An engineer wants to upgrade the APs in a Cisco FlexConnect group. To accomplish this upgrade, the FlexConnect AP Upgrade setting will be used. One AP of each model with the lowest MAC address in the group must receive the upgrade directly from the controller. Which action accomplishes this direct upgrade?

The Cisco FlexConnect AP Upgrade feature is designed to conserve WAN bandwidth by having only one "master" AP per model within a FlexConnect group download the new software image from the controller. The other "slave" APs then download the image from the master AP over the local network. The controller automatically selects the AP with the lowest MAC address as the master. An administrator has the option to manually override this and set a specific AP as the master. To ensure the default behavior occurs (where the AP with the lowest MAC is chosen), the administrator should simply enable the feature and not manually configure any master AP.

A. Remove the APs from the group: This action is incorrect because the FlexConnect AP Upgrade feature operates on a group basis. Removing APs from the group would defeat the purpose of the feature.
B. Reboot all APs before the upgrade: Rebooting APs is not a required configuration step to enable the FlexConnect upgrade process; the upgrade itself will trigger a reboot after the image transfer.
C. Allocate the master APs to different groups: This is incorrect and counterproductive. Moving the designated master AP to a different group would break the master-slave relationship for the original group's upgrade process.

1. Cisco Wireless Controller Configuration Guide, Release 8.10, "FlexConnect" Chapter, "Configuring FlexConnect AP Upgrade (GUI)" section: "When you enable FlexConnect AP upgrade, the controller chooses one AP of each model as the master AP. The master AP downloads the image from the controller and the slave APs download the image from the master AP. The controller selects the AP with the lowest MAC address as the master AP. You can also manually configure a specific AP as the master AP for a FlexConnect group. If you do not want to configure a master AP, the controller automatically chooses a master AP." This directly supports that not setting a master AP results in the desired default behavior.

2. Cisco AireOS Command Reference, Release 8.10, config flexconnect group command description: The command config flexconnect group master-ap add is used to manually set a master AP. The absence of this configuration invokes the automatic selection process, which aligns with the correct answer.