NAME¶
wavemon - a wireless network monitor
SYNOPSIS¶
wavemon [-h] [-i ifname ] [-l] [-r] [-v]
DESCRIPTION¶
wavemon is a ncurses-based monitoring application for wireless network
devices. It plots levels in real-time as well as showing wireless and network
related device information. Currently, wavemon is still based on the wireless
extensions by Jean Tourrilhes <jt@hpl.hp.com>.
The
wavemon interface splits into different "screens". Each
screen presents information in a specific manner. For example, the
"info" screen shows current levels as bargraphs, whereas the
"level" screen represents the same levels as a moving histogram.
On startup, you'll see (depending on configuration) one of the different monitor
screens. At the bottom, you'll find a
menu-bar listing the screens and
their activating keys. Each screen is activated by either the corresponding
function key or the key corresponding to the first character of the screen
name. The following screens can be selected:
- Info (F1 or 'i')
- This is the most comprehensive screen. It displays a condensed overview of
wireless-specific parameters and network statistics, as well as bar
graphs. The layout is arranged into several sub-sections.
The Interface section at the top shows information about the
monitoring interface, including interface name, type, ESSID, and available
encryption formats.
Below, in the Levels section, you can see up to four bargraphs
showing (1) relative signal quality and (2) signal level in dBm. If the
wireless driver also supports noise level information, additionally (3)
noise level in dBm and (4) Signal-Noise-Ratio (SNR) in dB are shown. The
colour of the signal level bargraph changes from red to yellow and green
at fixed levels. If thresholds have been set, two arrows on the signal
level graph will show the positions of the current thresholds.
The Statistics section displays packet and byte counters and a few
other packet-related statistics.
The subsequent Info subsection lists the current operational mode and
configuration of the wireless interface. What parameters are actually
shown depends on the capabilities and selected mode of your network
device.
Lastly, the Network section shows network-level parameters. The
MAC-address is resolved from ethers(5). The IPv4 address is shown
in CIDR notation (RFC 4632 address/prefix_len
format). Since often those two values also determine the broadcast address
(last 32 - prefix_len bits set to 1), that address is shown only if
it does not derive from the interface address and prefix length. Likewise,
the interface MTU is shown only if it differs from the default Ethernet
MTU of 1500 bytes.
- Level histogram (F2 or 'l')
- This is a full-screen histogram plot showing the evolution of levels with
time. The screen is partitioned into a grid, with dBm levels shown in
green at the right hand side (depending on configuration). At the very
minimum, the evolution of the signal-level is shown. If the wireless
driver also supports noise-level information, additionally a noise graph
and associated SNR graph appear.
- Scan window (F3 or 's')
- A periodically updated network scan, showing access points and other
wireless clients. It is sorted depending on sort_order and
sort_ascending, see wavemonrc(5). Each entry starts with the
ESSID, followed by the colour-coded MAC address and the signal/channel
information. A green/red MAC address indicates an (un-)encrypted access
point, the colour changes to yellow for non-access points (in this case
the mode is shown at the end of the line). The uncoloured information
following the MAC address lists relative and absolute signal strengths,
channel, frequency, and the mode if the node is not an access point. A
status line at the bottom informs about the current sort order and a few
statistics, such as most (least) crowded channels (least crowded channels
are listed when sorting by descending channel).
The sort_order can also directly be changed via these keyboard
shortcuts: ascending, descending; by essid,
signal, channel (C also with signal), or by
open access ( O also with signal).
Please note that gathering meaningful scan data can take several
seconds.
- Preferences (F7 or 'p')
- This screen allows you to change all program options such as interface and
level scale parameters, and to save the new settings to the configuration
file. Select a parameter with <up> and <down>, then change the
value with <left> and <right>. Please refer to
wavemonrc(5) for an in-depth description of applicable
settings.
- Help (F8 or 'h')
- This page might show an online-help.
- About (F9 or 'a')
- Release information and contact URLs.
- Quit (F10 or 'q')
- Exit wavemon.
Note: some operations, such as displaying encryption information or
performing scans, require
CAP_NET_ADMIN privileges (see
capabilities(7)). For non-root users, these can be enabled by
installing
wavemon setuid-root.
OPTIONS¶
- -i interface
- override autodetection and use the specified interface.
- -d
- dump interface parameters to stdout and exit.
- -g
- check screen geometry: a minimum size is required for proper
display; this flag adds a check to ensure it is sufficiently large. Enable
this if window does not display properly.
- -r
- generate random levels (for testing purposes).
- -h
- print help and exit.
- -v
- print version information and exit.
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES¶
- LC_NUMERIC
- Influences the grouping of numbers if set. See also locale(1).
FILES¶
- $HOME/.wavemonrc
- The local per-user configuration file.
AUTHOR¶
Written by Jan Morgenstern <jan@jm-music.de>.
REPORTING BUGS¶
Send bug reports and/or suggestions to Gerrit Renker
<gerrit@erg.abdn.ac.uk>.
COPYRIGHT¶
This is free software with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY. See file COPYING for details.
SEE ALSO¶
wavemonrc(5),
wireless(7),
ethers(5),
locale(1),
capabilities(7)