One row per radio, with RF summary across 2.4, 5 and 6 GHz
`wnc show ap`	One row per associated access point
`wnc show ap-join`	One row per access point's join, discovery and DTLS outcome
`wnc show ap-tag`	One row per access point, with assigned and resolved tags
`wnc show client`	One row per associated wireless client
`wnc show wlan`	One row per WLAN and its bound policy profile
`wnc show policy-tag`	One row per policy tag and the WLANs it binds
`wnc show site-tag`	One row per site tag and the profiles it names
`wnc show rf-tag`	One row per RF tag and its per-band RF profiles

Action commands

These commands act on a controller in order. See Action commands for details.

Command	Description
`wnc reset ap`	Restart one access point
`wnc reset capwap`	Reset one access point's controller session
`wnc (enable\|disable) (ap\|radio)`	Enable or disable one access point or one radio
`wnc set (policy\|site\|rf)-tag`	Create or update one tag on a controller
`wnc delete (policy\|site\|rf)-tag`	Delete one tag from a controller
`wnc deauth`	Deauthenticate one client by MAC or username

Other commands

These commands stand outside both groups for specific reasons. See Other commands for details.

Command	Description
`wnc generate-token`	Generate the Basic auth token for a controller account
`wnc save-config`	Save the running configuration to the startup configuration

Help

--help lists commands and flags. See Help for all transcripts except completion.

Customization

This CLI reads its settings from flags, environment variables and a config file. See Customization for the details.

Documentation

Both pages below are written for a contributor rather than an operator.

Architecture – the output contract, the absence rule, the exit codes, and the write order
Measurements – every reading taken on a live controller, and the gaps
Troubleshooting – every error message this CLI prints, and what each one means

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md for the development setup, the test conventions and the release steps.

License

MIT. The binary statically links MIT and BSD 3-Clause dependencies, so their notices are reproduced in NOTICE.
LICENSE ships beside it in every release archive and container image.