Magical Musings of WiFi

If you are looking for a quick replacement of your Ekahau Sidekick's Power Supply, look no further.  I'm only posting this because I was in an emergency moment where I had forgot mine and it took awhile to even find the part # or think I was going to have to pay over $100.00 to even get it from the places we'd normally look. There is nothing special to the adapter and it is widely available and you can get it shipped quickly.  I'll also save you the time:  No - unless you know someone else with on in the city you are working in, you will be SOL to find this locally anywhere for sale unless you can physically drive to a place like Newark and hope that their site near you is the distribution site.  I'd recommend calling first. The model is VEC65US24 (VEF65US24 is the same exact power specs as above and will work but this could void your Sidekick warranty since it's not the exact same one.) I'm going to give a shout out to Newark  https://www....

I made a statement that Android Pie had broken WLAN scanning features.  This is still the case, but I also found that Android 10 (Q) has fixed it.  I've tested this with the app WiFi Analyzer I also have found another option called  Wi-Fi Verbose Logging which works for all versions of Android First we need to turn on  Developer options https://developer.android.com/studio/debug/dev-options On Android 4.1 and lower, the Developer options screen is available by default. On Android 4.2 and higher, you must enable this screen as follows: Open the Settings app. (Only on Android 8.0 or higher) Select System. Scroll to the bottom and select About phone. Scroll to the bottom and tap Build number 7 times. Return to the previous screen to find Developer options near the bottom. The next step would be to go to your go to settings then system. You'll then see these wonderful options (Pre Android 10, only Wi-Fi Verb...

I found a nice tidbit today within dialer codes of Android phones. This will help provide the BSSID, RSSI, TX and RX Rates and other helpful information when doing client testing. So we all know that client testing on Android has been broken since Android Pie ( https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/79906367#comment15 ) and Google says they are not looking to fix it as it's a feature for battery savings.  What does that mean?  All your favorite wifi scanning apps are essentially broken or just too slow to really get any usable data.  Aside from some PING applications - what else can you do? Well, I found it and here it is: Go to your dialer app and type in  *#*#4636#*#* You'll first see Go to Wi-Fi Information And then go to Wi-Fi status I have found that the refresh rate for the RSSI is much faster than any of the programs like Analyzer can provide as well as the TX and RX rates and you can even see the BSSID. Hope th...

If you are reading this - I'm going to assume you are familiar with two things. 1. How the CAPWAP Process Works.  If not read: http://www.revolutionwifi.net/revolutionwifi/2010/11/capwap-controller-discovery-process_23.html 2. How bad of an idea it is to assign static IP addresses to APs on your Cisco WLC network. If not read: Just don't. So I was brought onto a call.  There are migrations going on where the network consists of APs in a large spread out geography and was designed utilizing Flexconnect.  These APs are moving from one controller to another as well as a redesigned address space. You'd think - Well, this won't be so bad with CAPWAP and DHCP.  You are right butttttt everyone forgot to run on the WLC config ap static-ip delete (ap name or all) or couldn't do this because they needed the AP to the last minute before the cut-over.  You could also accomplish this in the GUI. What happens when a cut-over has been fully completed ...

It has been over a decade since I've taken the CWNA.  I think a lot of the concepts are the same for anyone else who has also taken that.  I've been doing this for 10+ years and I didn't feel too much of a need to study and was able to pass this while only brushing up on some of the newer stuff like roaming and 802.11ac. The topic I got the lowest score in was for troubleshooting.  I can't get into details but the questions are very much a "it depends," and not black and white but whatever, I passed it. I also took the CWDP and passed that - If you've been in the WLAN field for more than 5 years and do designs on the regular, just go in and take it.  It was that easy BUT that is due to my experience.  I did decide to review some of the CWDP materials and I had most of 80% of it all in my head and just rounded the things out to make sure but you can also round/process of elimination those questions on the test in your head. The CWAP and CWSP ar...

I still think a lot of people don't realize how many companies and tech solutions providers are still living in 2012 when it comes to WLAN design.  There has been a lot to learn from over the last 5-7 years and one of those things is in the use of Ekahau vs Airmagnet.  At this point, we cannot excuse using Airmagnet in most any instance except for specific US government cases.  If a company is dictating use of AM and AM only, it's safe to assume they are not up to date nor do they make attempts to further their adoption of good WLAN practices. I pulled this data from Indeed and Linkedin job boards. The things we can mine about the WLAN field and the state of wireless via job advertisements is always interesting. On Indeed - jobs with Airmagnet vs Ekahau.  There are 70 WLAN jobs associated with Ekahau and there are 34 jobs using Airmagnet.  This is US based. Ekahau via Indeed US                 ...

What happens when you've done everything from the wifi side of diagnosis a problem dare I say a ghost problem? What if the situation within your network seems perfect, you can't find anything in packet captures, Prime or off your WLC - What other options do you have?  Luckily, I found plenty! One of the handiest tools I like to use when onsite and starting to check clients out is the NETSH command in command line. Doing a roaming analysis via the client versus on Prime isn't a bad thing some days to give you a real world perspective of when roams happen.  Of course, client debugging in WLCs help too but I figured I'd show you what I do when walking around with a laptop to see the BSSID you are connected to. I use  netsh wlan show interface  Which outputs this:     Name                   : Wi-Fi     Description            : Marvell ...