The SmartZone Trace Tool is a dedicated troubleshooting utility designed to capture and display network packets exchanged between the SmartZone controller and a specific Access Point (AP) or client device. This functionality provides the necessary packet-level visibility to diagnose and resolve communication failures, such as issues with the control and provisioning of wireless access points (CAPWAP/LWAPP) tunnels. The tool allows administrators to filter captures and download the results in a .pcap format for detailed analysis in applications like Wireshark.

A. AP Debug Mode: This enables more verbose logging on the AP itself, providing detailed system messages and events, but it does not capture raw network packets.

C. Network Health Dashboard: This offers a high-level, graphical overview of the network's status, performance metrics, and trends, not granular packet-level data for troubleshooting.

D. Cluster Diagnostics: This tool is used to troubleshoot health, synchronization, and communication issues between the controller nodes within a SmartZone cluster.

1. RUCKUS SmartZone 6.0.0 Administrator Guide (Part Number: 800-72839-001, Rev A)

Chapter 43: Troubleshooting Tools, Section: "Using the Trace Tool", Page 1118: "The Trace Tool allows you to capture and view packets that are sent between the controller and an AP or a client device... You can use the Trace Tool to troubleshoot AP-to-controller communication failures..."

2. RUCKUS SmartZone 5.2.1 Administrator Guide (Part Number: 800-72191-001, Rev B)

Chapter 41: Troubleshooting Tools, Section: "Using the Trace Tool", Page 1012: "The Trace Tool allows you to capture and view packets that are sent between the controller and an AP or a client device. The Trace Tool captures packets on the controller's control plane interface... You can use the Trace Tool to troubleshoot AP-to-controller communication failures..."

3. RUCKUS SmartZone 3.6.2 Administrator Guide (Part Number: 800-71651-001, Rev A)

Chapter 35: Troubleshooting Tools, Section: "Using the Trace Tool", Page 788: This section provides a similar description, confirming the tool's purpose is to "capture and view packets that are sent between the controller and an AP or a client device." This demonstrates the long-standing function of this specific tool.