Intel vPro wireless support

Intel vPro devices (version 2.5 and later) with wireless capabilities can be managed out-of-band via a wireless LAN connection when they are powered on and the wireless interface is active. If a notebook is in sleep mode, it can be managed out-of-band only if it is connected to a wired LAN and to AC power.

When the notebook is powered up, the Intel Active Management Technology (Intel AMT) chip on the notebook communicates with the wireless LAN driver. If Intel AMT finds a matching profile, the driver will route traffic addressed to the Intel AMT device. Even if there is a problem with the driver, Intel AMT can receive out-of-band management traffic from the wireless network interface.

For wireless management, an Intel vPro 2.5 notebook needs to have a wireless profile correctly configured by the network administrator so that Intel AMT communication with the notebook is secure. For Intel vPro 2.6 and later notebooks, the wireless profile is not required for most management features, but is required to use serial-over-LAN (SOL) and IDE-redirection (IDE-R) functionality.

IMPORTANT: For Intel AMT to work with a wireless LAN connection, it must share IP addresses with the notebook. To do this, Intel AMT must be configured to use DHCP and there must be a DHCP server available to allocate IP addresses. If Intel AMT is configured to use static IP addresses, wireless connectivity will be disabled.

LANDesk Management Suite lets you define a wireless profile for Intel Centrino Pro notebooks so you can manage them out of band as described above. When you define a profile you can then deploy it to one or more devices.

To create and deploy an Intel vPro wireless profile

1. In the All devices list, right-click a managed Intel vPro device and select Intel vPro Wireless Profiles.
2. Click Create Profile.
3. Under Profile configuration, enter the following information:
   
   Profile name: type a descriptive name that will appear in the Profile list.
   SSID: type the wireless network's name.
   Authentication: select a method for managing wireless authentication, either Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA-PSK) or Robust Secure Network (RSN-PSK).
   Encryption: select an encryption algorithm for wireless communication, either Temporal Key Integrity Protocol (TKIP) or Counter Mode CBC MAC Protocol (CCMP).
   Passphrase: enter and confirm a passphrase or 802.1x profile for authentication.
   
   
4. Click OK.
5. To edit or delete a profile, select the profile and click Modify profile or Delete profile.
6. To apply the wireless profile to the device, select the profile in the list and click Set profile.
7. To apply the same profile to another Intel vPro device, right-click the device, select Intel vPro Wireless Profiles, select the profile from the list, and click Set profile.
8. To select a default wireless profile for all newly managed mobile Intel vPro devices, click Configure > Intel vPro options > General configuration and select the profile from the Default wireless profile list.

NOTE: When a notebook has been discovered and provisioned while connected to a wired network, it can be managed through the wired network immediately. However, when the notebook switches to a wireless connection there can be a delay before Intel vPro management is enabled for the notebook. This is due to a change in how the computer name is resolved in DNS on the network. The wireless IP address for the notebook is different than the IP address on the wired network, so there is a delay before the new IP address for the notebook matches the computer name.