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, ordered by frequency and then descending order
of signal quality. 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 most (least) crowded channels, depending on how
sort_order is set (reverse channel or other); see
wavemonrc(5).
Please note that gathering meaningful scan data can take several seconds.
Partly for this reason, the Scan window is the only screen that can not be
suspended (CTRL-Z).
- 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)