Connect aironet 1200AP to virtual WLC

[dlots]

I have an old aironet 1200 and I am trying to get it to connect to a WLC. My understanding is that I just need
•   a 9w8 IOS on it (currently running c1200-rcvk9w8-mx.124-21a.JA2)
•   DHCP option 43 pointing to the WLC, currently I have tried the following with no luck
o   option 43 hex 0ab00232
o   option 43 hex f1040ab00232
o   option 43 ip 10.176.2.50
Currently it's never even tried to send a packet to 10.176.2.50 (verified with packet captures).  Any idea what I am missing?

[dlots]

Seems like an AP issue, the AP never sends out a broadcast looking for the WLC, which it should

[SimonV]

You should be able to hard configure the controller from the CLI, maybe that helps?

[icecream-guy]

if it's not already , did you convert the AP to LWAP?

[dlots]

I tried hard-setting the WLC with no effect, and it didn't save the config (rebooting every few seconds).

when I try the boot from tftp://255.255.255.255/c1200-k9w7-tar.default it always craps out with check-sum errors, I can boot from the IOS if I copy it to flash:/c1200-k9w7-tar.default without any issues, and the MD5 checks out with Cisco's web-site, I am hoping that would upgrade it.