Posts

CWAP Study Notes Files

A while back I published my CWAP study notes on another blogging platform which I've since abandoned. I've had another request to re-publish them, so here they are for your reading pleasure. Note that these apply to an older version of the CWAP exam, but still have some great information summarized in there. Here are the files I put together for each chapter. I fizzled out note-taking wise at chapter 10 (802.11 HT) , hence its omission from this list (sorry!). CWAP study note files: Chapter 1 - 802.11 Overview Chapter 2 - Physical Layer Format Chapter 3 - 802.11 MAC Sub-layer Frame Format Chapter 4 - 802.11 Management Frames Chapter 5 - 802.1 Control Frames Chapter 6 - Data Frames Chapter 7 - 802.11 Medium Contention Chapter 8 - Power Management Chapter 9  802.11 Security

Getting Data Out of the Windows ‘netsh wlan show interfaces’ Command

Image
I recently read a very nice article by Matt Frederick about using a Windows command prompt utility to gain information about what your Windows wireless adapter is up to while connected to a Wi-Fi network ( https://finesine.com/2016/09/17/using-netsh-wlan-show-interfaces-to-monitor-associationroaming/) In  Matt’s article, he described how he wrapped the ‘netsh’ command into a nice little batch file to run the command regularly, allowing information to be presented in a more dynamic fashion. I was so impressed with the information provided by the utility, that I decided I’d  try to get the information it provides into a more usable format. In short, I hacked together a Windows Powersell script that runs the ‘netsh’ CLI utility regularly and parses the output data into a CSV format. By piping the output into a file, you can get a nice CSV file that can be opened in Excel to look at the raw data over a period of time. It’s great for looking at the adapter signal level and BSSID

802.3af Is Dead (For Surveys)

Image
I’ve recently been involved with a project that has brought me into contact with a number of wireless engineers who are performing WLAN survey work using the traditional “AP on a stick” (APOAS) survey method. Yes, there are plenty of people out there who still prefer this method, or have customers who demand it. One thing that has become apparent is that a number of people are still using power sources (generally a battery pack) for their survey AP that still only supports the 802.3af POE (power over Ethernet) standard. The time has come for those using these legacy power supplies to make an investment and  upgrade their AP power packs to support the higher power provided by the 802.3at standard. The next generation of wireless access points simply won’t allow the continued use of 802.3af power packs, due to the enhanced power requirements of modern APs. Background Until relatively recently, many Enterprise grade wireless access points have been able to work with the