WLANController.com public beta is now available. If you haven’t already heard about it, WLAN Controller is a service that leverages your existing Windows based computers for WiFi networking!

We are very excited about this cloud based Wireless LAN (WLAN) controller that can manage soft access points and scanners. We eliminated the need for any new hardware or software by using the WiFi capabilities available in Windows based computers that exist in almost every organization. See the bottom of the post for some very amazing information about Windows 7**.

WLAN Controller Video

Check out video below of me using a Windows Vista computer as a remote WiFi scanner. Pretty cool stuff.

Centrally Manage Windows 7, Vista, XP Soft Access Points and Scanners

The results of our efforts are the WLAN Controller service and client. The WLANController.com dashboard can be accessed from any type of modern browser and we have clients today for Microsoft operating systems (Windows 7, Vista, and XP) and plan to release clients for other operating systems in the near future.

Use the WLANController.com service to:

• Create an infinitely scalable WiFi network for work or recreation
• Centrally configure and manage hundreds of devices
• Run remote wireless scans to discover interfering and rogue access points
• Software only solution, zero additional hardware required

Use WLAN Controller client software to:

• Convert your Windows 7 computers into WiFi access points and scanners
• Convert your Windows Vista and XP computers into WiFi scanners
• Access point operates in background with no impact to computer
• Share business or home broadband Internet

WLAN Controller Account Request

To get an account during the public beta period do the following.

1) Follow me @wlanbook on Twitter.
&
2) Request an invite using our account request form.

.

Visit http://wlancontroller.com to learn more about the software and service.

**On July 22, 2010 Microsoft reported that they have sold more than 175 million Windows 7 licenses. As of 7/22/10 – Windows 7 is now running on more than 16% of all PCs worldwide and is the fastest selling operating system in history [source].

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Some how I missed the release of this free web based WiFi Stumbler from Meraki. A very clean and well implemented scanner using Java that works on Macs and PCs.

SSID-Channel distribution graph – This graph shows how many visible SSIDs are being broadcast in each channel of the 2.4Ghz and 5GHz wireless spectrums. This information can help you plan your channel selection to utilize channels that are most clear of interference.
Search field – Search for open networks, specific manufacturers of access points, a particular SSID or MAC address or any other string in the scan results using this field. You can also use standard Google search syntax. Click on “Advanced search” to expose a variety of filters to easily customize your displayed results.
Network list – This section lists useful information about the wireless networks that are visible to WiFi Stumbler. You can sort the list by any column by clicking on the header for that column.

Description of information presented in each column in the Network list:
SSID – Name of SSID. Hidden SSIDs will appear as blank (all other columns will be filled in)
MAC Address (BSSID) – Hardware address of access point
Radio Type – Wireless protocol of network (802.11b/g, 802.11a or 802.11n)
Channel – Wireless channel that the network is operating on
Signal Strength (dB) – Signal level of network in RSSI (Received Signal Strength Indication). Since RSSI outputs from different client cards can vary, these signals are best used as a relative measure of signal strength when comparing networks
Manufacturer – Name of manufacturer of access point
Security – Wireless security protocol in use (or Open if none)
Last Seen – Last time a response or beacon from this network was received

Great Time To Be In WiFi Industry

It is great to see vendors and WLAN professionals releasing so many useful tools and sharing information for building, securing, and managing wireless/WiFi networks.

Try it out here.

Seeing this tool inspires me to add more visualization to our web based based wireless access point rogue scanner.

I’ll have to update my list of Netstumbler alternatives and add this great tool.

If there are any other free tools that I seem to have missed let me know.

© 2008 Copyright WLANBook.com

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Why I like the iPad as a platform for WiFi tools such as a WiFi scanner or WiFi site survey tool:

Display – Nice big display compared to the iPhone. Anyone that has conducted WiFi site surveys for millions of square feet knows that having a big laptop screen is useful. The 9.7-inch (diagonal) multi-touch display isn’t huge but should work well for WiFi site surveys.

Size and Weight – The bigger the screen the better..but with size comes weight. While having a 16 inch screen is ideal..an 8 pound laptop for site surveys feels like a 1000 pounds after a few hours of surveying. For me, the perfect screen size for a WiFi Scanner/Site Survey laptop is around 13 inches. The iPad’s 9.7 inch diagonal screen may end up being a little small but for most scanning and surveying it should work well. At around 9.56 inches by 7.47 inches and 1.6 pounds for the WiFi + 3G model the iPad is perfect for carrying around all day long.

Battery and Power – Per Apple’s website the iPad “has up to 10 hours of surfing the web on W-Fi”. Even if the battery life is closer to 7 hours…that is enough for a full day of WiFI scanning and surveying. When scanning a wireless card isn’t transmitting so hopefully the iPad’s battery life is closer to 10 hours when used as a scanner.

Processor and Performance – For large survey projects it helps to have a powerful processor that is responsive when clicking/tapping the screen and also can handle the larger number access points and WiFi devices that sometimes need to get tracked during scanning and surveying. The 1GHz Apple A4 processor is unknown since it is so new so hopefully it is a powerful as marketed by Apple.

Wireless Features – The iPad supports 802.11 a/b/g/n so it has all the capabilities needed for the major WiFi types deployed by organizations today. The iPad will connect at the full speeds to any type of network for any speed testing or active surveying.

iPad Is Value Priced and Feature Rich

At $499 ($523.95 after tax) the iPad with Wi-Fi only and 16GB of storage is a great platform for WiFi tools. We hope to port our very popular (and free) WiFi Scanner app for Snow Leopard to iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch and add/enhance the tool for wireless site surveys.

iPad/iPhone OS SDK for WiFi Tools

Currently there is is no way to access the information we need from the iPhone/iPad OS without using a private framework. This isn’t a big deal in terms of creating the application but if we want the app available in the App Store then we have play by Apple’s rules which means waiting for a updated OS and SDK to be released. Apple usually realeases major iPhone/iPad OS updates once a year around this time so hopefully the next major release will provide a documented way to access to 802.11/WiFi information that meets our needs for porting our WiFi Scanner to the iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch platform.

iPad/iPhone WiFi Scanner/Site Survey Tool Features Requests

If you have any feature requests for a WiFi Scanner and Site Survey Tool on the iPad let us know. Check out our WiFi Scanner for Mac OS X for what is possible.

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iPhone WiFi Scanner Apps Banned By Apple

Apple has just banned iPhone WiFi Scanner apps from the iTunes store that use a “private framework” to scan for WiFi networks.

Below are some of the apps that have been removed from app store.

• WiFi-Where
• WiFiTrack
• WiFiFoForum
• yFy Network Finder
• WiFi Get
• eWifi
• WiFi Analyzer

An email to one developer from Apple stated that because “…There are no published APIs that provide the ability to manipulate the wireless connection or the show level of information regarding the wireless connection as demonstrated in the application….” their app was removed from the app store.

While this is not good news for existing app developers, I think Apple may be cleaning up things in preparation for providing standard methods to access WiFI information in the SDK for the iPhone and iPad.

They already provide standard methods of scanning for WiFi devices in Mac OS X. We currently use these methods for our WiFi Scanner app that works in Snow Leopard.

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The AirPort item in the menu bar now includes signal strength for all available wireless networks, so you can see which access point has the best signal before selecting it. Four signal bars appear in the AirPort status icon in the menu bar. The more bars that are black, the higher the signal quality. The bars do not indicate the connection rate, as this will vary according to your environment. [source]

While I like the simplicity of the four levels of signal strength above I sometimes need signal strength in dBm. dBm is a more granular way of describing the wireless signal strength.

dBm (sometimes dBmW) is an abbreviation for the power ratio in decibels (dB) of the measured power referenced to one milliwatt (mW). It is used in radio, microwave and fiber optic networks as a convenient measure of absolute power because of its capability to express both very large and very small values in a short form. Compare dBW, which is referenced to one watt (1000 mW). In the more granular information about the signal strength. [wikipedia]

Wireless Signal Strength Using the Snow Leopard Menu Bar

Clicking the option key and the signal strength menu icon will display detailed information about the currently connected wireless network.

PHY Mode – is the type of 802.11 WiFi network (802.11 a/b/g/n)
BSSID – is the MAC address of the access point
Channel – current 802.11 channel
Security – authentication and encryption type
RSSI – received signal strength indicator, aka the signal signal strength in dBm. The closer the number to 0 the stronger the signal.
Transmit Rate – the data rate of the current connection

Airport Signal Strength in dBm Using “About This Mac”

Wireless signal strength is also available using the About This Mac menu bar option and navigating to Network > Airport section.

RSSI Signal Strength Airport Command Line Utility

The airport utility is located at location below.

/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Versions/Current/Resources/airport -I

Will provide information about the current wireless connection.

$ airport -I
     agrCtlRSSI: -64
     agrExtRSSI: 0
    agrCtlNoise: -91
    agrExtNoise: 0
          state: running
        op mode: station
     lastTxRate: 48
        maxRate: 54
lastAssocStatus: 0
    802.11 auth: open
      link auth: wpa-psk
          BSSID: 0:b:55:6:6f:2f
           SSID: SSID
            MCS: -1
        channel: 1

Wireless Signal Strength Using Graphical Tools

WiFi Scanner is a free 802.11 wireless scanner and connection manager for Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard or later. It leverages the the newest CoreWLAN API in Snow Leopard. This will detect access points and clients in ad-hoc mode if the SSID is being broadcasted. It can be used for wireless site surveys, wireless discovery, and to connect to wifi networks. The tool reports signal strength in dBm and shows access point BSSID/MAC addresses.

© 2008 Copyright WLANBook.com

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Download updated WiFi Scanner v1.1

Free Mac OS X Wifi Scanner for Snow Leopard

WiFi Scanner is a free 802.11 wireless scanner and connection manager for Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard or later. This will detect access points and clients in ad-hoc mode if the SSID is being broadcasted. It can be used for wireless site surveys, wireless discovery, and to connect to wifi networks. The tool reports signal strength in dBm and shows access point BSSID/MAC addresses.

WiFi Scanner v1.0 Screenshots

WiFi Scanner v1.0 has the two main screens shown below.

WiFi Scanner User Guide

Interface Popup Button

The app supports a multiple interface scenario, whereby the machine could have several IEEE 802.11 wireless interfaces. The popup button on the top left corner of the app allows the user to select which interface should be set as the current interface. By default, the popup button will select the primary WLAN interface for the system.

Refresh Button

In the top right corner of the app, there is a push button entitled “Refresh”. This button provides different functionality depending on which tab is currently selected. If the Interface Info or Configuration tabs are selected, the button will refresh the information display in the currently selected tab. If the Scan tab is selected, the button will start a broadcast scan and block until the scan has completed.

Interface Info Tab

The tab entitled “Interface Info” contains information describing the static and dynamic state of the currently selected interface. Additionally, it allows the user to toggle interface power, disconnect from the current network, and change channels.

You will notice that you will not be able to change channels while connected to a network–this is by design. Attempting to do this would return a error. Furthermore, you will notice that when the interface is powered OFF, all the dynamic status information is cleared.

Scan Tab

The tab entitled “Scan” allows the user to scan for networks using the current interface. The scan results are shown in the table view and are automatically ordered by network name. For each network, there is several pieces of information displayed in the table row that describe that particular network.

There is a button in the checkbox left corner of the Scan tab which sets/unsets the parameter to merge the scan result with the same SSID.

And, there is a button in the bottom right corner of the Scan tab which allows the user to join the currently selected network in the table. A sheet will be presented upon clicking the Join button that will allow the user to provide the appropriate credentials for the given network.

WiFi Scanner Download

Click here to download WiFi Scanner v1.0 dmg install file.

Click here to download WiFi Scanner v1.0 zipped install file.

After the download completes, the application will uncompress the .dmg file and present the installer screen below. Drag the application to the Applications folder or click the WiFi Scanner.app file to launch the application directly from the folder.

WiFi Scanner Email List

[contact-form]

© 2008 Copyright WLANBook.com

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NetStumbler (also known as Network Stumbler) is a free/”beggarware” tool for Windows that can detect WiFi/Wireless LANs using the 802.11b, 802.11a and 802.11g WLAN standards.

An alternative to Netstumbler that works on Linux is called Kismet and uses RFMON to passively detect networks.

Wireless Extension (WE) and Wireless Tools (WT)

If you only have basic wireless detection/scanning requirements on Linux you can use Wireless Extensions (WE) and Wireless Tools (WT) that are usually already included in most Linux distributions.

The Wireless Extension (WE) is a generic API allowing a driver to expose to the user space configuration and statistics specific to common Wireless LANs. The beauty of it is that a single set of tool can support all the variations of Wireless LANs, regardless of their type (as long as the driver supports Wireless Extension). Another advantage is these parameters may be changed on the fly without restarting the driver (or Linux).

The Wireless Tools (WT) is a set of tools allows manipulation of the Wireless Extensions (WE). They use a textual interface and are rather crude, but aim to support the full Wireless Extension. There are many other tools you can use with Wireless Extensions, however Wireless Tools is the reference implementation.

• iwconfig manipulate the basic wireless parameters
• iwlist allow to initiate scanning and list frequencies, bit-rates, encryption keys…
• iwspy allow to get per node link quality
• iwpriv allow to manipulate the Wireless Extensions specific to a driver (private)
• ifrename allow to name interfaces based on various static criteria

Linux Wireless Tools Example

The examples below are from my Nokia N800 Internet tablet. It is running a Debian based Linux and has the Linux wireless tools.

Nokia N800 iwlist wlan0 scanning

Using iwconfig I can see which interfaces support the wireless extensions.

Nokia-N800-23-14:~# iwconfig
lo        no wireless extensions.

wlan0     IEEE 802.11b/g  ESSID:"venetian"
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.462 GHz  Access Point: 00:0B:85:FF:FF:FF
          Bit Rate=54 Mb/s   Tx-Power=19 dBm   Sensitivity=0/200
          RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:on
          Link Quality=44/0  Signal level=-49 dBm  Noise level=-93 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:83  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

Nokia-N800-23-14:~#

In my case wlan0 will be used with Linux wireless tools to get similar information to what Netstumbler provides.

Results for iwlist wlan0 scanning command are below.

Nokia-N800-23-14:~# iwlist wlan0 scanning
wlan0     Scan completed :
          Cell 01 - Address: 00:0B:85:FF:FF:FF
                    ESSID:"venetian"
                    Mode:Master
                    Encryption key:on
                    Channel:11
                    Quality:43/0  Signal level:-51 dBm  Noise level:-94 dBm
                    IE: WPA Version 1
                        Group Cipher : TKIP
                        Pairwise Ciphers (1) : TKIP
                        Authentication Suites (1) : PSK
          Cell 02 - Address: 00:0F:66:FF:FF:FF
                    ESSID:"linksys"
                    Mode:Master
                    Encryption key:off
                    Channel:6
                    Quality:10/0  Signal level:-84 dBm  Noise level:-94 dBm
          Cell 03 - Address: 00:A0:C5:FF:FF:FF
                    ESSID:""
                    Mode:Master
                    Encryption key:on
                    Channel:11
                    Quality:43/0  Signal level:-51 dBm  Noise level:-94 dBm
          Cell 04 - Address: 00:0B:85:FF:FF:FF
                    ESSID:"venetian"
                    Mode:Master
                    Encryption key:on
                    Channel:1
                    Quality:37/0  Signal level:-57 dBm  Noise level:-94 dBm
                    IE: WPA Version 1
                        Group Cipher : TKIP
                        Pairwise Ciphers (1) : TKIP
                        Authentication Suites (1) : PSK

Note: In the results above I have edited the MAC addresses of the access points.

Graphical User Interfaces for Wireless Tools on Linux

Many GUI configuration and management tools are available if you need a graphical view of wireless tools. Below is a screen shot of KWiFiManager, a set of KDE tools using Wireless Extensions.

KWiFiManager - GUI Interface for Wireless Tools

© 2008 Copyright WLANBook.com

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