Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Devices to monitor wireless networks

[Justin Hao]

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you're using cisco lwapp/controller based APs and you're having a weird issue where APs will randomly shut off their radios or wipe their wlan configurations? -Justin gwill...@uccs.edu wrote: Never thought about that before, but what I would do is monitor my logins per controller.  I would say use your syslog software, if you currently use any, to set up an alert that says if client authentications drop below 700/hour during peak periods, then send an alert or warning. The other thing to consider is if you have multiple controllers and SSIDs are only failing on one controller, how do you know that there is a problem if you don’t have a computer listening to SSIDs on each controller?    I think we may have had the problem you are talking about once or twice, but each time, the controllers were up, so our service software told us there was nothing wrong with the controller itself, but the APs needed to be rebooted, that’s why I think monitoring authentication usage may be a better idea.   From: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv [mailto:WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU] On Behalf Of Nathan Hay Sent: Wednesday, October 14, 2009 1:11 PM To: WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU Subject: [WIRELESS-LAN] Devices to monitor wireless networks   Has anyone built a dedicated computer/device that you deploy on the network for the purpose of verifying that your SSIDs are working?   For example, a computer with a wired connection and wireless connection that connects to a given SSID and "repairs" the wireless connection every 5 or 10 minutes and then reports if it can't connect?   We have multiple wireless controllers and when an SSID has problems for whatever reason we often don't hear about it until the phone starts ringing.  I'd like to be more pro-active and develop something that can automatically test the integrity of our SSIDs and alert us to problems.   I'd also like to use these devices for remote wireless packet capture when support wants us to capture whatever is going over the air.   Any suggestions for hardware/software for such a purpose would be appreciated.  I don't want to re-invent the wheel if someone has already done this.   Thanks,   Nathan           Nathan P. Hay Network Engineer Computer Services Cedarville University www.cedarville.edu ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. -- Justin Hao Network Engineer Texas A&M University Networking and Information Security j...@tamu.edu (979)862-2162 ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.