Wireshark · Wireshark-users: Re: [Wireshark-users] Using Wireshark to capture signal strengthanddata rate for 802.11 packets

["Craig Wicker" <CWicker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I had purchased Sniffer many, many years ago. The Cisco wireless driver came out around release 4.7.0; and to the best of my knowledge does not use WinPCap. I only use Sniffer's driver when wanting to see control info and such; otherwise, I unload the Sniffer wireless driver and reload the 'stock' software driver as found on the Cisco website. WireShark captures wireless data quite well on this card, and I'm not always wanting or needing to view control info, channel info, strength when those metrics are not the issue or objective at hand. 
I would like to state from a user standpoint; I believe that particular  wireless card, with the Sniffer software driver to be more 'sensitive', if that is the correct term. I only use wireless at  one remote site on my network. That site houses a trade show, with many, perhaps upwards of  20 other wireless networks,  running wide open, at the same time. The Sniffer driver can 'see' networks four floors away [counted nine networks], the stock driver can only 'see' the adjacent  floor [counted three networks].  However, there may be a coupling effect,  all my wireless internetworking equipment are Cisco branded; 1200-series antennas, switches and routers and wireless cards. Perhaps, this may allow for the better 'sensitivity' mentioned earlier, when used with a driver designed for the single purpose of capturing wireless data.

________________________________

From: wireshark-users-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxx on behalf of Guy Harris
Sent: Fri 6/30/2006 5:12 PM
To: Community support list for Wireshark
Subject: Re: [Wireshark-users] Using Wireshark to capture signal strengthanddata rate for 802.11 packets



Craig Wicker wrote:
> I have a Cisco Aironet 350 wireless card. I use the software driver
> furnished by Network General's Sniffer program for this device to
> capture this information.
>
> IEEE 802.11
> Data Rate: 1.0 Mb/s
> Channel: 5
> Signal Strength: 75%
> Type/Subtype: Beacon frame (8)
>
> Dell Laptop WinXP SP2. I must stress the driver used is not one I've
> found anyplace other than Network General.

Does it require you to buy the Sniffer to get it?  I think the suppliers
of commercial network analyzers for Windows write their own drivers for
wireless cards in order to do capture, as the standard drivers, and
NDIS, are extraordinarily unhelpful for capturing.  (It would be Truly
Wonderful if Microsoft were to provide a mechanism for doing "raw
802.11" captures in Vista, complete with radio headers.  I'm not holding
my breath waiting, however; the document I saw on "Native 802.11", or
whatever they call it, wasn't very encouraging.  And even that would
leave pre-Vista systems out.)

Also, does it plug into WinPcap to do capturing?  Or do you capture with
Sniffer and then have Wireshark read the captures?
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