You found me!  Every week, we aim to answer 3 to 4 questions posted all around the web that talks and asks anything about wireless local area network (WLAN), from the basics up to the advanced level of understanding how it works, what’s hot and what’s not, the ins and outs, the tips and tricks, and lots more. We want to make this a resource or a place where everyone can gain insights and eventually help novices/beginners deepen their level of understanding about WLAN.

Today, here are the answers to 4 questions we thought you need to know:

1. When you connect to an Access Point does your Wireless NIC get an IP address just like when you connect your normal NIC to a switch or router? or is it required for a Wireless NIC to have details like IP address, subnet maske, default gateway, etc. in order to connect to a network?

Yes, in order to communicate on a wired or wireless network, your device needs an IP address. For a wired computer, when you connect the live cat-5 cable to the Ethernet port, it triggers a series of events within the device to request an IP address over that connection. In a wireless situation, the client device first must choose an Access Point, then associate to the Access Point. When that process is complete, the same trigger is tripped, and the request for an IP address works just the same at that point as wired.

2. On Ad Hoc mode, do you get IP addresses on each Wireless NIC on each computer?

In Ad Hoc mode, and by the way no one should ever use Ad Hoc mode, two or more clients talk with each other. Since there isn’t a DHCP server, then all of the client devices default to an IP Address process called AIPPA – or Private Addressing, resulting in IP addresses with 169.X.X.X format. They can then communicate, but only with each other, since there isn’t a connection to the Internet.

Ad Hoc is an EVIL thing… the #1 way to hack into someone’s wireless computer.

3. On the Cisco Press Book it says that [Ad Hoc or IBSS] means or does ‘Allows two computers to connect directly. No AP is needed’ so does Ad Hoc connect only two computers?

You can have more than two computers in Ad Hoc mode, but for each additional computer, there will need to be a connection established between each and every other computer in the same Ad Hoc network. It soon grows unwieldy. By the way – since no one should be using Ad Hoc mode, we probably shouldn’t even be talking about it. I don’t want to encourage anyone to even try.

4. To implement a wireless LAN that doesn’t connect you to the internet but uses an Access Point, do you need to be connected to a Router or Switch?

There are two main types of Access Points. Both have as their main purpose to take Wireless Frames, called 802.11 Frames, these are those that go over the air as wireless packet, and convert them into Ethernet 802.3 frames and send them on their way over the wired network.

The difference between an Enterprise-Class access point, and a SoHo class access point is what else the device may do. In an Enterprise AP, the Access Point always drops the packets directly onto the wired network, and other devices on the wired network move the packet around the network, including going to the Internet.

In a SoHo Access Point, they have added functionality. So these types of home office devices also do the 802.11 to 802.3 conversion, but have other networking features, they may have a small internal switch, with 4-5 additional Ethernet ports. They may also have an internal Router for routing packets of a local area network, or over to the Internet. They usually have other services like DHCP to hand out IP addresses, DNS to help devices find things on the network, etc.

You might think the ‘all-in-one’ devices would be more expensive since they have more features. But the opposite is true. Home devices are very inexpensive, and yet do lots of things… but only for a handful of client devices. They are made for small number of users. Enterprise AP’s on the other hand, are made to do one thing, but do it for hundreds of client devices. Enterprise AP’s have other features, manageability, the capability of working with other Access Points to make the RF environment better, etc. These cost 4-10 times more than SoHo AP’s.

I hope this helps.

The post All About Wireless LAN: The Answers to Your Questions appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

I’ve been an advocate of ‘Fast, Free, Easy Wi-Fi’ for many years now. Many folks disagree with my sentiments. Perhaps because many people involved in the Wi-Fi arena make money off of selling and maintaining Wi-Fi systems for companies, and it is a far easier sale when you can convince your client the costs paid to your firm for doing Wi-Fi will be recouped through various other means.

But this post is about how Wi-Fi should be… not how people make money from it today. I’ll be talking about a change in attitude more than anything else. Sometimes a paradigm shift is all that is needed.

First some examples of other types of services different businesses use that fall in the category – ‘Costs of Doing Business’. These are expenses, with both a CAPEX and/or an OPEX component.

Hospitality (Hotels)

• Lobby Areas
• Parking Areas
• Swimming Pools
• Free Breakfast
• Daily Housekeeping
• Laundry Services
• Security
• In-Room TV’s
• Cable/Satellite Channels
• Public Restrooms
• Marketing

Retail

• Public Spaces
• Lobbies
• Public Restrooms
• Security
• Marketing
• Special Events
• Returns Service
• Location, Location, Location
• Lights in Parking Lots

General Business

• Public Areas
• Elevators
• Security
• Public Restrooms
• Marketing
• Advertising
• Warehousing Space
• Break Rooms

What ties all of these different services together? They are ALL cost centers! In real estate we call these costs C.A.M. – common area maintenance. Costs for maintaining building security, elevators, shared electrical costs, janitorial services, etc. When leasing a property, they are added on to the ‘rent’ – and are included in the monthly payment for use of some section of the building.

With all of these ‘free services’ there is a known cost. Sometimes mostly an initial capital expense, but many have ongoing operating costs as well.

Why would any business knowingly incur these costs, even though they can’t directly tie any revenues back to them?

• Because they are part of the ‘Costs of Doing Business’.
• Because their customers and clients EXPECT these as part of what a ‘normal’ business in their industry supplies.
• Because they know without these ‘free services’ their customers might go to their competitors.
• Because it is the right way to conduct business today and stay in business tomorrow.

Free Public Wi-Fi – History

Accessing the Internet from an always-on mobile device is a fairly new phenomenon. Since the advent of the Smart Phone and Tablet computing, the expectation of an always-on mobile device – it is now a solid customer expectation.

Years ago, when the first Wi-Fi Hotspots were developed, someone thought this would make for a fine business model. Provide Wireless Internet Access and charge customers for the convenience of getting something that was expensive and difficult to obtain any other way.

This paradigm still exists today – and it is running smack in the face of reality. Reality that it’s not just business people with expense accounts need to access the Internet – but the bulk of our first-world societies have this same need. Not only have the need – but now have the expectation it will be satisfied.

Years ago, getting Internet connectivity at then-expensive T1 speeds was only for the very rich, or for businesses who could justify the thousands of dollars per month for that ability. Today, however, broadband access is measured in tens of Megabits – and delivered to your home or office for prices in the tens of dollars per month.

Wireless Internet used to be a ‘nice-to-have’ feature – today it is a requirement.

Why ‘Fast, Free, and Easy’ for Public Wi-Fi?

I came up with these descriptions of what Public Wi-Fi should be in order to meet the needs and expectations of the customers we interviewed for my clients who were looking to roll out Public Wi-Fi.

Fast – note this is the first descriptor. The number one complaint of people we spoke with referred to the terrible experiences they’ve had on ‘Free Wi-Fi’. Glacially slow connections, unable to place calls, websites not responsive, and email not connecting at all. This is almost always caused by the system owner choosing to not pay for a faster Internet connection. They see all costs associated with Wi-Fi as BAD, and begrudgingly go about adding Wi-Fi but want to be cheap and fight every little cost. The net result is they have more complaints and loose more customers than if they’d not even had Wi-Fi at all.

Free – this is a very nebulous word. Some consider ‘not paying cash’ a form of free, and probably this is what most people think. But it also includes the idea that Public Wi-Fi should be Free from privacy issues, Free from subtle, devious ways to sell information. Public Wi-Fi should be Free as in Beer, Free as in Speech, and Free from Ads. These are all things people/customers desire.

Easy – this refers to not only the initial access. Having a user type in a long password, or click through many pages of ‘terms of service’ – all are intrusive and slow down the process. Easy means not even needing to have a browser on a Wi-Fi device.  Perhaps as Hotspot 2.0 finally comes out, we might have this as an option… but I’m not holding my breath. Easy means it should be just like your home Wi-Fi network. You see the SSID, you click on it, then you are connected to the Internet. Easy also means some technical things as well. VPN’s work, ports aren’t blocked, applications just run, email servers are accessible.

Do I expect providers of Public Wi-Fi to deliver ‘Fast, Free, and Easy Wi-Fi’ soon, well maybe perhaps not… but we do need to have a goal. A goal to deliver the best possible Wi-Fi access to the Internet, delivered in the appropriate manner, for those who are expecting it.

What about the costs of providing Public Wi-Fi?

Here is where the paradigm shift needs to take place. First with those of us who are in the business of providing design, consulting ands sales to those who want to provide Public Wi-Fi.

First – Wi-Fi should never be thought of as a revenue generator. Going down this path will only lead to disappointed customers. Providing Wi-Fi is just like providing any of those other free services as listed above. Companies have many costs that are part of ‘Costs of Doing Business’. Wi-Fi is one of those.

Second – See rule one. Now do it!

Third – Don’t try creative ways to break rule one.

• Sneaking in advertisements.
• Changing DNS or Web Services.
• Selling customer information.
• Any other devious way you can think of.

Fourth – if you need to, compare costs of providing a good Fast, Free and Easy Wi-Fi service to any of the other listed free services. For example:

• Security – It has a very high CAPEX, cabling, power, servers, cameras, NOC, etc. As well as fairly high OPEX with people, guards, backups, etc. Wi-Fi pales in comparison, yet meets the expectations and needs of customers.
• Free Breakfast – The room has up front costs, a kitchen, then all the ongoing costs for, wait staff, kitchen staff, cleanup – and a daily resupply of food.

In either of these two simple cases, the CAPEX costs for Wi-Fi are far less. As well as the ongoing costs for delivering packets of data are far less OPEX. Yet it provides an obvious, customer requested, customer expected need for Wi-Fi Internet access.

Everyone knows somewhere deep down, free breakfast isn’t really free – someone is buying the food, preparing the food and cleaning up the mess. But it is part of a customer’s choice in which hotel to stay at.

Everyone knows that mall security costs money – but they expect the mall they shop at to be safe, secure, and the retail shops who gladly take their money are willing to pay the additional CAM charges to make sure their customers are happy and buying more goods.

Each person eats more than $1.00 worth of food at these ‘Free Breakfasts’. The hotels are glad to pay it. But each person uses far less than $1.00 worth of data – even with a fast Internet backhaul. But somehow the hotels have been taught to fear these costs – I wonder who taught them that?

It’s all about a paradigm shift

Oh, wait, I’ve already used the words paradigm shift too many times – but it has been necessary.

The main thing needed in providing great Free, Fast, and Easy Wi-Fi to the public is for WLAN Professionals, and their associated clients to treat Public Wi-Fi like any other of the ‘Costs of Doing Business’.

Caveat to the above post. I know some locations have legal requirements to track individual users / devices who access the Internet via Public Wi-Fi Hotspots. To you I give my condolences.  Big Brother is becoming a reality… 

Caveat number two. I’ve been reminded that ‘Terms of Service’ are things that ‘should be’ used. But I’m against anything that makes the Wi-Fi experience difficult or slow for the end user. ALL captive portals are a pain. I want to see Public Wi-Fi on par with the experience one would have at home. It just works!

Your comments are always welcome. Lets start a conversation about Fast, Free, and Easy Public Wi-Fi!

The post Fast, Free & Easy Public Wi-Fi – A Cost of Doing Business appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

One of the things we try to tell the vendor presenters is to not do ‘normal’ PowerPoint slide decks. It is sometimes quite hard for the marketing folks to not want to share their product matrix. Or to not talk about their features & benefits. Or to not talk about “their unique value proposition”… Listening to that type of drivel is the cost the delegates and those watching the live stream have to pay in order to get to the good technological stuff.

The highlight of this series of presentations had very little to do with Wireless LANs – it was the presentation by Merkai’s Sean Rhea on the backend database Meraki has developed to capture, and analyze data collected from millions of Meraki devices around the world. The audience in the room, as well as those following along were stunned into silence at the brilliance and intelligence shown in this presentation. Sure, there was a PowerPoint slide deck – but it was used to help convey technology, not some marketing spew.

A great presentation doesn’t fit in any mold. Sean spoke from the heart, and used the slides to help share with us the difficulties, and their solutions they encountered in building a robust, fast, solution.

Why don’t ALL Wireless LAN vendors do this?

It reminded me of a session with Ruckus Wireless’s Victor Shtrom from Wireless Tech Field Day #2 where he discussed antenna design to a shocked and stunned audience – and left everyone in the room wondering if it was possible to keep learning new information at that fast of a rate for very long.

Sometimes its the revelation of something that, after you hear it, you say to yourself, “that is just obvious”. Though minutes before you’d never even thought of it. Wireless Tech Field Day is designed to bring to its audiences those ‘Aha’ moments.

In addition to the great Meraki presentation on their backend massively scalable databases, we had some other ‘Aha’ moments last week in Silicon Valley at Wireless Tech Field Day. Below are a collection of those moments I remember from the sessions. These usually happen right in the middle of some presentation when you’d least expect it.

Motorola

It is obvious now, one of those ideas that just makes sense. Right up until I heard this new technique, I’d never have personally thought of it. Now that I’ve heard this idea – it seems ludicrous that all WLAN vendors don’t support it. The idea is to have a technique for troubleshooting client activity across an entire Wireless LAN. One of those things that is notoriously difficult to do. We’ve invented equipment and processes to capture wireless packets on multiple channels simultaneously. Wild Packet’s Omnipeek, AirMagnet’s Wi-Fi Analyzer Pro, and even Wirehshark with multiple AirPcap cards attached can all do it. That is, to capture packets on all channels so we can follow a single client through a roaming event to help analyze the How’s and Why’s of the clients roam.

Then along comes Motorola, and they cut through all that convoluted processes, and make this process simple. The idea is now totally obvious. Just ask all the Access Points to do a packet capture, with a specific filter made on the target client’s MAC address. Having all the AP’s forward those collected frames to a central location. Voila, you now have perfectly orchestrated, time-stamped, packet capture with all the detail one might need to troubleshoot in a single location. Brilliant, just brilliant!

Why don’t ALL Wireless LAN vendors do this?

Motorola Links

Motorola Next Generation

Motorola Wireless – WING5 and services at the edge

Hello Moto

Juniper

As some readers might have noticed, I personally like the information that can be gleaned from actually TESTING your product. Thus the Wi-Fi Stress Test we conducted back in January 2013. (http://wlanpros.com/WiFiStressTestReport)

I got very excited when Juniper started talking about their own internal testing processes and procedures. They don’t merely test their Access Points with a small subset of clients like many other vendors. No, they rent a huge tent, fill it with 300 clients and do full-scale testing so they can emulate a conference hall, or lecture hall packed with attendees. This is NOT an easy or inexpensive process. But oh what data can be gleaned from such testing!

Why don’t ALL Wireless LAN vendors do this?

Juniper Links

Space the Next Management Frontier

Juniper Commitment to Wi-Fi

Cisco

Kudos to Cisco for actually TALKING about 802.11ac. Unlike other vendor presentations, they were not afraid in the least to bring up the elephant in the room, and talk about their internal testing and designs for dealing with 802.11ac as it rolls out this year and next. Sure, the protocol is not completed, silicon is still in flux, and there is an acute lack of .11ac clients to work with. But that didn’t stop Cisco from talking through the technological challenges and their potential solutions.

Thanks for taking a stand on future technologies!

Why don’t ALL Wireless LAN vendors do this?

 Cisco Links

Are you thinking smart?

Wi-Fi letting you know you are pregnant?

Select From Vendors where ID = Meraki

Cisco 802.11ac Timeline and new Cisco Products

Meraki acquired by Cisco, now what?

Aruba

Live, hands-on access to the demonstrations. Wow, what a gutsy move. Allowing the delegates to be connected to the live systems during the demonstration. The instructor part of me was a bit scared for the Aruba presenters. We like to control the minds of our students and help them get through an interface by following along with the presenter. I know how tempting it can be for students with live access to a system to wander around in the interface, not follow what you are talking about, getting lost, etc. In spite of those potential downfalls, Aruba opened up their systems so the delegates could follow along.

This was very helpful in many ways. First, sometimes it is difficult to see the small text in a user interface when projected on a screen on the other side of the room. By getting in the same system, but on your local laptop it is much easier to see. Second, having local access lets you try things yourself. You can simply to the same things as the presenter, or you can experiment. Haven’t you ever wished during a demonstration you could ask the presenter to just ‘click’ on some tab to see what it does? Well, we had that chance ourselves. Wonderful, just wonderful!

This technique was fantastic at getting the delegates involved in what was being presented. I’m not sure, however, how it came across for those on the live feed. In the future, having the live access should NOT preclude the able to get to the Internet at the same time. Thus we had a choice, experience the demonstration ourselves, OR do live tweets and posts about the presentation. The ability to do BOTH should be the target.

Why don’t ALL Wireless LAN vendors do this?

Aruba Links

Aruba Controller and Controllerless

Tech Field Day Delegates

One new addition this session was the Roundtable Discussions we recorded, just talking about a variety of topics that might interest ourselves, as well as those watching along.

For those who are watching the live streams, or the recorded sessions, they were missing out on the discussions between delegates held while the cameras were turned off. Sometimes this was on purpose, like when vendors want to get feedback from the delegates, or have some information under an embargo to talk about. But mostly it happens in-between sessions while the delegates are traveling or just hanging out.

This time we wanted to share some of those experiences with a larger audience, and were able to do this via the Roundtable Discussions.

Topics ranged from “what tools do you use”, to “how to grow a WLAN professional”, to “its the clients, stupid”.  I wished we’d had more time to do these, and think we’ll implement them more into the schedule for the future.

One big takeaway for me, everyone is looking for Wireless LAN Professionals to join their teams. This should be a clear sign to anyone who wants to get involved in this industry. There is a large demand, and right now a small supply of qualified Wi-Fi engineers. Think about that last sentence! Remember your basic Econ classes and see what that can mean for your own value proposition.

Want to be a delegate?

If you’d like to become a delegate for Wireless Tech Field Day #5 in August, get started right away building a following or your own.

Start a blog. OK, I’ll state the obvious one more time. START A BLOG! At first it might only be one place where you can keep your notes and comments on your learning experiences with Wireless LANs – but it can grown into much more.

Be ACTIVE on Twitter! There is a large, and very helpful, community on Twitter. These folks are friendly, helpful, and knowledgable. Get to know them. Participate in discussions. Ask questions. Answer questions. Get involved!

Then, when the request comes later this spring for those who want to participate in the next round of Wireless Tech Field Day events, you will be considered. It might not happen in the next couple of months. Get involved, get active, and you too can be part of the live delegation at a future Wireless Tech Field Day!

The post Why don’t ALL Wireless LAN vendors do this? appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

• Motorola - http://techfieldday.com/appearance/motorola-solutions-presents-at-wireless-field-day-4/
• Juniper - http://techfieldday.com/appearance/juniper-presents-at-wireless-field-day-4/
• Aruba - http://techfieldday.com/appearance/aruba-networks-presents-at-wireless-field-day-4/
• Meraki - http://techfieldday.com/appearance/meraki-presents-at-wireless-field-day-4/
• Cisco - http://techfieldday.com/appearance/cisco-presents-at-wireless-field-day-4/

 

The post Wireless Tech Field Day #4 appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

After weeks of planning, a full week of testing, and then a week of analysis and documenting… the Wi-Fi Stress Test results are now ready!

Here is the video that was posted to YouTube from before the tests started.

Here are the results in PDF format.

Wi-Fi Stress Test Report

As soon as the video report is completed from post, we’ll also have it posted here as well.

As a bit of a ‘tease’ for the Wi-Fi Stress Test report, here are a couple of quotes from those who helped with this project.

Keith R. Parsons - Managing Director – Wireless LAN Professionals, Inc.

“Wireless LAN Professionals devised a great test to simulate a K-12 classroom environment, and to push all of these APs to the limit. I was very impressed with the skill and number of Wi-Fi Professionals that helped with the testing. I can’t wait for the next round!”    Luke Jenkins - Network Engineer - Weber State University

“The Wireless LAN Professionals team has gone out of their way to create an insightful and unbiased report. This promises to be the first of many unique looks into debunking the ‘vendor myths’ regarding WiFi performance and features in a real-world environment.”    Samuel Clements - Mobility Practice Manager, Presidio South - CWNE #101

“The Wi-Fi Stress Test was a wonderful experience and provides an incredibly valuable resource for the wireless LAN community. Keith has brought together vendors and industry professionals to conduct independent performance analysis of WLAN equipment in a real-world setting. The testing was executed with cooperation among multiple vendors and a high level of professionalism! I hope this is only the first of many such events!”    Andrew von Nagy - Senior Wi-Fi Architect - Aerohive Networks

The post Wi-Fi Stress Test | A Vendor-Independent Access Point Analysis appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

The answer is a resounding YES! – Twitter just isn’t about folks posting what they had for lunch, or where they are going after work. (OK, there are still some who post like that…) But for the most part Twitter is a tool that Wireless LAN Professionals can use to help you in your career, help in your educational pursuits, and even with your Wireless Network Troubleshooting issues.

Like many other things in life, what you receive from Twitter is directly related to how much effort you put into it. You can make Twitter be as helpful, or as useless as you want.

I’ve been using Twitter for years, and it has been a fantastic place to learn more about Wi-Fi, more about all sorts of technical aspects of 802.11, as well as a great place to find friends and colleagues who share the same passions as you do.

First Steps – Getting Started

The first thing you need to do is setup an account at http://www.twitter.com – click on SignUp. You’ll be prompted for a Username. You can use a ‘handle’, or I chose to just use a unique version of my name. My username is KeithRParsons. In the Twitter-World you’d find me at @KeithRParsons.

Note: To say this out loud, you’d say “At Keith R. Parsons” – and the link on the Twitter site would be http://twitter.com/#!/KeithRParsons.

You can also add a ‘TagLine’ to your account so people can learn a bit about you. Including any links you might want to add to your personal or business web address. Be descriptive, yet concise. People will also learn about your likes and dislikes, hobbies and interests through your on-going tweets.

Next Up – Stop Using the Twitter Webpage

There are many Twitter clients – even the worst of them is better than the Twitter website. There are Twitter clients available for any OS, Windows, Mac OS X, iOS or Android.  Even official Twitter apps on most platforms. I personally use the Twitter app on Mac OS X, and one called Osfoora on my iOS devices.  Find one you are comfortable with, but in the beginning you could just go with the free Twitter apps.

Start Following People

Your “Twitter Stream” will be pretty much vacant until you start to follow people. Who to follow you might ask?  Well many great people in the Wireless LAN industry are already active in posting.

If you want to follow people involved in the Wireless Networking or WLAN fields, you can check out this list with descriptions of each at http://wlanpros.com/follow.

You could also use the ‘Search’ feature in your Twitter client, looking for the Hash Tag of #WirelessWednesday – you’ll find lots more like-minded folks to start interacting with. Feel free to branch out and start following others, family members, friends, etc.  And share your Twitter handle with your own community.

Get Involved

Now that you’ve started following some folks in our industry, it’s time to get involved. Engage in conversations. Don’t just listen – but actively ask people questions or ask for help in a given situation. Remember, you only have 140 characters. You you’ll have to work on your editing skills.  When you engage with others, people will notice, and start following you back.

Don’t just listen – but actively HELP others online. In this Twitter community, nothing is valued more than received prompt and timely help. If you read a question, and even think you know the answer. Get involved and take that chance and post your answer.

If you’re watching someone’s posts, and you like them. Respond with comments. (OK, if you don’t like their posts you can respond as well, just be careful as its easy to mis-construe comments that are only 140 characters)

Learn the Lingo

Twitter has some terms and techniques that might take a bit to understand. Lets go over some of the basics here.

Using URL Shorteners

Some longer URL’s would easily use up all 140 characters. You can use your own URL shorteners like bit.ly or the like. Or if you just put the HTML Link at the end of your message, Twitter will automatically shorten the link for you.

Using the @ Sign

If you start your message with an @ sign, the message will only go to the intended recipient, AND all those folks who follow both of you. But it won’t be sent to those who only follow one or the other in the conversation. Remember, if you lead with the @ sign, remember it will not be going to your entire following. You might want to edit the message to move the @ sign out of the first position if you want all to see the message.

This is a great way to start a conversation with someone. Just sent a message with their handle in the front.

What about that funny # character?

If you put a # in front of a word, Twitter will turn it into a link. This is called a “HashTag”. Please don’t over-use hashtags – a little is fine, but too much is just too much.

Direct Messages

If someone follows you, you can send them a Direct Message that no one else should see.  This is more like an IM message. Most Twitter apps have a single button or drop down choice to DM someone. Using DM is a way to carry on a more private conversation.

What are all these RT’s for?

Using a “ReTweet” is a way to take someone else’s Twitter message and “Re-Tweet” it to your followers. There is a built-in Twitter version that doesn’t allow editing – it merely forwards this message on with a tag showing that you sent it.

If you want to ReTweet and edit, be sure to give credit where you received it. Then add any comments of your own below.

Final Thoughts

Of all the tips and techniques listed below there are only two that really matter. First – get your own Twitter account setup. This should take mere minutes. Second – Get Engaged! Follow those with the same passions, and engage in conversations and responses. You’ll soon be Tweeting with the best of them!

I look forward to seeing your engagement on twitter!

The post Twitter for the Wireless LAN Professional appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

Review of Metageek’s Eye P.A.

Enjoy!

The post Metageek’s Eye P.A. – 802.11 Frame Visualization appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

In my career focusing on Wireless LAN’s for the last decade, I’ve found three fundamental differences between folks working in this industry.

Experience, Understanding of 802.11, and a background in non-Wi-Fi networking.

Let’s look at each of these.

First – I’ve met lots of folks who have an incredible amount of experience doing Wireless LANs… but were missing the other two facets. These are folks who perhaps started in this industry as a WISP or a builder of Hot Spots. They have installed hundreds of Access Points. Their first reaction when there might be a problem is to add more power, add more access points, or upgrade the CPE (Customer Premise Equipment). For these type, it’s all about the doing – they seem to move fast, and always have tools ready to go in the back of their truck.

This first type reminds me of the medical community of 100 years ago. The doctors at the time learned through experience what techniques worked. And for the folks at the time, they were the only alternative.

The second group are those who really understand 802.11. The experienced folks might look upon these as merely academics. These folks might have passed their CWTS, CWNA, CWSP, etc. and really have an understanding of how the 802.11 protocol works. They might also have learned about Spectrum Analysis, and can describe exactly how the SpecAn chipset works. In the ‘old days’ we might have called these folks “Paper-CWNAs” – because they had the certificate, and knowledge, but not an understanding of how things really work in the real world.

To stick with the medical analogy – these are MRI Techs – they can use tests and measurements to know EXACTLY what is going on inside the body – but don’t really know how to solve it.

The third group are those who come to WiFi via the Routing & Switching world. They have a great deal of knowledge and experience with TCP/IP, IP Subnetting, routing protocols, and can explain how Spanning Tree helps in their networks. These folks are mostly from the Cisco camp.

The downside is they come at the Wireless world with ONLY networking experience. They see Wi-Fi as just an extension to their Cisco network. When asked about their workflow, you hear things like, “I followed the design WLC told me to”, or “WLC this”, or “WLC that” – their entire understanding of Wi-Fi comes from their Cisco portal to Wi-Fi, NOT from actually understanding the 802.11 protocol.

These Cisco folks are like the guy with a Hammer, who seems to think all the world is a Nail.

The best solution would be to have parts of all these people rolled into one. The experience from the guy who’s been in the trenches, coupled with the understanding of the rest of the network from the routing and switching perspective, all wrapped up with a deep-level understanding of how the 802.11 protocol works.

It’s only when all three of these come together that you get a true Wireless LAN Professional who can design, install, and troubleshoot Wi-Fi networks efficiently and accurately.

We want to see a doctor that understands the WHY of the human body, as well has WHAT to do to fix the problem. (and *not* use a hammer…)

Yes, I know this is only one man’s opinion… but I’ve had too many years of dealing with each of these one-sided personalities.

So if you have lots of experience and yet really don’t understand the 802.11 packet flows, then take a CWAP course and learn to get down and dirty with the packets.

If you come from a Cisco (or other vendor) background with a strong set of Routing and Switching fundamentals… you too need to get into the 802.11 protocol directly. Don’t only rely on merely what your controller is telling you.

If you just happen to be one who has the academic understanding of 802.11, but don’t have any experience… get some. And for heaven’s sake get out there in the R&S world by getting a Cisco CCNA so you can learn about the rest of the network.

By the way, EVERYONE in the Wireless LAN community needs to at a minimum have a CWNA.  How can you work day-in and day-out with Wi-Fi and not be able to pass the CWNA? And if you can’t… they this is a reminder that you need to study and prepare so you can.

A CWNA from the CWNP program is the ante to play in this game!

Keith R. Parsons

keith@inpnet.org

http://Twitter.com/KeithRParsons

The post WLAN Professionals need to be a Three-Legged Stool appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

I thought it might also make a nice blogpost. Here is the ‘handout’ for those attending.

Keith

“Youth in this generation are “digital natives” – being inundated by technology since birth. But many parents are not and need to educate themselves about technology.”

Cellphones for kids   http://www.kajeet.com/kajeetStore/whyKajeet.do

Internet Filters

Open DNS                  http://www.opendns.com/home-solutions/

OpenDNS is a perfect solution for people who either lack the time or expertise to set up and administer a full-out content-filtering server. OpenDNS replaces your current DNS server and allows you to filter every connection coming out of your house if you change the DNS settings at the router level. No matter if someone is on your main desktop or connecting into your wireless via laptop, everything will be filtered by OpenDNS. You can set custom filters to white list and black list specific sites and customize the range of filters they provide for you

K9                                http://www1.k9webprotection.com/

Many have had experiences with K9′s internet filtering, if for no other reason than it’s used in thousands of schools across the country. One of K9′s strong points is the division of filtered content into 60+ categories which allows you to easily block and unblock large chunks of their blacklist without having to get your hands too dirty. K9 is a desktop solution; you install the software and it checks all the Internet requests you make against the filters you have specified.

DansGuardian                       http://dansguardian.org/?page=whatisdg

One way to measure whether or not Dansguardian is the right filtering tool for you is your willingness to install and tinker with an operating system like Linux. If OpenDNS (below) is the Mac-like “It just works!” one click solution, DansGuardian falls into a much more Linux-like “I can change every setting and experience real, ultimate power!” category.  DansGuardian is extremely configurable and allows you to do all sorts of things, like block all images, filter ads out across your entire home network, block files from being downloaded by extension type, and control the effects of the filters, whitelists, and more based on which computer on your network is doing the accessing.

Computer Monitoring

WebWatcher              http://www.webwatchernow.com/

SnoopStick                 http://www.snoopstick.com/

Spytech SpyAgent     http://www.spytech-web.com/spyagent.shtml

Spector Pro                http://www.spectorsoft.com/  – PC, Mac and Cellphones

Wireless LAN Security

• Open – no Authentication, no Encryption
• WEP – Encryption key=Authentication – Broken, do not use
• WPA Personal – Passphrase for Authentication – TKIP simpler Encryption
• WPA2 Personal – Passphrase for Authentication – AES complex Encryption
• WPA/WPA2 Enterprise – Username/Password for Authentication

Open Wireless networks may be a target for accessing Internet without any controls.

Lock down your Wi-Fi with at least WPA Personal.

Warning: a SoHo version of WPA called WPS has been hacked. Use manually set passphrases.

Some suggestions for setting family rules:

• Anything on the family network is accessible by the parents. Children have no privacy rights.
• Computers and Televisions in an open, public area of he home.
• Cell phones, Internet Access, and Television is a privilege, not a right and can be revoked at any time.
• Never give out personal information online, to anyone you don’t personally know.
• Not answering a cell phone or a text message within 5 minutes is grounds to loose the privilege.
• Never open email attachments from anyone you don’t know personally.
• Always check for SSL (this “lock”) before entering any personal information or credit card information online.
• If using Windows, keep Virus and Malware protection up to date.
• Parents will periodically check on all children’s communications, chat room activity, website activity, Google searches, Facebook posts, and text messages.

“Teach them correct principles, and they govern themselves”

The post Families and Firewalls appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

This is not some ‘Gartner Magic Quadrant’ type thing. No hard data, like from a Dell’Oro Group report. This is just my personal opinion of where these fall. Not a ranking by quality, or by technology… just a ‘gut feel’ from what I see out in the marketplace. They are just random inside the Tiers. I was not about to try and rank these within tiers… that would take more research and numbers… then this wouldn’t be a ‘gut feel’ but measured.

I would love to hear what you think. Did I miss any major vendor? Any of these placed in the wrong Tier?

Tier One

• Cisco
• Aruba
• Motorola

Tier Two

• Ruckus
• Aerohive
• Meraki
• Ubiquiti
• Hewlett Packard
• Xirrus
• D-Link
• Meru
• Enterasys/Siemens
• Trapeze

Tier Three

• Senao/Engenius
• Mikrotik
• Bluesocket
• 3Com
• LANCOM
• Extricom
• Proxim Wireless
• Belkin
• Linksys
• Netgear
• Fon
• SMC
• RealTek
• TrendNet
• ZyXEL

There are other Vendors who work in more Niche space like FireTide and Belair that I haven’t added to any of these tiers. Or those like Extreme that just OEM someone else’s product lines.

This is purely one man’s opinion… what are your opinions? Who should be moved between tiers, who should be added or removed? What WLAN vendors do you see in your space?

The post Update to WLAN Vendor Tiers appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

The Wireless Mesh Cost vs Throughput Spreadsheet.

The “Magic” in magic is really just a combination of illusion and mis-direction.  And yet we are entertained by being convinced we’ve seen something that breaks known physical laws.

We know the woman really isn’t being sawn in half, yet we don’t mind suspending reality for a couple of minutes while we try and figure out how the magician is doing his magic.

In the world of Wireless Mesh, sometimes WLAN professionals get too caught up in the mis-direction and illusion of getting something for nothing that we forget all about the laws of physics that determine connections and throughput and watch as our customers suspend reality hoping to get something for nothing, and not paying any penalties.

In reality, there is nothing “magic” about Wireless Mesh. It follows known laws concerning RF propagation, packet transfers, and network packet protocols.

I believe that Wireless Mesh does have it’s place in WLAN Design… but many people, in their quest to save a bit of money end up ruining their Wi-Fi network by employing mesh incorrectly.

To emphasize this point, I’ve developed an Excel Spreadsheet and made it available to download. (Link to Mesh Analysis Spreadsheet) – this spreadsheet, like all good spreadsheets, pulls the variables out where you can see them. All the fields colored in Green are the input points for the algorithms. You, as a WLAN designer can choose your own amounts for these.

Here are the variables you can enter to drive the equations in the Spreadsheet:

• Expected net TCP data rate on the 2.4GHz Access Frequency
  • I started using a value of 25Mbs to reflect a network where the bulk of the client devices are still 802.11g
• Expected net TCP data rate on the 5GHz Mesh Frequency
• This is estimated at a value consistent with an 802.11n connection
• Remember – the Mesh AP’s must be within range to have great SNR to maintain this data throughput!
• Number of Clients per 2.4GHz Access Point
• Cost of a wired Ethernet Backhaul connection
• Including Cat 5e cabling, installation, and cost for a switch port
• Sample Size of the Mesh Network
• number of Access Points to provide coverage for clients, as well as enough Mesh AP’s to maintain high throughput speeds between 5GHz Mesh RF connections.
• Average Loss in Percentage per additional Hop.
  • I’ve started with the minimum loss of 50%, in actuality there could be 10% to 15% more loss because of overhead and other issues.

Remember, you are the one to make these assumptions. This is not something that I’m making up – you put in your actual costs, size of system, assumptions on data throughput and number of clients per access point.

You can use this spreadsheet to work with your customers/clients to help them better understand the value and costs of providing Wireless Mesh versus other alternatives like Ethernet cable or a dedicated Wireless Bridge.

As an aside, I like to keep these in order both in my mind, as well as in the mind of my customers. Order of AP backhaul desired:

• Fiber
• Copper
• Dedicated Wireless Bridge
• One-Hop Wireless Mesh
• and way down here in the very last position
• a Multi-Hop Wireless Mesh

Also remember the first hop is ‘free’ – only kind of – since there isn’t the requisite 50% loss on this first hop. The receiving Mesh AP doesn’t need to re-transmit the packet on the 5GHz channel. The client packet comes into AP #1 on 2.4GHz, AP #1 then re-transmits the packet on 5GHz, then AP #2 receives the packet and places it directly on it’s Ethernet port.

But for subsequent Mesh Hops, AP #2 would have to re-transmit the packet on the same 5GHz channel it came in on… thus the 50% drop (Plus additional loses due to overhead issues) Each subsequent hop also results in this drastic degradation of data throughput.

Here are some graphical examples of this process of going to multiple hops. The horizontal access is number of Mesh AP’s – one more than the Mesh Hop (two meshed AP’s equals one Mesh Hop).

Note the gradual reduction in total cost as you add more Mesh Hops. It is true that adding Mesh rather than Ethernet will save you money, but only on the installation costs, not the actual cost of the Access Point.  But also note the drastic drop in throughput as you add more hops.

In this graph we can see as the average cost per installed AP drops (savings from the Ethernet cabling costs as you go with more and more Mesh Hops) the actual cost per kilobyte for each end user skyrockets. This is a function of more and more client devices sharing less and less actual Ethernet backhaul.

In this final graph we’ll focus on comparing the savings in percentage of lowered backhaul costs, compared with the loss of throughput. The “Sweet Spot” is at two Mesh AP’s or one Mesh Hop. Each additional Mesh Hop barely adds much in the way of cost savings, but instead has a huge drop in throughput.

Learn from the experience of others, and don’t get caught with a Wireless Mesh system that doesn’t provide for the requirements of your client devices.

Wireless Mesh isn’t “Magic” – it’s merely an illusion of cost savings – you still can’t break the laws of physics.

(a note that I’m not talking about Strix or Firetide Wireless mesh so hold your comments on those vendor’s proprietary solutions)

The post The “Magic” of Wireless Mesh appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

First a bit of history, more than a decade ago I started into Wireless Networking. Back then the only tools we had were the Cisco ‘Breadcrumbs’ RSSI meter built in the Cisco (Aironet) client software.

Back then we thought Coverage was the Holy Grail – how to get the most coverage with the least amount of Access Points. So getting a strong RF signal, as measured by RSSI was everything. Then we found RF Amplifiers – and we made some HUGE RF coverage circles.

Site surveying was running around with AP-on-a-Stick and measuring how far the RF coverage went. That was all. Just RSSI.

Sad to admit, but I did hundreds of these. (I can only sleep at night knowing that everyone did it that way and no one had any better idea back then of what else to do)

But today we know it’s NOT about the RSSI! Sure, you *must* have good signal. But good signal alone won’t give you a great Wireless LAN design. It’s all about the actual throughput of data over the RF medium.

The new Holy Grail in Wi-Fi is getting the network to provide the actual data throughput and specs needed by the client devices. That is all encompassing.

So instead of measuring only for RSSI, we really need to be measuring better the net throughput, under load, of our Wireless Networks.

Sure, an RF amplifier can transmit a strong signal a long ways… but the net result is you have clients that can see the AP, but the AP can’t see the clients. And you now have HUGE contention domains (Collision Domains) where all devices must wait for the others they can see on the same channel to ‘Share’ the RF medium.

Remember – it’s not about RSSI – it’s about consistent, measured, available throughput!

The post It’s not about RSSI appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

The sad part to this story is what happens when there are no negotiations, and price ends up driving the design. So you might want to treat this as a morality tale – and learn from the mistakes of others.

One of the great things about 802.11 Wi-Fi is its inherent resiliency. This is built into the protocol at the very lowest levels. Since we’re using CSMA/CA – we must find mechanisms to give some level of reliability to the wireless packet transfer – these techniques actually work. Some times to the detriment of the overall network throughput.

This extra resiliency can also be an issue when counteracting the “build it cheap” mentality. You can design a ‘workable’ wireless LAN that can send packets from end to end, and thus the bean counters love the cheap price and say that “it works” because some packets can flow. Yet this inexpensive design does not meet even the lowliest of performance criteria.

I personally come from the school of thought that great Wireless LAN design happens during the preliminary meetings, far before any actual design work happens. Way back when discussing the features and capabilities desired by those who will actually be using the Wi-Fi network.  This is the time that can make or break a great WLAN design.

It must be at this early stage where expectations are being set… this is where a good WLAN designer takes his/her stand. Each level of expectations has an appropriate cost tied to it. Mistakes at this stage usually happen when people talk about expectations in one meeting, and the money people come up with a budget in an entirely different meeting.

Anxious for the work/contract, many WLAN designers accept both – yet mutually exclusive – expectations. Then later when the system isn’t performing end up blaming everyone and everything involved with the project except the people who are truly at fault. The designers themselves, for allowing the project to move forward with disparate goals.

I’m positive I’m not alone in this next experience. Directly after finishing a large WLAN installation, and doing post verification surveys to “prove” the design meets the written design goals and expectations, you’re feeling quite good about a job well done and about ready to pack it up and head to the next job. You feel confident the wireless network will meet the RF Coverage, Data Throughput, and User Experience outlined in the scope of work… then out of the blue the local contact says something along the lines of…

 “Now that the Wi-Fi is working, we can use this for Voice, right?”

Aaaarrgghh – it’s happened to me so many times in the past, I now have a document that I have the customer sign before the start of the design works that explicitly states “This WLAN design does not, and will not support Voice over IP over Wi-Fi” – and have the customer sign and date it in front of me.

Even then, I’ve still had customers come back and expect Voice to work on their data designed wireless LAN.

The downside of this dilemma between a quality wireless LAN design that meets stated criteria, and one that barely works usually comes down to costs. The almighty buck drives the project and if we as WLAN Professionals don’t stop it early enough in the process we’ll be part of those being blamed for the network’s failure.

Below are just a small sample of networks I’ve been involved in fixing, after the fact, to try and salvage some of the sunk cost of the current Wi-Fi system that is not meeting the needs of the customer.

I’m sure you also have many of these types of examples. Feel free to share yours in the comments below.

Treat this like a warning – please do not repeat these mistakes in your own practice!

• Using Mesh instead of Wireless Bridges
• Thinking you can push Wi-Fi from the outside in, without CPE
• Not doing a Link Budget to see if the connection will work
• Not doing an onsite RF analysis to measure wall RF loss
• Doing point to point links without knowing if any obstacles are in the Fresnel Zone
• Installing Mesh instead of bringing cable to all the Access Points
• Stringing a series of standard Omni Mesh AP’s to ‘pretend’ to be a bridge link
• Not running simple calculations to see how much ‘Pipe’ will be shared between customers
• Putting indoor AP’s under the eaves to save money out outdoor Access Points
• Using Omni antennas directly against some wall or post
• Using High-Gain Omni antennas 15m high above a warehouse floor
• Using High-Gain Omni antennas 25m above an outdoor parking lot
• Using Point to Multipoint setup in 2.4GHz and wondering where your bandwidth went to
• Putting an AP to cover the ground on the 22^nd floor because that’s where the Ethernet drop was
• Putting too many AP’s close together to ‘get’ high density client deployment
• Doing a pre-installation site survey then never returning for verification
• Using SoHo equipment in an enterprise deployment and hoping for the best
• Not ever testing the copper plant – wondering why not getting gig speeds
• Having network bottlenecks between AP’s and Controller
• Thinking if a handheld device can see the AP, why can’t the AP see the handheld device
• Designing for merely coverage, then wondering why throughput doesn’t work
• Cutting out half the AP’s of a great design, because you don’t have budget for it
• Aiming a Point to Point link directly at a wall, since the customer didn’t have rights to be above the wall

Each of the above sentences has at least one full-page story to emphasize the point, but I’m not going to waste the time to go into all the depressing details. Each of the above problems was caused by someone NOT designing for the needs of the customer, but just wanted to stay within some arbitrary budget.

The process should be to make the budget and the Wi-Fi expectations to match.

As my friend Jared mentioned to me this morning,

“You can fail in your design by designing for the budget—then the system won’t meet the needs of the clients. Or you can fail by designing for the needs of the clients—and fail to get the deal because it now costs too much.”

We can mitigate that situation by better communication—much earlier in the cycle to make sure both goals are met at the same time. Or at least the expectations are set to match the budget and what the customer will receive for that amount of money.

This is NOT an easy problem for WLAN professionals – but it is one that will define our collective reputations. 

The post WLAN Design – A Compromise between Quality and Cost appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

When looking at collected data, sometimes it seems to be quite random in nature. Looking at this random data, folks can make mistakes in analysis. One method we use to help ‘clean up’ this random data is to first sort the collected data from high to low, and graph according to percentage. This allows us to see graphically the differences between data sets.

As an example, I’ve put together the following sample data sets. Each has the exact same Maximum, Minimum and Average… but obviously, much different results. This is the value of this sorting method, it allows one to quickly see differences in data.

Seemingly Random Data

The first is a graph showing the two sets of data, fairly random looking. Both look like they are quite similar in nature, both inconsistent, and with a fairly same average.

Consistent vs Inconsistent Data

But when you take this same information and sort it first, you can see distinct differences in the resulting graphs. One set of data is much more consistent than the other. Even though they both have the same averages.

We’d like to see very flat lines, showing customer experiences to be fairly consistent across the board. The higher the lines the higher the client’s throughput results.

A line with it’s curve toward the bottom left represents a fairly low consistent result. A diagonal line represents high variability – more inconsistency. A line with the curve in the upper right represents consistently higher results.

Another way to use these ‘sorted’ graphs is to look at the 50% line – this represents the ‘average’ someone would achieve. The 80% line on the bottom represents that 80% of all collected data meets or exceeds this number.

This is a good telltale sign for following the 80/20 rule. Don’t waste too much time and money trying to fix the last 20% – put the bulk of your resources towards getting the 80% to be as consistent (flat) as possible.

The post Seeing Patterns in Random Data appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

Many decades ago I lived in Taiwan for a couple of years and learned Mandarin Chinese. Of all the tens of thousands of possible Chinese characters, there are only some 400 or so different sounds in the language. So many of the same characters (words) end up having the exact same sound. To counteract this obvious chance for confusion, sometimes Chinese people write out an imaginary copy of the character in question on the palm of their hand. A bit awkward, but it helps to convey which character goes with which sound.

In the English language, we too have difficulties at times with words having the same sound, but entirely different meanings. Some even represent a noun, and a verb with the exact same sound. For example, take the word Shift.

• Shift – to change gears on a car
• Shift – a type of woman’s apparel
• Shift – a time period for work
• Shift – what a Defense does in American Football
• Shift – an improvised knife used as a weapon

Thus we need context around the word to help us determine which version we are referring to.

As another example – the word Braces:

“You wouldn’t want to confuse the Braces holding up Larry King’s pants, with the Braces straightening his teeth, with the guest who Braces for the next question.”

In our world of Wireless LANs we too have to be careful in the use of various terms and words that can have different possible meanings.

We banter about the term ‘Spectrum Analyzer’ but which version might we be referring to:

• A $30,000 Spectrum Analyzer used in electronics labs?
• A $4,000 Cognio Spectrum Analyzer with custom ASICs?
• A $2,000 AirMagnet Spectrum Analyzer with software to share with WiFi NIC data?
• A $400 MetaGeek Spectrum Analyzer?
• An Atheros chipset with WiFi mode turned off and listening as a Spectrum Analyzer?
• Or finally what Xirrus calls a Spectrum Analyzer – but is just WiFi data in tabular format?

All are referred to as a Spectrum Analyzer – but they all have far different resolutions, and capabilities. Not that the most expensive is best – you’ll need to use the one that can show you the raw (non-Modulated) RF at the resolution you need to solve your current problem.

Set SoapBox = ON

Xirrus – just calling something a Spectrum Analyzer doesn’t make it one. No more than calling me a Marathon Runner makes me one. (I have ‘run’ (managed) the electronic timers at a Marathon – that doesn’t mean I actually competed) If your device cannot ‘see’ raw non-modulated RF – don’t call it something it isn’t. It might fool your customers – but not anyone who actually knows what a Spectrum Analyzer is!

Set SoapBox = OFF

Other words we use in the pursuit of our Wireless LAN systems that can be confusing include the word Interference.

We have:

• Raw RF Interference – non-802.11 modulated
• Co-Channel Interference – 802.11 packets on the same frequency
• Adjacent Channel Interference – 802.11 packets on nearby frequencies
• Interference because AP’s and Clients are sharing the same frequency with all neighboring devices on the same channel. (Like a hub has interference from all connected devices)

Each of these effects on our data throughput differently, and each need different tools to help troubleshoot and solve the “Interference”.

Or how about the simple term Noise that gets thrown around all the time. Which version of Noise are you referring to:

• Thermal Noise?
• Non-802.11 Modulated RF signals?
• 801.11 RF on the same channel?
• 802.11 RF on nearby channels?
• Ambient RF noise floor?
• Broken Packets on the same frequency?

Which of these above is what you are thinking of for the ‘N’ in SNR? Which version of “Noise” is used in your Wi-Fi NIC?

Spectrum Analyzers can tell some of these, a Wi-Fi NIC that is in promiscuous mode can see others. Knowing when to use which tool is very important.

In conclusion – remember just like the words Shift and Braces – we need to be very precise in the use of confusing Wireless LAN terms.  It will help clear up any confusion if you can be very precise when communicating terms like Spectrum Analyzer, Interference, and Noise.

The post Words Have Meanings? appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

This summer I had the opportunity to do a large-scale roll out of Wireless LAN access for an entire school district. This project included: pulling cable, installing 625 Access Points, and complete post-install verification surveys across 43 schools, and 6 district buildings. This project was under a pretty intense time line, (school starting) and failure really wasn’t an option. Thus we needed to create an installation method and time line, that would give us a time advantage since the survey and cabling would take a lot more time than just the AP installs.

Installing access points is one thing, but knowing were to correctly place them is another. We were able to get the scaled floor plans from the district , and went on site to the locations with an access point and AirMagnet’s Survey Pro. We wanted to capture what the attenuation of the exterior walls, bearing walls, support walls and all other obstacles we could. We then took those data points and plugged them into AirMagnet’s Planner software for pre-deployment designs. Knowing what the customers design requests were, we could then create a proper design and know AP count and placement. We used the AirWise function in planner to verify the design requirements as well. This helped us to firm up our bid, and create a fixed cost environment for cabling within a target 10% margin.

With the knowledge of the installation facts, we were able to move onto the management of the installation. I knew that having this many access points could cause for a potential disaster of not knowing were the access point was. You can see it in the controller and it is on the map but is it in the correct location? We created a spreadsheet that had a tab for each location. The sheet had columns for:

• AP name
• MAC Address
• Serial Number
• Installer Name
• Installation Date
• Cable Completed Date
• Survey Completed Data

From all of this information we could calculate percentage of completion of the project.

To stage the equipment for each school we had the design map from Planner, that told us how many AP’s went to that school. The map listed a number next to the AP. If the school took 33 AP’s, we would use a barcode scanner and get the MAC and Serial Number from the AP and it would place it on the spreadsheet. We would then write a number on the AP box 1 -33 to coordinate with the map, and the spreadsheet. This gave us the exact location of every AP being installed, what the MAC and Serial Number of that AP was. This kept the install very clean as far as an administrative standpoint. Additionally, this was very useful when programming the controller with all of this information.

There were two different types of ceilings we would have to work with. A drop ceiling with T-bar mounting capabilities, and hard deck ceilings that would require a little bit more hardware. For the T-bar it was really simple, we had one single Panavise clip that would attach to the T-bar, and then our AP bracket, would attach to the Panavise clip and we would tighten it up with a 10mm driver. We could then mount the Access Point to the mounting bracket and secure it with zip-tie for safety measures. Using this system we could hang an access point in about 60 seconds or less. The hard deck ceiling on the other hand was quite a bit more difficult. The manufacturer suggested using a drill bit, to create a pilot hole, then insert two nylon anchors then attach the bracket using two screws. But experience has shown there is a better way.

My thought was too use single toggle bolt through the center of the mount that would securely attach the mounting bracket to the ceiling, with out having to measure two pilot holes for the nylon inserts, as suggested by the manufacturer. This process worked out great! We used a ½” inch drill bit to create the hole for the toggle bolt, and then we attached the toggle bolt through the bracket and pushed the toggles up through the hole. To tighten up the toggle bolt, we swapped the ½” drill bit for a Phillips head into our drill and could tighten it using power tools. We found that this procedure took us about 75 seconds or less to do. Using this method helped us save immense amounts of time on the physical installation of the Access Points.

Here are some simple photos of our method using the toggle bolts.

Hard Ceiling Bracket with Single Bolt

Hard Ceiling Mount with Access Point

We were able to physically install the 625 access points in just 7 days. We used three contract installers, in whom I was able to teach these steps to, and was able to turn them loose, to install all the access points.

With the installation of the Access Points out of the way we could focus on the cabling, turn up and post site survey of the project. We had sub contracted the cabling out to local company, that had approximately 6 full time cabling installers that did a phenomenal job in pulling, terminating, testing a tagging the cables. We gave them a copy of the same maps that we used, to install the access points. They were in turn able to punch down the cable on patch panel using standard EIA/TIA naming enclature but also added the AP number to it so it would be easy for us to find and trouble shoot also. They were able to do 625 cable pulls in less than 30 days. This included all the bearing wall penetrations, floor penetrations and testing of the cabling. I was very happy and impressed with their quality.

With the installation and cabling completed we then went to each of the schools and installed Gig POE injectors, since the customer did not have POE switches available for us to use. At each school, would name the access point in the controller, give the Access Point its configuration and place it on the map for the school. This also gave us an opportunity to trouble shoot any access points that issues while on site, saving us time from having to return to individual schools. This took us very little time, and we coordinated with the cable installers, so as finished a school we would arrive to complete the turn up.

The district had requested third-party verification for the site surveys, to ensure that all work was completed per the requirements of the contract. I hired Mike Young a certified AirMagnet instructor to survey all the buildings and using AirWise create the reports to show the work was completed to the specs of the customer. Mike and his team worked very diligently, to complete all the surveys, and I am sure he lost quite a few pounds with all the walking he did. We also ran the surveys by Keith Parsons for final sign off and approval. Mike completed the reports and we presented them to the customer for their approval.

This project was a lot of fun, and was a great win for me given all the timelines of the contract that had to be met. We had a signed contract from the customer on May 27^th, equipment on June 6^th and had to have the entire project completed by August 1, 2011.  The calendar period was peppered with both State and Federal holidays as well as not being able to have access to the buildings on the weekends. The total project was completed in 42 working days. I was really please with my team of contractors and the School district in turn is pleased with us.

Survey Equipment used.

• AirMagnet Planner
• AirMagnet Survey Pro
• Metageek DBX Spectrum Analyzer
• Motion Computing J3400 Tablet with with Intel 5300 WiFi nic
• Nike Shoes…

Installation equipment used.

• Dewalt impact drills
• Little giant ladders
• Kline 9mm drivers
• Dewalt ½ “ drill bits
• 30 lbs rated zip ties

Equipment installed.

• Ruckus Wireless Zone Director 5000 redundant controllers
• Ruckus Wireless ZoneFlex 7962 Access Points
• Ruckus Wireless FlexMaster NMS system

The post Large Scale Wi-Fi Deployments appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

These come from one’s I use personally, as well as recommendations from others in our community.

Feel free to comment, add your favorites, etc.

Keith

Mac Apps for WLAN Pros

The post Mac Apps for Wireless LAN Professionals appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

__________

The Art of Customer Service

I came up with this title, after re-reading one of my favorite books. I am a great fan of Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War”. I admire his brilliance in military strategy, and his discipline to see his plans through no matter the cost. In my opinion he has what I call grit, determination and resolve to be excellent in all that he recommends.

I have tried to model my business efforts, somewhat after Sun Tzu. I try to create a tactical plan to serve my customers, and follow it through to the end. I have had the pleasure to work in different industries within the tech field since 1999. Some of my customers have been with me through various changes and companies. When asked why they continued to be loyal, they answered “trust and customer service”, From many conversations I came up with the following five words to describe the art of customer service.

Customer service really comes down to these five basic principals.
1. Responsiveness
2. Commitment
3. Trust
4. Honesty
5. Follow Through

You are probably thinking, that’s a very simple list, what is this guy talking about? Yet I hear horror stories from customers all the time that these basic principals are lost in the industry, and they are willing to pay for them.

Take for example the first principal “Responsiveness”. We live in an age and time, were we can produce information from the Internet or Twitter in a matter of seconds. Customers tell me that some times it takes hours to days to get a response from their vendor, unless they have maintenance agreement or are asking for a quote. I know that sometimes an email or phone call comes in when you can’t take it or respond immediately. Most of us aren’t Jack Bauer and defusing a bomb constantly! With in 5 to 10 minutes we can usually make time to call, text, or email. This initial communication is critical in showing the customer “Commitment” our next principal.

Commitment makes me want to run towards a problem, and not away from it. As well as doing what ever it takes to see it through. Sometimes in organization you see sales people’s commitment end as soon as they receive a Purchase Order. In their mind, they have no more skin in the game. Some customer service people think that because they haven’t heard from the customer it must be fixed. There is no need to do a follow up call. Their commitment level is just not there. Each person should sit down with them selves and figure out just how committed they are at what their doing in life. Then be honest with all people and let them know up front, where they plan on getting off the commitment bus, or are they going to see it at the end of the line. With Commitment to your customers this will build “Trust” our third principal.

Trust is a beautiful thing if you have it, and it can be a big black eye if you loose it. Customers don’t just hand trust out easily. That is why many times the sales cycle takes so long. Customers will have you do a series of events, to see if you are trustworthy enough to go to the next level with in their organization. Some customers have trust in a product, some in the company their buying the product from. No customer buys something with out some level of trust. Once their trust is earned, you have to maintain it, by always telling the truth, even when the truth will cause an issue. The customer has the right to always know it, and their “BS” detectors can filter wither or not their getting it pretty quickly. The keys to the kingdom are only given to a trustworthy person.

Honesty and trust go hand in hand, honesty is the fastest way to earn trust. If some one asks you a question, you have to choices to be honest or not. If you always go down the path of being honest, you can have a poor memory and get through life unscathed. If the customer asks you something and you don’t know the answer, I always say I don’t know, but give me a little bit and I will find out. It actually gives you credibility with people, and isn’t an insult on your intelligence. Nobody knows everything, and if they think they do, they just aren’t being honest with themselves.

Follow Through – this is a favorite of mine. I grew up in Idaho working on a farm, and my father always told me and I quote “ there is a beginning, a middle, and an end to every job. With out one of those parts completed the work is never done”. You have to finish what you started, its that simple call the customer and ask them if you have taken care of the problem and if everything is now okay. If you start a task with a customer, you have to follow through till the end. If you follow these steps and embrace them, you will be known as a person that has a commitment of excellence.

So remember, to provide great customer service, just remember these five simple items:
1. Responsiveness
2. Commitment
3. Trust
4. Honesty
5. Follow Through

The post The Art of Customer Service appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

Jared Griffith
Cinergy Wi-Fi, Inc
845 West 1025 South
Brigham City, Utah 84302
Office 877-782-5879
Mobile 801-808-7720
Fax 866-861-2133
Jared.Griffith@cinergywifi.com

http://cinergywifi.com

http://twitter.com/cinergywifi

Mobile Surveys Made Easy

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This week is Part 1 – Fundamentals.

In the attached PDF white paper we’ll cover the basics and vocabulary needed to get started with Spectrum Analysis. Including talking a bit on how regular WiFi NIC’s operate. We need to know what spectrum analysis is NOT as well as what it is.

In subsequent weeks we’ll continue talking about basics of Spectrum Analysis and then how to intepret the results of using a SpecAn.

In the final week, I’ll talk about the various options available from $50 to $20,000. And the costs and benefits of choosing your Spectrum Analysis tools wisely.

I’m no longer teaching WLAN technologies full-time, I’ve taken a position with Ruckus Wireless to head up the professional services group, so I thought it would be appropriate to share these concepts and slides freely to the Wireless LAN Professionals community.

Enjoy!

Keith Parsons

Comments and questions are always welcome.

The post Spectrum Analysis Primer – Part 1 – Fundamentals appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

Enjoy ‘Perfing’ you network.

For those of you with AirMagnet WiFi Analyzer and/or AirMagnet SurveyPro software – you can also use the IPerf service within those tools. Doing an IPerf site survey is a great way to PROVE throughput over your Wireless LAN.

How to Guide on JPerf and IPerf

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The title of this week’s Wireless LAN Weekly episode comes from an article I read in the New York Times back in 1993. It seems the New York city parks department was having a bit of trouble with some overly rambunctious male youths terrorizing some of their female counterparts in the local swimming pools. They had started a trend of ‘whirlpooling’ by circling and taunting the girls in the pool.

To counteract this bad behavior, the mayor’s office came out with a marketing campaign targeted at the miscreants attempting to illicit better behavior. They made up posters, bumper stickers, and even had the mayor start wearing buttons that stated, “Don’t Diss Your Sis”.

In this episode we’ll be talking about Wireless Intrusion Prevention Systems running amok, causing harm to your own wireless network. Thus, “Don’t DoS Your Boss”.

Hopefully some of these stories will ring true, and you can learn from these mistakes others have already made.

Enjoy

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If you have any feedback on the show – please drop an e-mail to feedback@WirelessLANProfessionals.com.

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In the past year we’ve had the following successes:

• A total of 41 Podcast Episodes
• A total of 42,239 downloads of those episodes
• Slightly more than 1,000 downloads per episode
• The most popular episode had over 3,100 downloads
• The least popular episode had only 500 downloads
• 60% of the downloads are from the US
• With the other leading countries (in order): China, Canada, UK, Australia, German, India, New Zealand
• People have downloaded the podcast to over 100 countries
• The Wireless LAN Professionals website gets an average of 100 hits per day normally, but bumps up to an average of 200 on Wednesdays (the day the Podcasts are released)
• The WLP website has received 65,000 hits his year and over 20,000 downloads of white papers
• My twitter account http://twitter.com/keithrparsons currently has 943 followers and over 5,000 posts

I am posting these statistics for two reasons. The first is to give me some incentive to get back up on that horse and start regular weekly podcasts again. I’ve been a bit lax lately, and I needed some incentive to get back in the groove of weekly podcasting. Realizing there is a fairly decent sized audience will do that for a guy.

The second reason, and probably more important to the readers of this blog. You have a community!

There is a thriving community of people who are interested in the career choice of being a Wireless LAN Professional. Well over 1,000 people that I can track put themselves in this category. So get involved! Follow along on the twitter streams, follow the other like-minded individual’s fantastic blogs, post comments and perhaps even start your own blogs on the subject. (see the website’s resources tab for more places to get involved)

I’m a firm believer that:

“Knowledge is like manure, if you spread it around, it will help things to grow. If you try to hold it yourself, you’ll just start to stink.“

So please get involved in this community. Start following others on twitter, share your information, post your posts, and just get involved.

Keith Parsons – February 2nd, 2011

The post Wireless LAN Professionals Update appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

Years ago, a friend of mine, Kimberly Graves and I had been teaching both CWSP and CEH courses. At the end of those courses, our students would ask to see our ‘instructor kit’. They wanted to have the bits that we used in class to show off Wireless Hacking.

Kimberly was the author to the Certified Ethical Hacker study guide, and I helped with the technical edits on that book. I was also a Certified Hacking Forensic Investigator and Licensed Penetration Tester trainer for EC Council at the time.

So to react to the market, we developed a Wireless Hacking Course… but couldn’t call it that – since some companies and government agencies wouldn’t fund training with the word ‘Hacking’ in the title.

So we called it “Wireless LAN Security Assessment Toolkit” – and it was a course than not only taught wireless hacking, but also came with all the parts one might have needed. Spectrum Analyzers, 5 WLAN NICs, access points, hand-held client devices, and all the software pre-configured, and finally, even a laptop to run it all on.

This was a wildly successful class in its time. 

Both Kimberly and I have moved on and now both work for vendors, Kimberly does Course Development and Training for Aruba, and I am now doing Expert Services for Ruckus.

A couple of weeks ago, I was asked if I had any materials on the flow of Wireless Penetration Testing…

So we thought it might be a good idea to take the materials we produced for the WLSAT course and release them to the public. We’re not releasing any copyrights… just allowing folks on the Wireless LAN Professionals website to download and use them for personal use.

Below is PDFs of the printed student materials included in the Wireless LAN Security Assessment Toolkit course. Yes, these are a couple of years out of date… but many of the concepts and techniques used are still valid today.

You can check out the old marketing web page with the details on the old course. We’ve included PDFs from each of the chapters, so you can download them one at a time if you’d like.

Enjoy!

Here are the files for your perusal:

00 Student Kit and Classroom Setup.v7

01 wireless packet captures and conection analysis review.v7

02 Lab 2 Discovering, Locating, and Accessing WiFi Networks.v7

03 Sniffing and Capturing Data.v7

04 Encryption and Authentication Mechanisms.v7

05 Rogue Access Points and Client Hijacking.v7

06 Wireless Denial of Service Attacks.v6

07 Using a Wireless Instrusion.v7

08 Creative Advanced Attacks.v7

09 8oh2 custom linux script.v7

Appendix – Linux WLAN NIC Command Review

Appendix C – Linux Flash Cards v1.4.1

LinuxQuickReferenceGuide-v1.6.5

Wireless Penetration Testing Flowchart

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The post Wireless LAN RF Design Fundamentals White Paper appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

This should have a sub-title called:

“Here Be Dragons” – sometimes I think people selling legacy WiFi equipment are like map sellers today trying to hawk their wares by selling maps showing dragons and the world as flat!

This week is sure to cause some controversy, but hey – that’s what these kind of things are all about. Something to get other Wireless LAN Professionals talking.

The show notes are in the form of a new white paper on this subject.

Buying Legacy WiFi

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Twitter… What’s all the fuss about anyway?

You’ve heard things about this ‘social media’ thing, and wondered why everyone is talking about it. You might even have a Facebook page. But that’s just for sharing personal information about what you are up to with your friends and family. You also might be forward thinking a bit about your career and have already started a LinkedIn page, and shared your personal information and started to build your professional network.

Good for you, you’ve started down the path of adding some social media into your life. See, it’s really not all that bad.

Now on to the really powerful one called Twitter. I know, you’ve heard people talk about twitter, heard these funny new words like “tweet” and “tweeps”, and worse of all you’ve heard all people talk about is what they ate for lunch.

I too was in your same place a while ago. Looking back, my first sign up with Twitter was over two and a half years ago, right after it started. But I was turned off by the service because of a couple of issues. First, I really didn’t like going to the Twitter web page to interact, and someone suggested I setup my cell phone to receive all my ‘tweets’ via SMS texts. That lasted about 20 minute or so of a frustrating endless vibrate going on. Second, I didn’t know anyone personally or professionally that used this new service.

Fast forward to spring of last year. Based on a very simple suggestion, I learned to access Twitter, not via website, or cell phone, but to use a Twitter Client. Wow! Everything changed overnight when I could access a ‘twitter stream’ and control the flow and content of the Twitter feed. It was a whole new experience. It made the process much easier and more manageable.

Then out of the blue, a new Twitter ‘friend’ (someone I’ve never met in person, who lives in a different country, but shares some of the same passions for Wireless LANs) – did be a huge favor and sent me a local European SIM card while I was on vacation with my family in Paris. He basically over-nighted a loaded SIM for me, additionally gave me great suggestions on where to visit, and places to see. All because we had exchanged a few 140 character messages talking about our shared passion.

I found this Twitter thing could be valuable! I realized there are real people, who share many of my same goals and interests, willing to help and share their experiences with me, just for asking. And, that there were also people who could use my help as well. A community of people, not tied together by some artificial reason because of where they live or work, but based on shared interests.

There is an entire world of Wireless LAN Professionals who are using Twitter on a regular basis. Of course for the Social bit, sharing what they are up to, where they are traveling, etc. But more importantly, they also share ideas and tips, as well as interesting URLs and articles about a shared passion. Twitter can also be a place to ask questions and get very timely answers.

It kind of reminds me of the good ‘ol days with BBS’s and Online Tech Support Forums where we’d go in the past to get that same timely, authoritative answers to pressing tech questions.

Give it a try, set yourself up an account on Twitter.com, its not only free, but very easy. Then try out one of the many Twitter clients available. I now use a funny-sounding client called Osfoora on my iPhone and iPad, and Tweetie on my MacBookPro. But there are many other clients available on all platforms, from Blackberry to Linux and everything in between.

To get you started on finding some folks who might share your interest in Wireless LANs, check out this list of folks that I follow at http://wlanpros.com/follow. You might also want to search for the “hashtag” (a Twitter method of tagging information) of #WirelessWednesday when people share other Twitter users addresses they personally recommend.

There are also many searchable, well-written tutorials on “How to use Twitter”.

I’d be pleased to have you follow me, and my status updates on Wireless LANs via my twitter feed – @KeithRParsons – http://Twitter.com/KeithRParsons

Others who commented on using Twitter as a Wireless LAN Professional in today’s Podcast.

Devin Akin
George Stefanick
Jennifer Huber
Marcus Burton
Mohammed Anshad
Steve Williams
Gregor Vučajnk

We’d love to have you subscribe to our RSS feed – just click the button in the upper right corner of the web page. Until next week, thanks for listening!

If you have any feedback on the show – please drop an e-mail to feedback@WirelessLANProfessionals.com.

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Right-Click Here To Download This Episode

OK, I know… everyone is going to think I’m just sort of Apple Fan Boy. And perhaps that is true. Not that I think Apple does everything right, far from it. But I have learned to appreciate the elegance in their design simplicity.

I like not having to do the dreaded “Backup, FDISK, Format, Load OS, Re-load Apps, reload data” thing every six months or so.

I like not having to deal with viruses and malware on my working machines.

I like the speed and simplicity of moving to a new laptop – mere minutes of my time, not the full-day it used to take in a Windows platform.

I like the ability to quickly move installed apps between machines without resorting to registry edits, and having to re-install from the original disks. (I know they are here somewhere…)

But most of all. I like this these products “just work”.

I also know many of you are hard core into the CLI world, and LIKE to do things your own way, and it rubs you wrong to HAVE TO do things (like iTunes) Apple’s way.

All that being said, this podcast is about how I use Apple products, like an iPhone, iPad, and MacBook laptops to help me in my work as a Wireless LAN Professional.

Let’s start with the biggest, and move to the smaller options

iMac 27”

Big – large screen real estate – desktop – working on processor intensive applications – rendering video – multiple VMs, even on screen side by side.

MacBookPro 15”

My main computer (at least for the next week or so – until I get time to move the ‘magic’ over to the new laptop) is a MacBookPro 15” laptop. This machine has garnered many industry awards – not only for its sleek aluminum uni-body design, but as a fast, intuitive machine to help me get my work completed.

The specs on this machine are  – in order of importance to me…

• Apple’s OS X operating system
• 1680 x 1050 High Resolution Screen
• Intel 2.66 GHz Core i7
• 500GB Serial ATA Hard Drive – 7200 rpm
• 8 GB DDR3 RAM
• 802.11n Wireless NIC

I’ve found this to be a great workhorse, running for weeks at a time without rebooting, a bit slow to ‘sleep’, but fairly fast to wake up and start working again. I run VMware Fusion, and Parallels to also run Windows apps on this machine. I’ve had multiple VMs as well as a full suite of OS X apps running simultaneously – and not been disappointed.

I love the ‘spaces’ feature, that let me quickly move between pre-loaded screens, each app has it’s own dedicated space. (VMs each get their own as well) – And Yes, I do know you can get this type of feature in other OS’s.

My ‘professional’ tools, like AirMagnet, Omnipeek, and Wireshark run very well in a VM environment. In fact, I’ve got much better results, faster processing, and no crashing of apps when running in a Windows 7 VM compared with a ‘real’ dedicated Windows 7 machine.

I have found I don’t use the DVD too much – but sometimes it’s nice to have access to optical drives.

I wish it had more than the two USB ports – wish they were USB 3.0. But overall very very pleased with this computer. It is a big large in my backpack, I did use a MacBookPro 13” for a year or so, and it was quite comparable, but the extra screen real estate more than makes up for the larger size.

MacBookAir 13”

This is going to be my next machine. As soon as I do the little ‘magic’ bit and have it become my ‘main’ machine. You know that magic that happens – one moment your machine moves from the old platform to the new platform.  I have this new MacBookAir 13” ready for the transformation, but I haven’t moved all my files over and had the ‘christening’ yet. Still need some open time to make the move.

This unit is very light weight, much smaller and thinner than the 15” MacBookPro, and doesn’t have the RAM or the big Hard Drive, and really isn’t even close in the CPU department. But… and this is a pretty big deal for me. It has the exact same screen resolution. So everything on-screen that I’m used to will be in the same position.

In my preliminary testing, this computer just ‘feels’ faster. I know the CPU is inferior to the MacBookPro’s – but that fast SSD just makes everything feel faster.

I won’t be able to run multiple VMs – just OS X and one Window 7 VM – but that’s enough for the large majority of the things I need.

There are two major factors in making the move to the smaller, lighter Air – Speed and Size. With the weight and size differences, I can take a 13” MacBookAir and a second 11” MacBookAir in the same space in my backpack.

I normally teach off of a big Dell laptop – that will no longer be needed. I can use the MBA 11” in Bootcamp mode to be my instructor machine, and have my spare ‘main’ machine with me at the same time. Both together weigh less and fit in a smaller space than my single Dell D6400!

MacBookAir 11”

This guy was purchased for a single job – and paid for itself in a couple days of surveying. My main survey machine (a Motion J3400 Tablet) was being used by a client, and I had an additional job drop in my lap. So I went to a local Fry’s – picked up the MBA 11” and within a couple of hours had a sweet survey tool.

The thing is the smallest and lightest survey platform I’ve ever worked on. And fast… nothing else I’ve used is as quick. From dead off – cold booting takes under 12 seconds. Waking up from sleep under 2 seconds. And moving between the Windows 7 Bootcamp, and Mac OS X is about 22 seconds.

I don’t VM this one… I use bootcamp so 100% of the resources can be dedicated to the current OS. Its size allows me to carry it in a unique way, more like a book with the spine vertical. Much easier to carry. (Though any computer starts to get heavy after awhile)

I don’t know if I’d use this as my main machine – not quite enough RAM or Hard Drive space available, but it makes a wonderful backup/spare.

Accessories

An entire suite of professional tools are now available in USB form factor. 802.11n dual-band NICs for surveying and sniffing. As well as Spectrum Analysis in USB as well

Without the option of USB devices, the Macintosh as a platform wouldn’t make any sense.

Link to podcast with Ron Nutter talking about using a Macintosh as a Network Professional’s platform. Moving to Mac.

Software

I run inSSIDer, WiFi Inspector, Wireshark, AirMagnet mobile Suite, and other professional tools in this VM with fantastic results.

iPad

On to the smaller tablet size. I really like my iPad as a portable consumption device. It has 3G so it’s always connected to the Internet. E-mail, Facebook, Twitter, GPS, Movies, Games, and most importantly – a fantastic Tech Pub reader.

I wish Apple would allow this as a Wi-Fi enabled tool. But alas, they have stopped all really useful Wi-Fi tools from being developed because of some ‘private API’ issue. I sure hope they resolve it soon.

This would make the ULTIMATE Wireless LAN Professionals tool. Very light, touch screen, hi-res screen. Many people can quickly see how valuable this would be for conducting on-site troubleshooting, surveying, etc.

I’ve developed a 25-page document detailing all the features and screens needed for this ultimate tool – but until Apple releases the ability to support Wi-Fi in iPad apps – it’s just a useless folder of details sitting on my desk.

iPhone

Like it’s larger cousin the iPad – the iPhone also is ham-strung by Apple by not allowing the Private APIs any longer. There were some great tools available. But these have been pulled from the iTunes store. If you were lucky enough to have purchased them earlier (or if you don’t mind JailBreaking your phone) – you’ll have to live without these nice tools.

I wrote an entire blogpost dedicated to the wide variety of networking and wireless tools for this platform. Check it out at WLAN Professionals Portable Toolkit

Another article from Zaib over at WLANBook about iPhone apps. Scanner Apps Banned By Apple.

Thanks for listening.

We’d love to have you subscribe to our RSS feed – just click the button in the upper right corner of the web page. Until next week, thanks for listening!

If you have any feedback on the show – please drop an e-mail to feedback@WirelessLANProfessionals.com.

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The post WLW039 – Apple Products as WLAN Professional Tools appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

Keith

What’s in My WLAN Toolkit Case

The post WLW038A – What’s in My WLAN Toolkit Case Video appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

I thought perhaps with this being the holiday season, and people thinking of their gift lists… I ought to have an episode dedicated to the various WLAN hardware and software tools you might want to have in your own personal kit.

I tried making an audio podcast out of this list… but failed to adequately describe all the items with just my voice… So this week’s audio podcast will be turned into a Video Podcast. But, it will take a bit more time to edit the video clips into something presentable.

In the mean time, I’ve included a list of the equipment and software I carry. Obviously I don’t carry all of this for every type of gig. For pre-deployment work there is one set, for post-deployment verification surveys a different set. For different training classes, different sets depending on needs. And when doing interviews and on-site work for the Podcast an even different setup.

Please go through these lists and let me know if there are any tools you’ve found useful in your Wireless LAN Professional work that I should include. Please e-mail your updates/changes/answers to keith at wlanpros.com.

Thanks – and I’ll send out a Twitter message when the Video Version of this episode is ready to download.

The *-asterisk denotes my personal favorites and what I use most of the time.

Hardware

Computer

• Windows XP/Vista/*Window 7  –  Laptop/Netbook/*Tablet
• *Macintosh OS X/VM/*Parallels/*Bootcamp  –  *MacBookPro, *MacBookAir
• Smartphone  –  *iPhone, Android, BlackBerry

Accessories

• *Fluke AirCheck
• *GPS
• *Spectrum Analyzers
• WiFi NICs – both PCMCIA & USB
• Jammers
• *USB to Serial Converters
• USB Hubs
• Cases – I favor Pelican Cases

Miscellaneous Supporting Software & Security Software

• *MapPoint, *GoogleEarth, *Visio, *Office Tools
• Senao/Prism – Queensland Attack – WiFi Jamming
• *NirSoft  – WirelessKeyView – WEP & WPA PSK Hacking
• *Immunity – SILICAU – Penetration Testing
• *Franson – GPS Gate

Software

WiFi Analysis Software

• *AirMagnet    WiFi Analyzer Pro
• *AirMagnet    VoFi Analyzer
• WildPackets    Omnipeek
• *CACE Tech    Wireshark
• CACE Tech      WiFi Pilot
• Tamosoft        Commview for WiFi
• AirDefense     Personal

WiFi Site Survey

• *AirMagnet    SurveyPro
• Ekahau           Site Survey
• Tamosoft        Tamograph
• Visiwave         Survey
• Veriwave        Wave Deploy

WiFi Pre-Deployment Design Tools

• *AirMagnet    Planner
• Motorola        LANPlanner
• Ekahau           Survey

WiFi Scanners

• Kismet             Kismet
• NetStumbler  NetStumbler
• Xirrus              WiFi Inspector
• *MetaGeek     inSSIDer
• PassMark        WirelessMon
• *NirSoft          WirelessNetView
• *Koingo           AirRadar (Mac OS X)
• iStumbler        iStumbler (Mac OS X)
• WLAN Book    WiFi Scanner (Mac OS X)

Spectrum Analyzers

• Metageek       Chanalyzer (WiSpy family)
• *Metageek     Chanalyzer Pro (WiSpy family)
• Eakiu               Eakiu (WiSpy for OS X)
• *AirMagnet    Spectrum XT – USB – Bandspeed
• *Cognio          Spectrum Expert – PCMCIA (Cisco, AirMagnet, others)
• Ubiquiti          AirView
• AirMagnet      AirMedic – Intel 5×00 series WLAN NIC
• Nuts About Nets        AirSleuthPro
• Nuts About Nets        WiFi Eagle

2.4GHz and 5GHz RF Interfering Devices

• *Nuts About Nets      AirHorn Jammer
• *Nuts About Nets      AirHorn Dual-Band Jammer
• Portable Phones        2.4GHz Narrow-band and Frequency Hopping
• Portable Phones       5GHz Narrow-band and Frequency Hopping
• *Wireless Cameras – Jamming
• *Narrow-Band Jammer
• *Wide-Band Jammer
• *Bluetooth Devices – Discovery & Piconet
• *Headset, mouse, keyboard
• *2.4GHz Wireless Mice
• WiFi Video Camera – just as a client
• Old 802.11 Frequency Hopping AP & Client
• Microwave Oven – good and bad
• Nintendo DS (WiFi Client)
• Xbox 360 Game Controller

We’d love to have you subscribe to our RSS feed – just click the button in the upper right corner of the web page. Until next week, thanks for listening!

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The post WLW038 – WLAN Hardware & Software Options appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

Hopefully this will be resolved before next week’s scheduled show.

In the meantime, here are a couple of white papers written by Keith Parsons all in one place for easy access.

Again, our apologies. Looking forward to regularly scheduled Wireless LAN Weekly Podcasts in the future.

Keith

Learning Wireless LAN Technologies

Quick & Dirty 802.11n Design

WLAN = Counterintuitive

Want, Don’t Want, Don’t Care – Meeting Design Specs

Using The Right Tool for the Job

Seven Rules for Accurate Site Surveys

The Fallacy of Channel Overlap

False God of dB

How to Cheat on a Survey

Designing for Voice

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I’ve been teaching about 802.11n for many years now. All about the new acronyms, technology at the hardware layer, PHY layer and MAC layer. There is so much to learn about this new protocol. But invariably the discussion leads to the question on how to design for .11n.

I was going to also talk about the ‘morality’ of designing and selling a Legacy Access Point solution in today’s market, when .11n APs are available and you KNOW they are better than any Legacy AP ever could be. But I’ll leave that discussion for a different episode.

There is the very long, technical and perhaps a bit boring answer. Or, as I’ve found after sharing this with hundreds of individuals, there is the “Quick and Dirty” method. This is NOT the best way to design for .11n. But it is a way that is very quick, simple, and provides the 80 in the 80/20 rule.

If you have lots of money, plenty of time, and want to over architect your Wireless LAN – there are much more sophisticated models. This isn’t the answer to all possible scenarios. Remember, it’s the “Quick and Dirty” method – so “don’t be hating” on this…

Well, here goes.

This method of designing for .11n makes a couple of initial assumptions. First, you currently have an 802.11abg system in place that is working fine for you. If you are thinking of designing for a brand new installation, you could design for 802.11abg, then follow the “Quick and Dirty” method and you’ll also be alright. (Again, there are many more sophisticated design methodologies for .11n – this isn’t one of them)

So if you do meet the stated assumption above, you already have an 802.11abg system in place – then you can choose from either of the two simple options listed below. The first is the easiest, and cheapest, but doesn’t take into consideration for current .11a clients. If you HAVE TO use current .11a clients, you might want to look to the second option.

Option 1 – Replace Access Points

Each location where you have abg AP replace with abgn AP

2.4Ghz Frequency

• 2.4GHZ is for Legacy Only
• 2.4GHz is 20MHz  – 1, 6, 11 ONLY -(normal channel planning)
• Turn off support for .11b (if you can) – Require 6Mbs
• Turn off support for 1, 2, 5.5 and perhaps also 11 data rates
• SSID = Corp (or whatever your current SSID is)
• Legacy Only – Everyone who is non-HT
• No .11n Support needed in 2.4GHz

5GHz Frequency

• 5-GHz is for HT Only (also known as Greenfield)
• 5-GHz is 40MHz  – use UNII-1, UNII-2, UNII-2e, or UNII-3 as country allows
• Turn off support for all Non-HT legacy devices (.11a)
• SSID = Corp-Fast
• HT Clients only (.11n)
• No 20MHz support
• Adapt channel plan if DFS situation within range

Complaint Driven Solution

Everyone who can ‘see’ the “Corp-Fast” network will self-move over to the faster network. Each person that moves over to .11n not only receives a huge boost in their own throughput, but also takes a small load off the currently over-crowded 2.4GHz band.

The only issue with this scenario, is if you have people currently using their .11a devices, they will no longer be able to access the 5GHz frequency and will have to return to the 2.4GHz mess. So if you have folks in this category, and they complain, just get them a brand new .11n card, either internal or external  and they’ll be able to reap all the benefits of a .11n Greenfield.

What is you have either lots of .11a clients, or your firm has already committed to a .11a 5GHz VoIP WiFi Phones… Well then, if you fit in that category, you ought to try out Option 2, below.

___________________

Option 2 -Additional Access Points

Each location where you have .11abg Access Point, leave it in place, and then add a new .11n Access Point

2.4Ghz Frequency - Same as in Option 1 above

Turn off the 2.4GHz frequency from the old legacy AP. This legacy AP is now only supporting .11b and .11g clients.

• 2.4GHZ is for Legacy Only
• 2.4GHz is 20MHz  – 1, 6, 11 ONLY -(normal channel planning)
• Turn off support for .11b (if you can) – Require 6Mbs
• Turn off support for 1, 2, 5.5 and perhaps also 11 data rates
• SSID = Corp (or whatever your current SSID is)
• Legacy Only – Everyone who is non-HT
• No .11n Support needed in 2.4GHz

5GHz Frequency

Part One – Currently Installed Access Points

• 5-GHz UNII-3 will be used exclusively for the .11a clients
• 5-GHz is 20MHz  – use UNII-3 as country allows (could be 5 available channels)
• Support ONLY (.11a) – no .11n things turned on
• SSID = Corp-Voice
• .11a 5GHz voice clients only
• Only 20MHz support

Part Two – New .11n Access Points (Same as in Option 1 above)

• 5-GHz is for HT Only (also known as Greenfield)
• 5-GHz is 40MHz  – use UNII-1, UNII-2, UNII-2e, or UNII-3 as country allows
• Of course leaving off the UNII band used for the .11a phones!
• Turn off support for all Non-HT legacy devices (.11a)
• SSID = Corp-Fast
• HT Clients only (.11n)
• No 20MHz support
• Adapt channel plan if DFS situation within range

Option 2 wouldn’t have any more Access Points than Option 1 above, but you would have additional costs, an additional network drop for the AP, as well as an extra PoE switch port. But you’d have basically two systems running side by side.

Keith

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In this episode I spend some time with Mark Wuergler of Immunity Inc. talking about their SILICA-U Wireless LAN Pentration testign utilitiy. It is quite simple to use, single click kind of thing, and runs from a custom USB stick.

I think you’ll enjoy our conversation!

You can find Mark at immunityinc dot com.

Immunity’s approach to WLAN security, as it is with all other security challenges, is aggressive. SILICA-U is the only automated wireless LAN exploitation solutions on the market.

SILICA-U will quickly and automatically grab screenshots or password hashes, upload and execute software on target systems, or intercept and record network data. The unit includes standard Wi-Fi auditing features such as capturing live signal, spectrum and packet data. Immunity’s advanced research team continues to contribute updates to the software so the latest attacks are programmed in.

Bypassing 802.11b/g security: Enable hidden session identification discovery and the unit will reveal the non-broadcasted SSID of remote access points. Fed up of being filtered from MAC protection lists? Enable MAC address evasion and escape any MAC address filters set by the AP administrator. If you already know an allowed MAC, this feature also allows it to be manually set in order to audit your network. This feature can also be used to reveal hidden SSID’s configured by system administrators.

Aggressive attack: Want to enumerate which systems can be broken into remotely? SILICA-U will attempt to gain unrestricted access to all systems connected to your access points and extract valuable information in the form of screenshots, password hashes, or configuration details. It will even upload and execute your own remote access utility on target systems, giving you remote wireless access to insecure systems.

Evading personal firewalls: Unique passive operating system identification techniques will even identify machines running a personal firewall.

Gather usage data: Ever wanted to identify the most commonly used access points in a geographical location? Use probe mode along with non-stop scan, walk in an area collecting access point type information and configuration details such as encryption methods and signal levels. This scan will extract a list of operating systems and machines behind the wireless access point or ad-hoc network, allowing you to evaluate what networks are the most heavily used.

Map a network: Walk around running SILICA-U in non-stop scanning mode with GPS enabled. It will map out an entire area by constantly seeking for new access points and ad-hoc networks. GPS locations on the reports can be used to plot over mapping applications or services.

Security compliance: Launch the software in interactive scan mode with the attack option selected. Eliminate false-positives with our unique methods of breaking in to verify that a flaw does exist and is exploitable.

Advanced man-in-the-middle attacks: Our software allows interception of all HTTP traffic in a switched network between the wireless router, including any bridged wired network and all associated clients. The data includes cookie and authentication data within HTTP requests, which can be fed into a separate web browser session to allow email review, capture of sensitive authenticated traffic such as banking information, viewing of network device administration, password gathering, etc.

System identification: SILICA-U has unique methods for extracting information remotely from network printers, embedded devices, PDA’s, Windows systems, routers, Unix workstations, and more. Our remote identification and reconnaissance methods are found no-where else.

Rogue access point detection: Leave the unit running in your desk while in non-stop mode and it will identify any new access points or Ad-hoc networks discovered in range. This is particularly useful for monitoring buildings for suspicious devices being inserted into the premise without permission, or monitoring unapproved ad-hoc networks from open laptops.

Detect network misconfiguration: Often enough employees will open up wireless ad-hoc connections in their laptops, bridging them to a wired network without realizing the security implications. This imposes a serious threat to a company’s perimeter security. The software can detect this if launched in probe mode with any type of scanning method. Immunity recommends a scan-all scan that specifically targets your network. If anything is found it will be included in the report.

Pinpointing access points: Ever discovered a suspicious access point and wanted to find its location? SILICA-U will allow you to do this by viewing the interactive signal meter which displays various information about the device while you move around and approach it. Noise levels and quality may increase or drop depending how close you are to the access point. Alternatively, SILICA-U includes GPS.

Client-side exploitation: SILICA-U will allow you to bypass any firewall or host protection mechanisms by directing the attack on a client side application through an advanced connection hijacking attack which cannot be found in any other software.

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This week’s episode features two segments, each an interview with a Wireless LAN Professional. First is Jared Griffith of CinergyWiFi, a Wireless LAN Value Added Reseller (WLAN VAR) – and the second is a story about troubleshooting from Tim Dennehy of the University of Kansas.

Both of these interviews were an attempt to help share a little insight into the wide variety of positions available for Wireless LAN Professionals.

Jared Griffith
Cinergy Wi-Fi, Inc
Jared.Griffith@cinergywifi.com

http://cinergywifi.com/

http://RuckusGear.com/

“Our MacIntosh issue”….

We’re a large public university – 25,000 students and several thousand staff members. The main WLAN is “Jayhawk”, and is almost a coffee shop style SSID with no restrictions and a simple webauth for access. Of course we have other SSIDs on campus – for athletics, the bookstore, guests and even the parking department. Students and faculty all have accounts in Active Directory, so that is how they get online for our main Jayhawk WLAN. From a network administration standpoint, it is extremely difficult to control what clients come on our wireless network. There is no “standard machine” issued — you come to university with whatever you walked in the door with.

We have 1800+ Cisco radios on campus spread across 79 buildings, all with two fully redundant WiSM farms in two different locations. Any controller can fail and the secondary or tertiary controller (or any other controller for that matter) can easily pickup the load so the user doesn’t experience an outage other than the time the access point needs to find another controller. It’s a lot of work to setup on the backend, but the payoff is if any controller fails at 3am, my phone won’t ring. In fact, the night shift might even not notice if a controller failed since the help desk probably wouldn’t get any calls.

Last school year ended in May. In June, after the students left, we upgraded all of our controller code from 5.2 to 6.x and then to 7.x so we could start implementing the new Cisco 3502 series access points. Upgrading during the school year, as you can imagine, is extremely difficult to get as we need a change window just like every other 24x7x365 organization. The upgrade went well — at least it did for the next three months, anyway.

The Kansas Jayhawks play football — and of course during the football games the press shows up. The pressbox is only used for the football stadium, so if the wireless network got broken during an upgrade, it would probably go unnoticed until the next time a game was played.

Sure enough, about four weeks ago, we had our first football game. We have four WLANs being broadcasted in the 8th floor of our pressbox. Our main SSID, Jayhawk, the ticket scanner WLAN, the Athletic’s statistics WLAN and guest WLAN. Three hours before the game, my phone rang with “the press is coming to the 8th floor of the pressbox and we’re having issues getting their Macintoshes online. As a last ditch effort to them online before the game, and employee used his credentials to get them on Jayhawk.

The press is supposed to use the guest (KU-Passport) WLAN, but for whatever reason they were first getting on the WLAN called Jayhawk. A call to Apple confirmed that the Macintosh computers will first search for the strongest signal (all four wlans should have the same signal strength) and then if all SSIDs are of the same signal strength, will search alphabetically. Jayhawk is before KU-Passport in the alphabet, so the press would try to get online and end up on the wrong SSID.

The press would enter in the username and password that was given to them (they didn’t know they were on the wrong SSID) for that specific game — we would create usernames and passwords for the press using Cisco’s Lobby Ambassador that was built in to Cisco’s Wireless Control Server. They would not get online and immediately call for technical assistance.

The technical assistance representative for the game would assist them and inform them they are the wrong SSID, and they need to associate to KU-Passport and enter in your username and password. This is where the trouble began. The “press user” would navigate to the correct SSID and attempt to associate, only to not get an IP address or the web authentication page. The technical representative would then assume the username and password was “bad” and get them back on Jayhawk with his credentials. This would only aggravate the issue — they would try to get back on Jayhawk and this time they would not get an IP address and of course, not get redirected to the web authentication page. The user would end up rebooting their Macintosh and would either get online with the technical respresentative’s credentials on Jayhawk, or maybe they would get lucky and end up on the KU-Passport WLAN and get online like they should have.

After hours and hours and hours (probably more like days…) of Googling, I found that I am not the only one with Macintosh issues. Other educational institutions are having the same exact issues, only I din’t find any solutions to the problems. I called Apple, and they said “we don’t see this issue anywhere else — it must be your wireless network”. Of course five minutes’ worth of Googling shows we’re not alone.

I decided to call Cisco’s Technical Assistance Center. Jeff called me back within the hour asking me if I had a wireless sniff of the clients in question. I had to tell him I didn’t own a Macintosh, and there’s no way I can’t ask a member of the press to give me his/her Macintosh so I can install Wireshark on it either. He asked me to run some debugs on the wireless lan controller, so I did. The result was that I could not see a Macintosh laptop sending out a DHCP Request. I came to the conclusion I needed to find out if the Macintoshes were actually sending out DHCP requests, and the only way to do this was to run Wireshark on a local laptop that is having issues or have a laptop running a protocol analyzer in the press box with a promiscuous wlan adapter.

We own AirMagnet WiFi Analyzer, so we tried to use it to sniff for DHCP requests to no avail. I called Fluke and opened up a technical assistance case with them. They called me back and agreed that they couldn’t seem to capture a DHCP request either for whatever reason. No word back yet….

Next step… I downloaded Wireshark and put it on my WindowsXP laptop, but did not have a promiscuous adapter, so could not see all the traffic – hence no protocol analysis traces to send to Cisco. I contacted CACE Technologies and looked at their applications. A promiscuous adapter is about 800 dollars, so I wrote it up and submitted the request to management and have not heard back yet. Turns out if I buy three of their adapters, I can monitor all three channels in promiscuous mode and actually get traces of what is actually going on!

After looking around (and doing a lot of begging) I was able to borrow a Macintosh laptop running 10.6.x. I attempted to install Wireshark on the machine to no avail — I am not a Mac user and was literate enough to get to get the application downloaded, but unable to set the permissions in such a fashion to actually get it to work.

I then received a phone call from Cisco’s TAC. Jeff said that I could try enabling “fast SSID change”. He said enabling this would allow my clients to change between SSIDs faster than normal, and it might help. Of course I jumped right on it and turned that on.

We went right back to testing! We started testing with the Macintosh I borrowed – we tried changing between SSIDs quickly and could replicate the problem. We then enabled “Fast SSID change” on the controller and our preliminary results look promising. We have a lot more testing to do (and one more game this weekend for the ultimate challenge) before we call this a success, but for right now we’re happy with the results. Why our WinXP boxes and my Ubuntu laptop have no issues whatsoever and why the Macintosh comptuers have problems is beyond me. But if “fast SSID change” fixes our Macintosh computers, I’m a happy Jayhawk…

The day before the game, we tested everything again. We backed out all the configuration changes that have happened in the last 12 months, which was the last time we didn’t have any problems. Same results – the Macs would not change SSIDs and get an IP address without having “fast SSID change” enabled. Twelve months ago we did not have this setting enabled, and after backing out all of the changes in the last year we have proved the problem still exists. The only thing we could not back out easily was downgrading the code from 7.0 to 5.2. At this juncture we can only assume that upgrading the code caused this issue since that is the only change we could not “undo” easily without affecting the entire campus.

Game day. A complete success! We arrived 3 hours before game time and I personally walked in with a Win7, XP and two Macintosh laptops. All four machines associated to the network easily and we changed SSIDs quickly as expected. We then turned off the “fast SSID change” and tried again, which brought back all the issues we were seeing. We quickly turned turned it back on everything was okay. The press showed up an hour later and had no problems at all.

Tim Dennehy – timothybryandennehy@yahoo.com

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Sometimes students, or clients, ask how they can stay in tune with all the changes and updates to Wireless LAN Technologies. It is a very fast moving target. In the past one might have just read trade magazines, and attended annual technology conventions like Interop or Comdex. But in today’s ever moving world, you have to find more timely ways to stay on top of your industry.

This week’s episode will go over five ways to help you stay in tune with changes and updates to our chosen field.

Twitter

My first recommendation here is to BE ON TWITTER!
Ok, now that I’ve got that out of my system. Please use a Twitter client, looking at Twitter only through the eyes of their browser interface is difficult, and doesn’t give you any perspective. I wrote a blog post earlier in the year talking about my experiences with Twitter and some helpful hints to get you started. You can find it here:
http://wirelesslanprofessionals.com/twitter-what-is-all-the-fuss-about/

To help get you started on folks you might want to follow. I carry a ‘follow list’ on the Wireless LAN Professionals.com web site, you can reach it here: http://wirelesslanprofessionals.com/follow

Another way to find other like-minded individuals is to search on the ‘hash tag’ of #WirelessWednesday. This was started a while back, and each Wednesday, folks in our industry recommend other Twitter users you might want to follow. Sometimes these are people with an already-large following, who Tweet a lot, and other times another newbie to the world of Twitter, kind of asking for your help and attention to help welcome this new person to this social media forum.

Some people like Facebook, and other like Twitter, and still others use them both. I’ve found Facebook is a place to stay in contact with people you already knew, but lost touch with. Twitter, on the other hand, is a place for you to meet and connect with folks you don’t know, but would like to be in contact with.

Blogs

Weblogs, or blogs for short are fast easy ways to publish ‘posts’ or content to the web is a simple way, without requiring the direct use of HTML or CSS coding. They have become quite popular. But where to start?

On the Wireless LAN Professionals.com website I’ve added a page to help get you started: http://wirelesslanprofessionals.com/blogs

Most of these blogs fall into one of the following categories.
Vendor Blogs – some of these might be fairly old, and not updated a lot
Individual Blogs – the experiences and tips/tricks from individuals
Study & Exam Prep Blogs – from people prepping for CWNP or Vendor Wireless Exams
News Blogs – Blogs posting current information about our industry
Blog Aggregators – in our world its the CWNP’s twitter posts about all other new blog posts

Here’s a list of the Wireless LAN Blogs that I follow on a regular basis. I like fresh new content, not too vendor bias, but I’m not adverse to a vendor slant on things.

• Devin’s Aerohive Blog
• Zaib’s WLAN Book Blog
• Steve’s WiFi Edge Blog
• GT Hill’s Blog
• Laura Chappell’s Blog
• Meru’s Signal2Noise Blog
• Jim’s Wireless-Nets
• Joe’s Connect 802
• The WiFi Hack Blog
• AirTight Networks Blog
• The Ruckus Room
• Doug’s WiFi Jedi Blog
• Ben’s Sniff WiFi Blog
• Lisa’s Wireless Corner
• Ron’s TechBytes
• Daily Wireless News
• George’s My 802.11 Blog
• Josh’s ‘Will Hack For Sushi’ Blog
• WiFi Networking News
• Jennifer’s CCIE Study Blog

I’m sure there are many other great blogs, and I know I’ve forgotten some of you. Just drop me an e-mail and I’ll add you to the list!

Forums

Another way to get involved and learn about Wireless LANs is to get involved in one of the many ‘Forums’ – a place you can go to ask questions, get answers, and share information pertinant to your job or your industry.

Here’s a couple to help you get started: http://www.cwnp.com/bbpress/
Or AirMagnet’s new community forums: http://www.airwisecommunity.com/
Other Vendor Communities from Cisco, Aruba, etc. Name your vendor of choice, and there is probably a forum dedicated to helping their customers.

RSS

This RSS thing… see the RSS Primer at http://www.whatisrss.com/ to learn more about the technology. It is a simple way to get blog and/or website update information send directly to you, so you don’t have to continually search the websites for the latest updates.

This can be made easier through the use of an RSS ‘Reader’ – or RSS Client software. I happen to like using Google Reader, but you can search on the term RSS reader and find many many options out there.

This is the technique I use to follow many blogs everyday, but only need to go to one place to catch up on the latest posts.

Google Alerts

This final one is a simple, free service provided by Google to help you track certain keywords. I’ts not always the most timely way to get information, but it does allow you to use a much wider net in your searching. It is very easy to setup and use. Just pick some special ‘keywords’ you’d like Google to follow for you, as well as how often you’d like to be updated. Voila, every day (or whatever your time period happens to be) you’ll receive an e-mail with links to the websites or blogs that have triggered your keywords.

Sometimes you’d get something that doesn’t pique your interest, but other times you’ll have early access to things and topics you’re interested in, but don’t have the time to run daily searches on yourself.

You can find this service at: http://www.google.com/alerts

Your choice of ‘Keywords’ will help to focus in on the technologies and topics you’d like to stay current with. Here are a couple of examples I’ve loaded in my copy of Google Alerts – it helps me to stay on top of people talking online about the things I care about.

• Your name
• Wireless LAN Professionals
• Wireless LAN
• Wireless Site Survey
• WLAN Site Survey
• 802.11
• Wireless LAN Vendors
• WiFi and Wi-Fi and WLAN

Well, in this episode we’ve covered Five Ways to Stay Current with Wireless LAN Technology. Twitter, Blogs, Forums, RSS, and Google Alerts.

If you have any other ways you like to stay current, or blogs/Twitter users I should add to my list, just drop me an e-mail at keith at WLANPROS.com and I’ll update the website accordingly.

Thanks for your patronage. If you’d like to be included in our upcoming monthly newsletter, be sure to register with our ‘double-opt-in’ mailing list in the top right corner of the website.

Thanks for listening.

We’d love to have you subscribe to our RSS feed – just click the button in the upper right corner of the web page. Until next week, thanks for listening!

If you have any feedback on the show – please drop an e-mail to feedback@WirelessLANProfessionals.com.

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Earlier this year I used this same title for a blog post… I thought I’d bring it back this week as a podcast episode. A chance to talk about a wide variety of subjects that have been on my mind lately.

Here’s a ‘reprint’ of that blog post.

Main Entry: sal·ma·gun·di
Pronunciation: ˌsal-mə-ˈgən-dē
Function: noun
Etymology: French salmigondis
Date: circa 1674

1 : a salad plate of chopped meats, anchovies, eggs, and vegetables arranged in rows for contrast and dressed with a salad dressing
2 : a heterogeneous mixture : potpourri

IT Professional Apps on iPhone

If you are interested in iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad apps that would help as an IT Professional, specifically involved in Wireless Networks, check out a couple of blog posts I wrote on the subject with lists of available network support tools.

I think you’ll be surprised how useful this can be to an IT Professional.

http://wirelesslanprofessionals.com/rf-toolbox-iphone-app/
http://wirelesslanprofessionals.com/network-apps-for-iphone-revisited/
http://wlaniconoclast.blogspot.com/2009/04/wlan-professionals-portable-toolkit.html
http://www.my80211.com/product-reviews/2010/1/4/iphone-app-iphone-network-sniffer.html
http://www.my80211.com/home/2009/12/12/iphone-app-wifi-scanner-wififofum.html

Study Exam Objectives

Can we take Wlanman09′s words and tattoo them to all potential CWNA/CWSP/CWNE students?

There are many shortcuts to passing exams – brain dumps, practice tests, etc. But the best so far is as he suggested… study the Objectives.

The exam questions do NOT come from the Study Guides, or from the practice questions. But they *are* tied directly to Exam Objectives.

All of the support materials will also try to map to the exam objectives… but there is nothing to guarantee they will prepare you in all ways for the test. Be sure you UNDERSTAND the objectives thoroughly before attempting the exams.

CEH, LPT and CWSP

I’ve taught all three, CWSP, CEH, and the LPT (as well as the associated CHFI and other forensics classes)

The CEH is very very broad – I was the technical editor on Kimberly Graves latest CEH Study Guide (Sybex) and it covers all types of hacking. The accompanying resources that come with the authorized student kits are HUGE. Massive amounts of information are covered, and needed to pass this broad ranging exam. (Kimberly is also CWNE #2 and a great instructor if you can find a CEH class where she is instructing)

The Licensed Penetration Tester is more hands-on, and detailed oriented more on the actual processes of doing Penetration Testing. (CEH more conceptual) plus you have to pass a ‘background check’ to show you are ‘of good character’. If you want to do Pen Testing for a living, this might be for you.

There are many other Forensics type classes… more along the lines of tracking hackers after the fact.

If you are into the generic Security – look into CISSP and GIAC… but nothing out there is better for Wireless Security than the CWSP. By the way, the new CWSP study guide from Coleman, Westcott, Harkins and Jackman is a fantastic resource. But you’ll also have a pretty fun experience doing the classroom labs.

If you don’t have the travel budget for an live-in-person instructor-led CWSP course. Rick Murphy over at http://www.wirelesstrainingsolutions.com/cwsp-training-classes has a great remote setup where you still get to do all the labs as well as the lecture portions.

As a ‘side note’ you might want to think about all the reading that will be involved in any of these Certifications. Security is an in-depth detail oriented topic with many many facets to cover in short periods of time.

WLAN Spectrum Analysis Devices

In the Spectrum Analysis arena there are a couple of options as well.

The cheapest is the AirView2 from Ubiquiti – a small USB 2.4GHz spectrum analysis tool. Probably the least resolution available though. But it is very inexpensive.

The folks over at Nuts About Nets also have a couple of options in lower-cost SpecAn devices, but I’ve only used their ‘jammer’ tools called ‘AirHorn’.

Metageek has some fine individuals working there and they have an entire series of small USB spectrum analyzers, starting at only $100 for the 2.4i and moving up to their flagship DBx that does both 2.4GHz and 5GHz analysis.

There are also ‘bug’ type spec ans from the guys at Berkely Varitronics, little hand-held units (based on like pocket pc devices) that are fairly light-weight but still do detailed RF analysis. But not too user friendly in their reporting. You’ve got to know what you’re looking at.

AirMagnet/Fluke has just started shipping their own Spectrum XT product – a very high-end professional tool designed to supercede the Cognio version, but in an easy-to-use USB form factor. This one also integrates very well with you local WiFi card for integrated analysis.

The big gorilla in this marketplace is the Cognio Spectrum Analyzer, the company was purchased by Cisco awhile back, and you can still get these OEM branded through a variety of sources, Cisco, AirMagnet, Fluke, etc. I’ve spent many many hours using this tool and feel very comfortable finding just about any RF source… but it is the most expensive of the WLAN SpecAns.

Of course if you have even more money you can go with a full-blown SpecAn from the big boys but those are huge, expensive, but can ‘see’ a wide variety of frequencies.

There’s a quick review of the SpecAn marketplace as of today.

WLAN Packet Capture Tools

Omnipeek Personal is no longer available.

I like the AirMagnet WiFi Analyzer, but it does cost a bit of coin for a professional tool. This one shines for ease of use, speed, and robust analysis.

Omnipeek professional is also a good choice. Very good live decodes, and lots of analysis above the MAC layer.

When doing packet injection I use Commview for WiFi. Also ties nicely in with NetResident for seeing upper-layer decodes (like watching websites, emails, voice, etc. over the WLAN)

Of course you can always go with Wireshark with a CACE AirPcap solution. Or if you are so inclined you can go with the Linux version of Wireshark and not need the AirPcap. Check out one of the Backtrack CDs.

I’ve just received the latest from AirDefense, called AirDefense Personal and I’ll be giving it a run-through as well.

I carry all of these on my main laptop, they each have features that make them worth using.

For an upcoming book I’m working on, we’ll be using Wireshark/AirPcap as the main deliverable since the base software is available for free download.

WIDS/WIPS

I’m personally a bit partial to the AirMagnet Enterprise solution. I’ve done many consulting gig installs/configurations with this and have found it to be a very robust solution for WIPS. But in my opinion most people purchase such a solution with ‘security’ money, and it does a great job there. But the real ROI comes from the performance improvements it can find to help make your Wireless LAN more efficient.

I’ve also worked with AirDefense and AirTight and think they are also very good solutions.

In my opinion any of the ‘overlay’ WIPS solutions will always be a better solution than any of the ‘time-slice’ solutions the AP vendors try to sell. (read up on the Joanie Wexler WIPS series)

Cost wise an Overlay solution needs dedicated sensors, and a time-slice solution needs additional APs put into ‘monitor’ mode. For my money (and these both cost about the same) I’d go with a device that had been designed and dedicated to specifically doing one job well.

I know the AP Vendor sales folks would much rather sell you ‘spare’ Access Points… but dedicated sensors can do a far superior job of ‘watching’ your network.

You can also install an Overlay WIPS in a ‘no-wireless’ policy area where/when you have no Access Points in the area.

Just one man’s opinion,

WIDS/WIPS Capabilities

Now to answer the other part of Wilddev’s question.

Kimberly Graves, CWNE #2 and I developed a course awhile back on Wireless LAN Penetration Testing called WLSAT (Wireless LAN Security and Assessment Toolkit) where we taught folks how to use the latest in penetration testing (read HACKING) into wireless networks.

There are many many techniques. But you asked: “how well the can detect and prevent someone who knows wireless well from getting past them?”

Both the Overlay and Time-Slice models allow for the Detection of just about all forms of Wireless Attacks. They all use some sort of Denial of Service to do the ‘Prevention’ bit of a WIPS service. This in itself was designed to protect the client’s own network from unwanted wireless connections. But this also has an unintended consequence, it in itself perpetuates the Denial of Service for the clients’ employees who happened to be connected with the Rogue devices. Be sure your help desk knows the signs and symptoms that occur when your WIPS is in ‘protect’ mode.

Also be cognizant of the legal ramifications of having a system that can cause DoS attacks to your neighbors if implemented and configured incorrectly.

WIPS/WIDS systems can do a great job protecting your Wireless infrastructure, but from the hackers standpoint, wireless is only one of the access methods into your network. You’ll need a broad spectrum security solution, wireless is only a component in that system.

Learning to Read SpecAns

In response to a blog post by Ben Miller over at http://www.sniffwifi.com/2010/03/pleasant-wispy-surprise.html

Ben thought the WiSpy Spectrum Analyzer was something ‘less’ because it doesn’t include Device Identification. I like using all the Spectrum Analysis tools… but have found you as a ‘human’ have the best ‘pattern identification’ there is.

Though I teach folks how to use the Cognio Spectrum Expert (AirMagnet’s version) as well as AirMagnet’s own Spectrum XT, both of which have built-in identification. I try very hard to NOT use the built-in device identification.

Instead I teach how as a ‘human’ you can also beat the computer in identification, the ability to ‘see’ things/patterns in the FFT plots and Swept Spectograms. It takes more effort. More experimentation. And more time. But the results are better as well. Anyone can read the auto-identifier’s report that it sees a Bluetooth device. But as a ‘human’ with better recognition, you can see the pattern that can only belong to an iPhone or see the ‘signature’ of a Palm Pilot.

It’s kind of like learning to read sonograms or x-ray results. It takes lots of practice. But in the end, a ‘human’ will always be able to beat a computer in pattern identification. (Think of hearing your child’s cry at a noisy playground)

Student Study Lab Equipment

I’d strongly recommend working with at least ‘tier three’ type enterprise products. If you can get your hands on any Cisco or Aruba controllers and APs…that would be best for your career. But you can probably use the semi-enterprise stuff from Engenius or Ubiquiti stuff to get you the experience you need for the CWNA exam.

Anything from the ‘tier two’ enterprise vendors would be more than enough as well. (Ruckus, Aerohive, Trapeze, Meru, Motorola, HP, etc.)

Working on just SoHo type equipment won’t be enough. Most only support WPA I/II with PSK – and you should have experience with Radius if at all possible.

From the ‘old days’ of Novell CNEs – those who had their own lab setups at home were always prized over the ‘paper-CNE’ types when it came time to getting hired.

“Ripple Tank” Animations

I’ve used the program Eminem extensively to view wave forms to show Amplitude, Polarity, Frequency, etc.

But this Java Applet might be what you’re looking for.

http://www.falstad.com/mathphysics.html

Try both the 3D and 2D wave applets.

Begging for Comments and Suggestions

Comments or suggestions on these or other topics is always appreciated!

Let me know if you think any of these short blurbs justify longer blog posts or white papers. Thanks!

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Years ago I produced a series of hands-on training classes for Laura Chappell, as part of the ‘toolkit’ we included a great set of tools from Kirk Thomas called NetScanToolsPro. This set of tools have found their place in my network analysis and troubleshooting toolkit for many years now. I thought Kirk would be a good person to have on this week to share a bit about his tool.

Kirk was also gracious enough to offer Wireless LAN Weekly listeners a fantastic 40% off discount code. (see bottom of post for details)

You can check out NetScanTools yourself at one of the following links:

Main Web Page

Training Videos

NetScanToolsPro Demo Request

Twitter

Blog

Managed Switch Port Mapping Tool

Here are a couple of graphics about the product. This set of tools also has some automated functions that ‘run’ a series of tools for you. Also be sure to check out the training videos and support documentation to learn more about how your TCP/IP network works.

The discount code is ‘WLW032′ (that’s a Zero in front of the 32)

Discount coupon is good for:

*NetScanTools Pro Full Version (normally $249, with coupon $149.40)

*NetScanTools Pro Full Version bundled with Managed Switch Port
Mapping Tool (normally $348, with coupon $208.80)

*NetScanTools Pro Full Version on 4GB Ready Boost USB stick, USA
delivery only (normally $349, with coupon $209.40)

*NetScanTools Pro Full Version 3 license pack (normally $710, with
coupon $426)

Select from the ‘PLIMUS’ ordering options in the table on this page:
Enter the WLW032 coupon code at the shopping cart
view and press ‘recalculate’ to get the discount applied.

———————-

*Managed Switch Port Mapping Tool Full Version (normally $199, with
coupon $119.40)

Select from the *top* ‘PLIMUS’ ordering option in the table on this
page:

Enter the WLW032 coupon code at the shopping cart
view and press ‘recalculate’ to get the discount applied.

Coupon expires on September 22, 2010

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This week’s podcast comes from a blog I posted up on the AirMagnet AirWise Community web site a while back. There is also a link to a PDF copy of this document if you’d like.

Maslow’s Maxim, or as some people know it, Maslow’s Hammer, has been stated and paraphrased many times.  It has become so widely accepted that the concept has become almost fabled.

You may have heard one or more of the following:
“When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem begins to resemble a nail.”
“He that is good with a hammer tends to think everything is a nail.”
“If the only tool you have is a hammer, you are likely to perceive every problem as a nail”

The concept is thus: individuals who are incomplete in their knowledge or training of solutions propose the same type of solution to every problem they encounter.   They opt for the more familiar solution to one that may be more effective yet with which they are unskilled.

Here is where many of us involved in Wireless LAN technologies find ourselves.

I’ve seen this in myself. I’ve been using and teaching others to use AirMagnet products for many years. A large chunk of nearly every day is spent using AirMagnet tools. I thought I was pretty good at them. Then the other day on a consulting gig, I had a client looking over my shoulder and asked why I did something a certain way.

I thought this was a good teaching moment, and so I slowed down, and started to explain the purpose behind my actions. When I was interrupted, and asked not about what I was doing, but why was I not using the ‘easy way’ in the software interface. With a simple click, the new user showed the master a much simpler process. I was a bit dumb-founded for a minute.

I’d spent countless hours doing something an old, slow way. Why you ask? Because that’s just the way I’d always done it. Sometimes we just need to see things in a new light, back up and see things with a different set of eyes to realize there might be a new way, or new idea to accomplish something.

Now back to the Hammer and all those nails.

In the Wireless LAN industry we go about our daily lives designing, maintaining, and troubleshooting a wide set of WLAN equipment. Usually using the same old tools and techniques we learned from our mentors. Doing things the same way, just because that was the way we did them in the past. I taught and consulted with my clients for many years they didn’t need to have a spectrum analyzer, why? Because they were expensive, and quite difficult to understand. And who needed a Spectrum Analyzer anyway when you don’t get paid to deliver dB’s (RSSI) but instead we get paid for delivering Bits (frames of data).

“If the frames are being delivered

properly, who cares about the RF”

The ‘old’ Keith Parsons, 2005

Then along comes AirMagnet’s Spectrum Expert, and we all learned quite a bit about the RF world around us. Regular Wi-Fi NICs just can not ‘see’ the ambient non-modulated RF. In fact, sometimes they’ll report ‘noise’ when there is very little, or the reverse; they’ll report no ‘noise’ when there is way too much ambient non-modulated RF.

Today we have AirMagnet’s Cognio-based Spectrum Expert, and additionally AirMagnet’s USB-Based Spectrum XT, and just released AirMagnet’s AirMedic USB to help us ‘see’ the ambient real-world RF environment.

We need to use the appropriate tool for the job.

My father once tried to change the oil in my new Plymouth Horizon. He had the same type of car, but mine was a bit newer and had a different Volkswagen engine that needed a special oil filter wrench. I saw him drive my car off the blocks and down the street dripping oil down the road. Upon his return an hour later, I learned he’d pierced the oil filter trying to use his “old reliable tool” that had worked for years. The nice folks at the Oil Lube place at the bottom of the hill by his house were kind enough to use the correct tool for the job and fix his mistakes.

• What tools are you still using to design, maintain, and troubleshoot your Wireless LANs?
• Are you still doing the old AP-on-a-stick method of designing only for coverage?
• Are you still trying to estimate cell overlap with old-fashioned percentage methods?
• Are you still using NetStumbler for Rogue AP discovery?
• Are you still using Wi-Fi NICs to gauge RF Noise? What about SNR?
• Are you still trying to understand Wi-Fi by looking inside the IP-layer payload?
• Are you still using an old laptop with PCMCIA slots just so your old tools work?

What is your Wireless LAN hammer?

Isn’t it about time check your toolbox and make sure you have the correct tools for your job of designing, maintaining and troubleshooting your Wireless LAN?

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A couple of weeks ago I did a review of Joe Epstein’s book on Scalable Mobile VoIP – but had made a technical error and didn’t have the recording of our interview. This week I had a chance to get back together with Joe and talk about his book, and VoIP over WiFi in general.

Thanks to Joe Epstein for spending the time to do this interview.

Enjoy the discussion on VoIP over WiFi.

You can find Joe and his work at MeruNetworks

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This week I’m on vacation with my family. And so we’ve invited back Ron Nutter, of TechBytes to guest host the show. His guest is Joe Bardwell from Connect802 and will be talking about some of the details around 802.11n.

Please go and check out both Ron Nutter’s blog, but Joe Bardwell’s site as well for great information for Wireless LAN Professionals.

Enjoy!

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This episode invites back Adam Conway of Aerohive networks to talk about their latest software upgrade. I asked Adam on the Wireless LAN Weekly Podcast specifically to talk about ‘Client Health Score’ as part of the 3.5 code release.

If you have 19 clients for every Access Point, the clients are 95% of all the wireless in your environment. Even if you have a very dense AP deployment and have only 9 clients for every Access Point, you still have the STA’s or client wireless as 90% of your wireless network. Clients are terribly important when it comes to maintaining a healthy, working Wireless LAN.

Adam will talk to use about this new type of technology, and how it can effect your Wireless LAN. Listen in, and enjoy!

Download the Solution Brief Understanding the Concept of Client Health Score

Watch the Video Understanding the Concept of Client Health

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My apologies about the messed up/missing audio on last week’s podcast with Joe Epstein. We’ll be having him back next week.

This week contains and interview with Carolyn Carter of Fluke Networks. Carolyn is the Portable Network Tools Product Manager – and one of her charges is the new AirCheck hand-held testing device for Wireless LANs.

For Further information you can contact Fluke Networks. They have a great online simulator where you can try a little virtual hands-on with the AirCheck device.

You can reach Carolyn Carter directly at Carolyn.Carter@flukenetworks.com or on Twitter at http://twitter.com/FlukeNetworks.

Now for those supporting graphics to go along with Carolyn’s descriptions in the audio interview.

I had a chance to play with a pre-production unit right before the official launch. Without any instructions, or hints from the Fluke sales rep, I was able to do everything the tool is designed for… it is just that intuative!

Since receiving an evaluation unit, I’ve taken it on gigs all around the world. Large industrial sites, hospitals, airports, hotels, office buildings, conferences, and even on a cruise ship. I’ve used it for my own clients, taught other field reps to use it, and as a backup to my larger laptop-based tools.

Simply put, the AirCheck does exactly what is was designed for. It is fantastic at discovery, quick and easy in ‘Find’ mode, connects and tests Access Points and the DHCP services behind an AP. All in a small, lightweight device.

You will be surprised, nay even shocked, at the speed at which it boots and gets down to scanning. (well under three seconds from powered off, to scanning the air for WiFi signals)

Those who understand 802.11 and WiFi, will instantly understand and know how to use an AirCheck. With those field techs I’ve trained on the device, they too pick up the interface quite quickly, but don’t always understand what the screens are showing them.

I’m very impressed with this device, it has early a coveted spot in my ‘go bag’ and WiFi toolkits!

It’s not perfect however… the power brick is large, heavy, and unwieldy. I don’t like carrying custom special power bricks. They should have allowed for charging from USB port’s 5v.

Configuration is also a bit of a pain. To prepare the AirCheck to connect with an authenticated Wireless LAN, you have to start a Windows session on your laptop, run the AirCheck software, configure then transfer a profile from the Windows machine to the AirCheck. (though you only have to do this once for each different profile you need. But this does take away from the ‘portability’ of the device.

If you are interested at all, use the link above to try the online simulator and see if the screens and information the AirCheck discover/display will help you in your own Wireless LAN analysis and troubleshooting, I know it has helped with mine.

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Looking at my bookshelf in my office I have over four shelves full of books on Wireless LAN technologies. I’m sure many of you do as well. It’s a big part of how we learn about the thing we deal with day in/day out.

Lately someone recommended I check out a book with a very long name, Scalable VoIP Mobility – Integration and Deployment. Now that’s a mouthful…

But when I heard the author was Joseph Epstein of Meru Networks fame, I thought this might be a good read. I was not disappointed!

I’ve been teaching folks around the globe on how to best design their Wireless LANs for a VoIP deployment, as well as teaching people to use AirMagnet’s VoFi Analyzer. Either of these tasks requires a very large baseline of knowledge.

You’ve got to know and understand:

• Network Components – switches, hubs, routers
• Networking Protocols – TCP, UDP, IP, MAC, etc.
• Voice Technology – Analog vs Digital, PSTN, CO, CPE, etc.
• VoIP Fundamentals – Codecs, MOS, Jitter, Latency, etc.
• Wireless LAN Fundamentals – Contention Domain, RF characteristics, 802.11 Protocols, roaming, etc.
• Network Security – Authentication, Encryption, etc.

All of those technologies, and then learn to synthesize those together into a cohesive bit of knowledge to apply on your Voice over WiFi network. Whew!

Well Joe does a great job in covering all of those items in great detail in his book!

This week we are pleased to have Joe Epstein in an interview to help explain in person some of the concepts covered by his book.

I’ve read just about every book on the market that has anything to do with Wireless LANs – and this one shines as a beacon of knowledge, lighting the way for further, in-depth understanding of not only the Voice over IP issues, but more importantly how 802.11 works, and how mixing the two effects each other.

Highly recommended!

You can get your copy on Amazon

The book contains many tables and charts just loaded with researched details any Wireless LAN Professional needs to have at their fingertips. We even found out in the call that Joe developed all the book’s graphics himself.

Here are a couple of those graphics – they can really help to understand some fairly complex topics.

If you want to learn about 802.11, or VoIP, or WiFi Security – you can’t go wrong with this book. I personally went the the Kindle version so I can have it on my iPad as a technical reference with me always available.

Thanks again to Joe Epstein for not only writing this book filled with knowledge we all need, but also for sharing his time on this podcast episode!

You can find Joe and his work at MeruNetworks

Last Minute Apology – Due to a technical problem in the recording. The interview with Joe Epstein will be postponed until a future episode. This is a big ‘Doh’! on my part. I connected up some of the recording equipment incorrectly and the resulting audio was un-fit for publishing. My apologies!

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This week’s content comes from an interview with Matt Holdrege, a wireless technologist who has helped many companies roll out new technologies. We get to hear Matt discuss Mesh Networking, as well as a description of a new intriguing Antenna Technology.

I am American and have always worked for American companies, but I am based in France and travel all over the world representing American technology. I also have done a lot of work in standardization, writing RFC’s in the IETF, chairing groups in the IETF, ITU-T, ETSI and other fora. I have done a lot of work in VoIP, especially in lawful intercept (wiretapping) for the FBI and other organizations. And I have been nominated as a Senior Member of the IEEE.

Access Points

First Generation – Autonomous
Second Generation – Controller-Based
Third Generation – Wireless Mesh

First Mesh – Single Radio, to ‘share’ for local access and backhaul
Second Mesh – Dual Radios, one for local access and one for backhaul
Third Mesh – Multiple Radios, multiple access frequencies, multiple redundant backhaul

See www.strixsystems.com

New Antenna Technology coming from the Wireless ISP arena.

Wireless is best effort communication. Smart phones, hand-held gaming devices, and Netbooks don’t transmit with strictly vertical or horizontal polarity. Like cellular antenna systems, the FSRD’s multiple dipole antenna arrays are oriented off-axis in order to catch more signal, at any polarity at any time.

Data throughput is most important. Just catching more signal is only part of the equation when it comes to wireless data communications. The FSRD’s high-speed internal signal paths ensure that RF signal gets to the radio as fast as possible.

Too much signal is too much of a good thing. Physics prevent radios from processing unlimited amounts of data. The FSRD’s patent-pending Frequency Splitting Receptacle (FSR) ensures that only one frequency is sent to the radio at a time. As a result, the radio can actually use most of the signal that the FSRD sends to it.

See www.samsohite.com

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Many years ago, I worked with Ron Nutter on the CNEPA Communications Committee, for those of you you are old enough to remember it, the CNEPA turned into the Network Professional Association… oh, the good old days…

Ron has been an editor with Network World for over 17 years writing articles on Help Desk, and answering your questions about networks. In his ‘day job’ he maintains a large multi-national corporate network.  In this episode we’ll talk a bit about his transition from a Windows guy, to a Mac person, and all that entails with respect to an IT Professional.

You might not be thinking of moving to a Macintosh, you might be satisfied using Windows and love your Dell/HP/Lenovo. But this discussion of the tools that are needed as a Network Engineer can be good food for thought for all of us.

You can get a copy of his free e-book with the same title here. Or check out his new website and blogs.

Some of the items we mentioned in the interview:

Keyspan USA-19HS adapter – USB to Serial Adapter

MacWise – Terminal Software

ZOC – Terminal Software

Super Looper – Rolled Adapter

Little Snitch – Outbound Firewall

MSecure – Password System

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For the last 15 years of my life I’ve been an instructor of networking technology. Yes, I’ve dabbled a bit in the consulting arena, spending between 20% and 40% off my available time helping others to design, troubleshoot, implement, and maintain with Enterprise Wireless LAN Infrastructure. But basically, I’ve been a teacher.

I started with the Novell tracks, CNA, CNE, CNI, Master CNE, Master CNI…

Then on to the Microsoft tracks of MCP, MCSE, MCT, MCSE+I

The entire CompTIA series from A+, Security+, Network+, Server+, etc.

And of course there was the Cisco tracks of CCNA, CCDA, CCNP, CCDP.

Then about ten years ago I decided to focus on just Wireless Networking, CWNA, CWSP, CWAP, CWNE on the vendor neutral track, as well as the Cisco CCNA Wireless (a couple options there as the programs change)

I mention that not because I want to tout my own education, but to set a base of knowledge that many of you have also taken in your careers. Basically, as a lead in for today’s podcast topic of “Learning Wireless LAN Technologies”

Learning Styles

I’ve taken thousands of hours of instructor-led courses, and even more hours of self-study, and even a couple of online courses. And in that process I’ve learned about how I learn. That is a fairly iterative statement, but one that makes sense.

How does one learn?

Linking to previous knowledge

Blooms Taxonomy

What is the goal of learning? Just to regurgitate things you’ve read? Different tasks require different levels of knowledge, thus Bloom defined this ‘taxonomy’ or pyramid that can help explain how different concepts need to be learned, to accomplish different goals. The more you need the top level in your work, the more education you need to attain. Double-click to view the graphic a bit larger.

What is your learning style? Do you learn via visual, auditory, physical,? Take the inventory assessement, but you probably already know what works best for you. Learning Styles Inventory

When is the best time to study?

Make a study area.

Get ‘permission’ for learning from your boss, spouse and even yourself.

“If you only learn by doing, then you’ll only ever know what you’ve done.”

Learning Options

Instructor-Led

Like many of you, I enjoy instructor-led training, it’s the way I assimilate new information the fastest. Not only because I’m in a room with someone who knows a lot more about the subject than myself, but more importantly, it forces me to sit still in one place and concentrate on a single subject. I don’t have the internal discipline to stay focused all the time. The costs for instructor-led training are fairly high, travel, hotels, food, plus the costs of the class. Oh, and the time away from earning a living. But this is the tried-and-true method that works best for me. Even with the extra costs involved, this allows me time to focus on the learning at hand. For certification training, this is the ONLY way that works for me. I can go and be free to study all day, and then all night without any distractions from work or family responsibilities.

Is instructor-led learning what works best for you? Why?

Self-Study

I’ve also done massive amounts of self-study. Via Books, CBTs, White Papers, and Audio Tracks. Personally, I’m very ‘addicted’ to books. I’ll buy a new technical book, if it only has a single chapter of knowledge I can learn from. White papers abound on the internet, get yourself a great PDF reader. I really enjoy GoodReader on my iPad. I can carry hundred of technical documents with me in a single, easy-to-read, easy-to-search, and ‘zoomable’ solution that can be with me all the time.

Where possible, I buy Kindle or e-book versions. If not available in those formats, I’ll opt for a PDF, and then finally, if I have to, I’ll buy the paper version.

If you find an author that ‘speaks’ to you, stick with it. If you don’t/can’t relate to the author, find another book.

Be a good student, ask lots of questions, use the index, Google, searches, and have some discipline.

Group-Study

Some people are social learners. They need the interaction with others to help them form their opinions. They ‘process’ the information before assimlation. This isn’t bad, but it’s just not me at all. In MBA school we had group projects, and to me group learning is like managing by a committee, nothing gets done but a waste of time. Each person individually will eventually do their own work. But some folks like this method. If you are one of them, then find groups, even online groups to help assist you in your learning.

Attending instructor-led training can usually help with this learner, but be sure to be friendly and find others in the same class where you can spend time together reviewing the materials.

Hands-On

OK, now here is one of the best ways for IT folks to learn. A lot of us learn though the interface. Trying, failing, and trying again. This technique can be quite useful and works wonders when you have the base understanding of the concepts behind what you are doing.

For many many of those I teach and consult with in the wireless world, they have used this to design, install, and maintain their Wireless LANs. But without the base understanding of how 802.11 works, their networks continue to have problems, and they continually are chasing down troubleshooting issues.

Many of these issues would go away, and stay away if they would only have understood the underlying principles BEFORE they started in on the interface.

SET RANT = ON

One of my biggest pet peeves in the classroom is when people HAVE TO get to the interface, and have questions about HOW to do things in a specific pieces of software, but refuse to learn WHY you should be in the interface at all. Learn the concepts first, and the interface will be much much easier to understand.

SET RANT = OFF

Online Training

How to be a good online training student.

Prepare the online interface before class, test and retest your connections.

Use headphones with a good mic.

Ask lots of questions.

You are only one click away from doing something you’d like to be doing.

Focus, focus, focus! Be a nice ‘neighbor’ to other students

This is much harder on the instructor than a face-to-face instructor-led training session. Lack of feedback, trying to maintain student attention. Help the instructor by providing feedback and asking questions for clarity.

Don’t study from you office desk, get rid of distractions, you are NOT working, this is learning. Priorities folks!

Certification Options

Different Goals

Vendor Neutral

CWTS – Entry Level, Vocabulary, Technical Sales Oriented

CWNA – Base level concepts, generic hands-on, in-depth knowledge

CWSP – Specific to Wireless Security, vendor-agnostic solutions,  in-depth knowledge

CWAP – Very detailed packet-level analysis, multiple vendor solutions, get to know ‘Why’

CWDP – Best Practices, vendor-agnostic, experience based

CWNE – Capstone certification, all encompassing, written exam & practical experience

Vendor Certifications

Cisco

CCNA Wireless – basic understanding of WiFi Techonolgy, heavy emphasis on the Cisco solution

CCNP Wireless – deatiled understanding of Wi-Fi, but even more emphasis on Cisco Solution

CCIE Wireless – experience based, written exam and very difficult practical exam, Cisco Partners

Other Vendors

AirMagnet, AirDefense, OmniPeek, Aerohive, Wireshark, Etc.

Conclusions

Be a good student:

Ask lots of questions

Never move on to the next topic without understanding the one you are on.

Ask lots of questions

Study, read, practice, and

Ask lots of questions

See a pattern here?

It is your responsibility for your own learning. Take a bit of control. Find the learning style that works best for you. Dedicate your time and energy into study. Use all available resources in your learning process. Do It!

Thanks for listening.

We’d love to have you subscribe to our RSS feed – just click the button in the upper right corner of the web page. Until next week, thanks for listening!

If you have any feedback on the show – please drop an e-mail to feedback@WirelessLANProfessionals.com.

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This week is on the ‘Seven Rules for Accurate Site Surveys’ – we’ve has some folks request an episode on Wireless Site Surveys… and so here you go.

This episode is only this one topic. Please give us feedback if you like this single topic format, of if you’d rather return to the multiple segments, with all the ‘little’ entertaining parts. Looking forward to your feedback – e-mail to feedback@wlanpros.com

Seven Rules for Accurate Site Surveys

The process of gathering appropriate and accurate data during a Site Survey is as simple as following a few easy rules. Break the rules, however, and you could end up with totally useless – but colorful – Heat Maps that have no value to your organization.

These rules have been gleaned through hundreds of site surveys and through teaching over hundreds networking professionals how to use Site Survey products.

Rule 1 – Calibrate Your Drawing Properly

Setting the underlying ‘grid’ is critical. If you don’t accurately calibrate the drawing to reflect the reality of the actual building, with the drawing on your screen – all your data will be virtually worthless. This is #1 in the list because it is the most important step, and you should always do it correctly as soon as you open a new project.

Do not use a doorway as your ‘baseline’ to calibrate from. Use a longer dimension, as long as you can measure. I use a Laser measuring device that works out to 50m or so. Measuring wheels, long tape measures, laser, or sonar all work; just try to find the longest edge. You only need to have one dimension to accurately calibrate a drawing that comes to you with the correct aspect ratio.

Better yet, have the CAD folks drop a Dimension Line underneath the actual building on the drawing to give you an even more accurate line to calibrate against.

Note: While we’re on the subject of the drawing, simplify your drawings as much as possible, using only black and white. ‘Flatten’ the drawing down to just the simple floor plan, no need for furniture, plants, where the jacks are located. Just simple black on white walls in your drawing is best.

Rule 2 – Set the Channel Scan to the Correct Frequencies

Scan ONLY the channels you want, and don’t scan the channels you don’t want. This sounds simple… but making a mistake here can cost you greatly in the accuracy of the post survey data. If you ‘accidentally’ set it to scan ALL channels (over 200 are available to scan) – even at only 250 ms each (1/4 second) the system will nearly a minute of time to return back to the starting channel. (and you can walk quite a long way in a minute!)

I recommend setting the scan channels to the 11 (or 13) base 2.4 GHz channels and the 5 GHz channels for your regulatory domain (in the US this can be the 4 Indoor Only, plus the 4 Indoor or outdoor channels) and do a passive survey of the outside perimeter of your building first.

This will give you a nice capture of your neighbors, as well as your ‘leaking’ RF. But better yet – it will give you a nice set of channels to concentrate on when moving indoors to do the real Site Surveys.

Perhaps even do two survey walks, one for 2.4 GHz and one for 5 GHz channels. That, or watch the bottom left corner of your survey screen and don’t move to the next data capture point until the channel scan marker returns back to ‘1’.

Scan what you want, and don’t scan what you don’t want!

Rule 3 – Set Your Guess Range Properly

This goes by the more professional term ‘Signal Propagation Assessment’ – but it basically means how far do you want your Site Survey application to ‘guess’ (Interpolate) in between your captured data points.

A really accurate survey would set this down to one meter. But the problem there would be that you’d have to go and click on every single meter of space in your building.  Accurate yes, but practical, no.

Or the opposite, go to the center of your building and take a single data snapshot… then set the Guess Range to 50 meters… This one is easy and quick, but not accurate at all.

Reality is somewhere in between. Most survey applications have a couple of pre-defined options for you. You do not have to use these pre-defined Signal Propagation Assessment (SPA) numbers. Use what you think appropriate for your site; the smaller the better. It will force you to take more data points and thus get more accuracy.

For most indoor buildings, I like about a 5m Signal Propagation Assessment value.

Rule 4 – Set Appropriate ‘Snap Rate’ For Your Situation

The automatic snap rate is based on a time. You set the number of seconds when your survey application will take an extra ‘snapshot’ of your RF information. Too fast and you’ll get ‘blue lines’ with too much information and slow down your processing. Too few and your snaps will be too spread out. (Think of Goldilocks… just right…)

If you are doing a Manual (red-dot-only) survey – be sure to take a snapshot no further than what your SPA is set to. So if you set your ‘Guess Range’ or SPA at 5m, you must take a snapshot (click) at least every 5m.

Rule 5 – Capture on Both Sides of What You Care About

No ‘One Way Guesses’. This happens when you don’t capture on both sides of what you care about. If you take one data capture point on the inside perimeter of your building, and don’t also take one on the outside, then your survey application won’t know anything about the ‘thickness’ (in RF Attenuation) of the exterior wall. It ‘learns’ this by having data captures on both sides of the wall.

If you don’t care about the RF leaking outside, then this is fine. But if you do care about some area, whether it is inside or outside, you must do data captures on both sides.

Thus another corollary to this rule – Capture Outside In, Not Inside Out. Capture on the perimeters of the rooms you want to prove coverage – not one single shot from the center of each room.

One additional part to this rule; If you have ‘special’ places you need to be real sure about – then take extra data captures at those locations, ie. CEO’s desk, Board Room, etc.

Rule 6 – Click Accurately

You don’t actually walk through walls, walk on water, or fly when you are doing a Site Survey – don’t have your data look like you did or your credibility will be shot.

Prepare your walking paths in advance. You might even put little numbers on your drawing before you import it with the locations where you want to click (capture data) – and then you’ll just have to play ‘connect the dots’ with your feet later during the survey.

The old adage, Fail to Plan means Plan to Fail… holds true in this respect. I’ve seen many people who get lost, or get stuck down the end of a hallway and don’t seem to know what to do with the Survey, or where to go next. Preparation is key on this point.

If you can’t easily find yourself on the floor plan – it is a skill that can be practiced you know – then work on it until you are comfortable moving around in three-dimensional space.

When you are doing an AirMagnet Survey ‘manual’ survey, with red dots only, the dots are connected with dashed lines. These dashed lines, without blue dots, can go through walls, walk on water, and fly… it’s the autosnap blue dots we worry about.

Note: Here’s a trick to use while doing a survey. While standing still at the end of one data capture point, place your mouse cursor at the next place you plan on stopping, then start walking. When you arrive at the designated point, you only need to ‘click’ and the data point is collected right under where the cursor was waiting.

Anytime you can see a specific marking on a blueprint or floor plan, add a click for accuracy. Of course, you could walk the entire hall and your survey application would place all the data points as soon as you finished the length of the hall. But accuracy improves as you have accurate intermediate click points.

If you don’t go to all the locations and click accurately, you’ll be tempted to increase your SPA to ‘fill in’ the missing data points. (no one likes to see white spots on their heat maps).

Rule 7 – Always, Always Do A Passive Survey

You might have a reason to also do an Active Survey, (see Passive vs. Active Surveys article) but you ALWAYS must do a Passive Survey on the entire building you care about. I’d also recommend doing a Passive Survey on the exterior of the building as well.

A Passive Survey can give you information on your neighbors, others, and all of your own devices.

This is especially important for determining RF interference. If you don’t have neighbor information in your Active Survey, you can easily miss the interference on specific frequencies. Additionally, this can show you where your ‘collision domains’ are.

In addition to these rules that pertain to Passive Surveys, Active Surveys have some rules of their own.

Additional Rules for Active Surveys

Capture Data from ALL Access Points

It is quite easy to do an active survey and only get data on a subset of your Access Points. You can merge this with a Passive Survey data set and end up with what looks like an accurate survey, but it is NOT. You need to have ALL Access Points included in your Active Survey for accurate representation of your RF WLAN environment.

Capture To The Edge

When capturing Active Survey data from an Access Point, it is easy to not go to the edge of the coverage area… it’s so far to walk – so we might stop as soon as we can see the coverage meets some design goal, like -65dBm.  But this is where the failure lies. The easiest requirement to design for a WLAN is RF Coverage, but it is only the first of many requirements (see False God of dB article). The hard thing to deal with is the interference, and you’ll only learn about this if you capture data to the edge of each Access Point’s coverage area. (yes, I know this is hard and expensive to do!)

Do NOT Set Roaming To Be Too Aggressive

I understand you may have the great power to over-ride the WLAN NIC’s roaming decision process with your survey application’s roaming options feature. This makes surveying much faster and easier. Don’t succumb to the temptation!  If you set the Roaming Option to only connect at 54, 48, and 36 data rates, then your data will only show 54, 48, and 36 data rates. Since you didn’t capture the other data rate information, your report won’t show it to you

In reality, your client cards will roam according to their own algorithms and will downgrade to whatever data rates are supported in the Access Points.

And another adage that should always be remembered with respect to wireless LANs – just because you can, doesn’t mean that you should.

De-Skew Data In Sticky Situations

Sometimes when taking an Active Survey the data gets a bit ‘skewed’ in the direction of travel: away from the access points. If this is the case you’ll need to do two Active Surveys for each access point, one clock-wise and one counter-clockwise and then merge those together to ‘de-skew’ the stickiness.

Merge All Actives Before Merging With Passive

Just like it says.

If You Don’t Do Active Surveys Right – Don’t Do Active Surveys At All

If you do Active Surveys wrong, you’ll end up with a less-accurate and ‘worse’ data set than not doing any Actives at all.

Conclusions

Obey these rules or else… Or else the data you capture will be suspect at best, and totally useless at worst.

Also – don’t let your sub-contractors break the rules or ‘cheat’ on you either. Check out the How to ‘Cheat’ Using Survey – Don’t be a Victim article.

Thanks for listening.

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If you have any feedback on the show – please drop an e-mail to feedback@WirelessLANProfessionals.com.

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You’ve heard things about this ‘social media’ thing, and wondered why everyone is talking about it. You might even have a Facebook page. But that’s just for sharing personal information about what you are up to with your friends and family. You also might be forward thinking a bit about your career and have already started a LinkedIn page, and shared your personal information and started to build your professional network.

Good for you, you’ve started down the path of adding some social media into your life. See, it’s really not all that bad.

Now on to the really powerful one called Twitter.  I know, you’ve heard people talk about twitter, heard these funny new words like “tweet” and “tweeps”, and worse of all you’ve heard all people talk about is what they ate for lunch.

I too was in your same place a while ago. Looking back, my first sign up with Twitter was over two and a half years ago, right after it started. But I was turned off by the service because of a couple of issues. First, I really didn’t like going to the Twitter web page to interact, and someone suggested I setup my cell phone to receive all my ‘tweets’ via SMS texts. That lasted about 20 minute or so of a frustrating endless vibrate going on. Second, I didn’t know anyone personally or professionally that used this new service.

Fast forward to spring of last year. Based on a very simple suggestion, I learned to access Twitter, not via website, or cell phone, but to use a Twitter Client. Wow! Everything changed overnight when I could access a ‘twitter stream’ and control the flow and content of the Twitter feed. It was a whole new experience. It made the process much easier and more manageable.

Then out of the blue, a new Twitter ‘friend’ (someone I’ve never met in person, who lives in a different country, but shares some of the same passions for Wireless LANs) – did be a huge favor and sent me a local European SIM card while I was on vacation with my family in Paris.  He basically over-nighted a loaded SIM for me, additionally gave me great suggestions on where to visit, and places to see. All because we had exchanged a few 140 character messages talking about our shared passion.

I found this Twitter thing could be valuable! I realized there are real people, who share many of my same goals and interests, willing to help and share their experiences with me, just for asking. And, that there were also people who could use my help as well.  A community of people, not tied together by some artificial reason because of where they live or work, but based on shared interests.

There is an entire world of Wireless LAN Professionals who are using Twitter on a regular basis. Of course for the Social bit, sharing what they are up to, where they are traveling, etc. But more importantly, they also share ideas and tips, as well as interesting URLs and articles about a shared passion. Twitter can also be a place to ask questions and get very timely answers.

It kind of reminds me of the good ‘ol days with BBS’s and Online Tech Support Forums where we’d go in the past to get that same timely, authoritative answers to pressing tech questions.

Give it a try, set yourself up an account on Twitter.com, its not only free, but very easy. Then try out one of the many Twitter clients available. I now use a funny-sounding client called Osfoora on my iPhone and iPad, and Tweetie on my MacBookPro. But there are many other clients available on all platforms, from Blackberry to Linux and everything in between.

To get you started on finding some folks who might share your interest in Wireless LANs, check out this list of folks that I follow at http://wlanpros.com/follow. You might also want to search for the “hashtag” (a Twitter method of tagging information) of #WirelessWednesday when people share other Twitter users addresses they personally recommend.

There are also many searchable, well-written tutorials on “How to use Twitter”.

I’d be pleased to have you follow me, and my status updates on Wireless LANs via my twitter feed – @KeithRParsons – http://Twitter.com/KeithRParsons

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This week is a short podcast, first talking about the WiFi available on the Alaskan Cruise I took last week, then followed by a soft-skills segment from Elaine Rogers on ‘Career Planning’

Thanks for listening.

We’d love to have you subscribe to our RSS feed – just click the button in the upper right corner of the web page. Until next week, thanks for listening!

If you have any feedback on the show – please drop an e-mail to feedback@WirelessLANProfessionals.com.

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There won’t be an episode of Wireless LAN Weekly this week. (sorry)

I’m on a Cruise to Alaska with my wife, and though the brochures stated they had on-board Internet… they didn’t say that 4,000 people would be sharing a 1Mb pipe, And they didn’t share the costs… $.50 per minute online. The up-bound pipe is only 200k for the entire ship.

Thus, I won’t be able to upload the show this week.

But stay tuned, we’ll be back with new fresh content in next week’s Wireless LAN Weekly podcast.

Keith Parsons

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Comparing the RF, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi between Apple’s Wi-Fi iPad and 3G iPad.

In a previous blog post I reviewed using an Apple iPad as a tool for Wireless LAN Professionals. (http://wlanpros.com/iPad1)

And then did more detailed analysis of Wi-Fi and Bluetooth results from the initial Wi-Fi iPad. (http://wlanpros.com/iPad2)

In this blog and podcast I’ll be delving further into the radios included in the current two versions of Apple’s iPad.

Devices Used in Tests

First, lets introduce the players. I tested the following devices:

• Apple iPhone 3GS – MAC FF:6F
• Apple Wi-Fi iPad– MAC 39:C9
• Apple 3G iPad – MAC 54:9C
• Apple MacBookPro 13” – MAC 3C:D3
• Sprint Overdrive AP – MAC EC:D8

Bluetooth Signal Strength Test

For the first set of analysis, I compared the results of each portable station device broadcasting a Bluetooth Discovery signal. This is a pseudo-random frequency-hopping pattern. Each device was held the exact same distance from an external antenna attached to an AirMagnet Spectrum Analyzer. (Cognio chipset)

The results show the iPhone was strongest, followed by the Wi-Fi iPad and finally the 3G iPad.

I was a bit surprised with these results. I had thought the 3G version, with it’s RF friendly plastic antenna cover near the top would have been better than the Wi-Fi only version.

The plastic cover houses the 3G and GPS antennas in the 3G version, yet the Wi-Fi radio antennas are in the exact same location (behind the Apple logo) in the center of the iPad’s back. See the following URL for a detailed breakdown and photos of these parts. http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iPad-3G-Teardown/2374/1

Average Bluetooth Signal Strength

iPhone 3GS     -48 dBm

Wi-Fi iPad        -50 dBm

3G iPad            -52 dBm

This test leaves a lot of variables, but it is still a fairly effective way of testing various RSSI of each device without actually attaching directly to the device in question.

iPhone 3GS – Transmitting Bluetooth

Wi-Fi iPad – Transmitting Bluetooth

3G iPad – Transmitting Bluetooth

802.11 Signal Strength Test

The next test used an AirMagnet Wi-Fi NIC and the AirMagnet Wi-Fi Analyzer software to report the RSSI of each device in dBm.

As expected the AP came in fairly strong, and amazingly the MacBookPro was right up there. Followed by the portable clients, in the same order as before.

Device                                    RSSI

Sprint Overdrive AP            -36 dBm

MacBookPro 13”                 -32 dBm

iPhone 3GS                        -40 dBm

Wi-Fi iPad                          -50 dBm

3G iPad                              -52 dBm

802.11n Capability Analysis

Again, using the AirMagnet Wi-Fi Analyzer, I looked at the decodes to see what various parameters the devices supported.

Both the Wi-Fi iPad and the 3G iPad supported the same 802.11n capabilities settings.

They also both supported up to MCS index ‘7’.

None of the other higher-level .11n features were enabled.

802.11n Efficiency Analysis

Using the .11n Efficiency tool in WFA, I next compared the supported data rates and capabilities between the MacBookPro and the 3G iPad. The MBP far exceeds the throughput capacity of the iPad. The laptop could, in the best of circumstances transmit a symmetric 140 Mbps, whereas the iPad could reach just under 65 Mbps. (mostly because of the differences between an MCS of 15 on the MBP and only an MCS of 7 on the single radio-chain in the iPad.

MacBookPro attached to an Apple AirPort Extreme Access Point

3G iPad attached to an Apple AirPort Extreme Access Point

802.11n Frame Analysis

Below is the capture of an iPad connecting to the Spring Overdrive. No one has ever applauded Apple’s wireless stacks. One of the other stated problems with iPads on a variety of campuses has been the problem with their processing of DHCP lease times.

Laura Chappell has also done extensive analysis of the ‘chatty’ nature of Apple’s stacks, not only on iPhones and iPads, but on all their clients. (don’t get me started on Client firmware and drivers…  all vendors do some weird stuff – all meeting 802.11 specs, but the specs have lots of ‘optional’ bits.

For those of you who are into packet decodes, what type of authentication and encryption is being used in this exchange?

iPad Association to Access Point Trace File

Conclusions

I had purposely picked up a 3G iPad on the assumption the radios would work better than the Wi-Fi version. I was surprised to find with the two I tested the Wi-Fi version reported slightly higher results in both Bluetooth and 802.11 signal strengths.

I would still recommend the 3G version for the far superior GPS that is included onboard, as well as the capability to add a 3G signal (with a paid plan) in the future.

I would think the update to the OS later this year to 4.0 version will also improve the Wi-Fi and other radio bits with patches/fixes that come as a vendor gets an extended ‘beta’ test. As of this posting Apple has already sold over 2 million iPads – that should give them a very large pool of ‘testers’ to help them better refine their firmware and algorithms for 802.11 connection and roaming in a future update.

For now I’m still carrying my Spring Overdrive with me for 3G/4G Internet access that can be shared between all my devices.

I personally haven’t found any issues with either of my iPads with respect to Wi-Fi and dropped signals. (knock on wood) – but I was already using the recommendations, separating 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz into different SSIDs.

After having the iPads for many weeks of testing, I’m even more impressed with the technology. One easy way to sum up my iPad experience, of all those who might complain the iPad isn’t this, or isn’t that, or doesn’t support flash, or any of the many complaints… none of them actually owned an iPad! All those iPad owners I’ve communicated with are totally enamoured with the product and use it more than they ever expected.

No, it won’t replace my laptop anytime soon, but it sure make a fantastic light-weight addition. It is wonderful for the consumption of media, from TV shows, to games, to technical PDFs, to staying up on RSS feeds, to reading/watching news, and finally it totally replaced my Kindle.

I can’t recommend the iPad any higher. I am just waiting for Apple’s next developer code to support Wi-Fi analysis in the public infrastructure, http://www.wlanbook.com/iphone-wifi-scanner-apps-banned-by-apple/ then we’ll see some fantastic tools for the Wireless LAN Professional on this platform.  I’ve included a couple graphics from iPhone Wi-Fi apps that I happened to already have before the ban a couple months ago, so you can see what might be coming soon.

Keith

Thanks for listening.

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This week we’ll be talking about some of the counter intuitive issues concerning Wireless LANs

Many things in life are simple, easy, and just make sense. Take simple arithmetic. Two plus Two will equal Four. Easy to understand, a simple calculation. In our world of computer networks, there are other simple ideas. For example, look at the ‘Link Light’ on an Ethernet NIC. If the link light is off, we know where to look to solve the problem. (Physical Layer) But if the Link Light is on, we know to look up the stack for the issue causing a networking problem.

Our minds like to think about simple things. Things that can be easily understood. But all things in our lives aren’t always as easy or as understandable as we’d like.

On the surface, we think one thing, then as we come across empirical evidence, we soon learn our initial, might I say “intuative” reactions were wrong. Check out the following graphic of ‘additive’ colors. Without actually seeing the results, your first reaction might not be that White is the result of mixing all those other colors together.

Other times, in other situations, our perceptions can tend to distort reality. We have to look hard, and study well to make sure we really understand what is going on. The 802.11 protocols can be quite complex, and vendors have been given lots of latitude in their implementations, so a strong background in the fundamentals will help see through the vendor-hype. In the following graphic, the line drawing on the left suggests a box that is coming toward the viewer, or perhaps the box has it’s opening on the top. What do you see? (the box on the right is there just to mess with your mind)

This blog in going to focus on some of the things that are Counterintuitive with respect to Wireless LANs. And there are many aspects Wireless LAN Professionals need to be prepared for. The initial first intuitive reactions will lead you to failure. So pay attention, and lets talk through some of these counter intuitive issues.

Thanks to all those who helped contribute some of these issues via e-mail, twitter, and conversations. This is by no means an exhaustive list, just something to get you started.

By the way, it’s not just Wireless LANs that have counter intuitive issues…

On to our lists of counter intuitive issues with Wireless LANs -

• Add more overhead, decrease throughput
• More RSSI the better
• I can see 16 APs from here, I’ve got great signal
• VLANs on Wireless LANs separate collision domains
• The Noise function in Wireless NICs will show us ambient RF issues
• We need a different SSID for each purpose in our network, our system supports up to 16
• If  you point your antenna right at the signal source it will work better
• We designed our Wireless LAN for Voice, Video, Data, Bar-Code Scanners, and Location Tracking
• 802.11n actually typically decreases collisions and retries to get higher throughput
• We just installed 802.11n, we’ll get 300Mbs throughput
• Multipath is good
• Multipath is bad
• We use Windows Zero Config, it gives us everything we need
• The latest wireless drivers is all you need to fix the problem
• The wireless network is responsible for clients deciding to roam
• PoE is just PoE – they are all the same
• They wouldn’t have let us configure AP to Channel 2 if it wasn’t alright
• APs are just wireless switches
• We’ve got great (-65dBm) RSSI everywhere, Voice over IP will run fine on our WLAN
• Those little bar measurements actually reflect reality
• Bigger is better with respect to antennas
• I have four bars, I have good signal, right?
• Its better to have our APs using all channels than ‘sharing’ only 1, 6, and 11
• The SSID is unsecure so I can use it right?
• AP Power settings from 1 through 10, from LOW to HI, right?
• -90dBm is stronger than -40dBm —  90 is bigger than 40!
• Mb or MB what’s the difference… They mean the same thing
• APs route packets on the network
• I turned on QoS so our voice will work on our WLAN
• All our APs are on one channel
• All our APs are on 1, 6, and 11 only
• We like to use channels 1, 4, 8, and 11 to get more throughput
• We’re in Europe, so we use 1, 7, and 13 to stay away from all the 1, 6, and 11 people
• By using Wireless Range Extenders we’ll share our throughput with more people
• But we have to buy all our equipment from the same vendor
• We can force our neighbors to go to different channels and turn down their power
• More power, more throughput
• We had a problem in this one location, so we added APs to fix it
• Getting RF coverage is hard to do

If you’ve said any of the above statements, or still believe any of them, I recommend going back to your studies. Setup small lab configurations and try it. I’m a firm believer in empirical evidence. Try these yourself until you can prove to your self the validity or non-validity of the statements.

I’m sure many of  you reading this, or listening to the podcast can think of other such silly statements you’ve heard, or even said yourself about Wireless LANs – please share them in the comments section below.

Thanks for listening.

If you have any feedback on the show – please drop an e-mail to feedback@WirelessLANProfessionals.com.

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Lately, I’ve had many inquiries from clients and students about how to best prepare to work in our Wireless LAN industry. Many of these have been one-on-one conversations, and I’ve felt myself repeating the same advice. So this week’s Wireless LAN Weekly Episode will be a new style. Just me offering some advice on working in our industry.

This is a new style and format, I encourage your feedback and comments.

After university, I went and worked for many years, then returned to another two years of business school working on a Masters in Business Administration (MBA) degree… I added some more to to back of the card.

Ten years of working with Wireless LANs leads now onto the index card for Wireless LAN Professionals.

These are not meant to be cryptic, it’s just I’ve found short little notes like this kind remind me of much larger concepts. By the way — these are in no particular order, other than the order these ideas popped in my mind.

Lets go over each of these items one at a time, and discuss the reasons for each short note.

Below are some links to sites that might be helpful in your path to becoming a Wireless LAN Professional.

I’ve also posted links on the Wireless LAN Professionals web site with Twitter, Blogs, White Papers, etc. that also have much more information for you on your journey.

If you have any feedback on the show – please drop an e-mail to feedback@WirelessLANProfessionals.com.

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This week we’ve brought back Dave Hutchieson – with his Scottish accent and technical expertise. To share with us details of how SSL works. This is fairly detailed subject – you’ll need the show notes graphics and links to help understand all the details.

Thanks do Dave for his time in researching this subject and sharing his expertise with the rest of us.

Warning! – This is going to get pretty detailed. You might want to listen multiple times.

http://www.windowsecurity.com/articles/Secure_Socket_Layer.html

Symmetric Keys, Public Keys, Private Keys, Certificates and Hashing

https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Introduction_to_Public-Key_Cryptography

http://www.linktionary.com/h/hash_function.html

General Information

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Andreessen

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Berners-Lee

SSL Specific

http://www.windowsecurity.com/articles/Secure_Socket_Layer.html

https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Introduction_to_SSL

http://www.yellowdocuments.com/11566822-understanding-digital-certificates

http://www.mozilla.org/projects/security/pki/nss/ssl/traces/

<hr />

Secure Sockets Layer or SSL

Part 1 Historical Background

In order to get the most from this audiocast, a basic knowledge of symmetric key encryption, public and private key mechanisms, digital certificates and hashing functions is assumed. If this is new material to anyone, or you feel you need a review, please refer to the tutorial weblink included in the show notes.

A ladder diagram showing the step by step processes involved in SSL is also provided in the show notes. It is suggested that this diagram be referred to whilst the audiocast is in progress.

Wireless Security is one of the most complex topics imagineable. One of the biggest problems is the number of acronyms and abbreviations that are in use. There are a number of security mechanisms in use such as  EAP-TLS, EAP-TTLS,EAP- PEAP, EAP-FAST etc etc. It would be nice if there was a common root that could be studied in order to get a foundation for how some of them work. One common type is EAP-TLS. EAP-TLS has it’s roots in TLS or Transport Layer Security. Transport Layer Security in turn, has it’s roots in SSL or Secure Sockets Layer.

I have found that if you have a good understanding of how SSL works, that can provide a stepping stone to understanding many of the more complex wireless security methods such as PEAP.

In this audiocast, we shall look at the SSL protocol in detail. SSL is not only used as a basis for several wireless security protocols but is also used in HTTPS [ Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure ] which is often used for managing access points in a secure manner.

There are support materials provided in the show notes section, and these have diagrams which may be viewed to accompany the audio portion.

SSL is a very complex protocol and due to time constraints, we will not be able to discuss all the details that are involved. However, it is hoped that by the end of the audiocast, and with the support of the show notes, that you should have a good foundation for further study.

In a future audiocast, we shall look at how TLS was developed from SSL and how EAP-TLS was developed from TLS.

Imagine that you are on holiday and are looking out at the countryside. You decide that there are a number of different places that you want to visit on the landscape. You use a paper map to navigate around the landscape.

In the early 80’s, an English scientist, Tim Berners-Lee developed the foundation of the world wide web. However, it was a young student called Marc Andreessen from the University  of Illinois who developed the first commercial browser. This browser allowed us to navigate  from place to place on the electronic landscape. Thus, his browser allowed you to navigate the electronic network landscape or netscape.

Thus, the term Netscape Navigator came into being.

It wasn’t long before the commercial aspects of the Internet began to be developed. Companies sprouted up all over the place trying to sell goods and services to people. There was a major problem, however, and that was the issue of security. If someone wanted to buy something, that would probably mean that they would have to provide their credit card number over an open line. A method of hiding that number from prying eyes had to be developed. The issue of confidentiality or privacy had to be covered. There was also the problem of having confidence that the company that you are going to buy something from was actually that company and not an imposter. The issue of authentication had to be covered.

It was from this background that the Secure Sockets Layer or SSL was developed.

Part 2 SSL Overview

SSL was designed to work on top of a secure transport layer protocol, such as TCP or Transmission Control Protocol.  We can get a clue about this from the use of the term “sockets” in the phrase SSL.

The designers wanted SSL to accomplish three main goals:

1. To provide privacy of information

2. To provide authentication [ although as we shall see later, this is not always mutual authentication ].

3. To provide a method of message integrity which would allow us to detect if a message had been tampered with on-route from the sender to the destination.

The SSL protocol has two layers which sit on top of a reliable transport protocol. In our discussion, we shall assume that protocol is TCP.

The uppermost layer comprises three sub-protocols:

1. The SSL Handshake Protocol

2. The SSL Change Cipher Spec Protocol

3. The SSL Alert Protocol.

The lowermost layer comprises the SSL Record Protocol

The SSL Record Protocol performs a number of functions. Firstly, it takes the application data and divides it into a number of fragments when necessary. The fragment size should be no more than 16,384 bytes in length.

The specification says that we can compress these fragments. This is rarely if ever carried out in practice due to compression usually having occurred further up the protocol stack.

A Message Authentication Code is then added to each fragment.

Each fragment is now encrypted and an SSL header is added.

The secure, integrity enabled fragments are now passed onto the transport layer.

We will see later how we obtain the keys used for the actual encryption process.

Part 3 SSL In Detail

We shall now look at the three uppermost protocols, the Change Cipher Spec Protocol, the Alert Protocol and the Handshake Protocol.

The Change Cipher Spec Protocol

The Change Cipher Spec Protocol allows us to change from one encryption state to another in an organized manner. We shall see more of this later.

The Alert Protocol

The Alert Protocol allows warning messages to be passed between the two parties. For example, if an incorrect Message Authentication Code is received, an alert protocol message would be sent from one party to the other.

The Handshake Protocol

The handshake protocol is the meat of the entire system, and is the most crucial component for TLS and EAP-TLS.

Imagine that you are a police officer and your lieutenant tells you that you have to go over to the United Nations to talk to a UN security officer about a very important matter. The officer will be waiting for you at the entrance. Upon arrival, you walk up to him and say “Hello”. He looks at you with puzzled eyes. You realize that your boss has not told you what language he speaks. You say “Guten Tag”. No reponse. You say “Bonjour” no response. You finally say “Buenos Dias”. His eyes light up and he says “Ah, Buenos Dias, como esta usted ?” You shake hands. You show each other your ID badges and start talking.

In social situations, we don’t usually just walk up to someone and start talking. We usually say hello and shake hands. Sometimes we need to establish a common language.

So it is with SSL. Instead of just starting to communicate, hellos need to be said and handshakes need to take place.

There are four main phases to SSL:

1. Negotiation

2. Authentication

3. Key Exchange

4. Ongoing communications

Let’s look at each phase now.

Negotiation

During the negotiation phase, the client and server introduce each other, and decide which encryption, authentication and compression protocols will be used. It should be noted that even though the capability for compression exists in the SSL specification, it is rarely, if ever used.

Authentication

In the authentication phase, the server proves itself to the client via a digital certificate. The server may also ask the client to prove itself via a digital certificate. It should be noted that in the case of Internet shopping, this is rarely, if ever done.

Key Exchange

In the key exchange phase, a key is exchanged which will be used in creating a master key for encrypted communications. There are several methods by which this can be done, including the Diffie-Hellman method, which I shall discuss in a future audiocast. For now, we shall only discuss what is called the RSA method.

Firstly, the client randomly generates a key called the pre-master secret key [ or PMSK ] by means of a method that will be covered when we discuss SSL in detail a little later on.

Firstly, the client encrypts the PMSK with it’s own private key. This allows the server [ who has a copy of the client’s public key ] to authenticate that the PMSK did indeed come from the client.

The whole assembly [ that is the PMSK encrypted with the client’s private key ] is now encrypted with the server’s public key [ which came via the server’s certificate ] and sent to the server. The server decrypts the package with it’s own private key. This now leaves the original PMSK  which has been encrypted with the client’s private key.

The server decrypts this package with the client’s public key and hence authenticates the original PMSK.

This original key is not the final key in the process, but is used along with some other items to create the final symmetric key, also known as the master key. From the master key, session keys can be derived.

Ongoing Communications

Now that both sides have the symmetric or master key, they can exchange messages in an encrypted manner. Digital signatures can also be provided to help ensure authentication and message integrity.

Now we are now ready to discuss the detailed step by step operation of the SSL handshake protocol.

Step 1. Client Hello

This message begins the entire process.

The Client_Hello message is sent from the Client to the Server. There are four  main things that are included in the message:

1. A random number called ClientHello.Random. This random number will be used to create a key later on in the process. The random number consists of a 32 bit timestamp along with 28 bytes created by a random number generator.

2. A list of cyphersuites and compression methods that the client supports.

3. The highest version of SSL that the client supports

4. A session identifier that indicates whether the client wishes to establish a new connection on the current session or establish a new connection on a new session

The session identifier is useful for “going back” to previous webpages for example.

So what is a cyphersuite ? A cyphersuite consists of a listing of encryption methods, certificates and integrity checking methods. The client cannot just simply say “I am going to use this value of encryption, this certificate and this integrity checking method”. It has to check with the server to see if the server is actually capable of using any of the methods.

Step 2. Server Hello

The Server Hello message is sent from the server to the client. There are four  main things that the message contains:

1. A random number called ServerHello.Random. This number will also be used to create a key later on in the process.

2. The cyphersuite that the server wishes to use, chosen from the list supplied by the client

3. The lowest common value of the version given by the client and the highest that the server supports. For example, if the client suggested 2.0 and the server supports up to 3.0, the 2.0 version would be used.

4.  A session ID number. This number uniquely identifies the current session and helps with security.

The Cipher Suite is made up two main parts:

A. The Key Exchange Method. That is, how the keys will be exchanged. For example, this could be the RSA method, Diffie-Hellman method, etc.

B. The CipherSpec itself, which has fields which tell us the algorithm being used [ for example RC4, DES etc ],

the MAC Algorithm [ for example MD 5 or SHA-1 ]

the Cipher Type [ for example stream cipher or block cipher ]

the HashSize [ for example up to 16 bytes for MD5 and up to 20 bytes for SHA-1 ]

Up to this point, unique random numbers have been exchanged, an encryption method has been agreed to, and a unique session identifying number called the “session ID” has been generated.

Step 3. Server Cerificate

At this point, the server sends the client it’s digital certificate. This point is very important, as not only will the client use a key  provided in the certificate to encrypt messages back to the server, but the certificate provides proof that the server is what it says it is, and not an impostor.

The client will have previously been provided with a public key from the certification authority. This authority could be a reputable organization such as Verisign for example.

At this stage, we have to carefully distinguish between the two public keys mentioned:

The first public key has been provided by the certificate authority, that is, an independent certifier, who basically says: “If you can validate the certificate that you have just received from your server using the public key that I provided to you, you can be certain that the server is who he says he is”

Once the certificate has been verified, the client extracts the server’s public key from the certificate. This key is very important. Any messages encrypted with this key can only be decrypted by the server using it’s own private key.

Step 4 Server Key Exchange

A server-key-exchange message may be sent in this step. Only some  systems require this. In our example of using regular RSA, we do not require this step.

Step 5 Client Certificate Request

In this step, the server may request a certificate from the client via a certificate_request_message. This message has two areas of interest. Firstly a certificate type parameter. The certificate type would cover RSA or Diffie-Hellman for example.

The second item concerns certificate authorities. This would give a list of the distinguished names of certificate authorities whom the server deems to be “reliable”.

Step 6 Server Hello Done

At this point, the Server Hello Done Message is sent from the server to the client. This is the end of the first phase of the proctocol exchange.

To summarize:

Hello messages have been sent from the client and server.

An encryption method and other security parameters have been agreed to.

The client has it’s own random number and that of the server.

The server has it’s own random number and that of the client.

A certificate has been sent from the server to the client, and possibly one from the client to the server.

The public key of the server has been extracted from the server’s certificate, ready for use in the second phase.

A point to note: there are no formal first and second phases in the TLS specification. I have simply broken up the process into two parts in order to, hopefully, make the process easier to undertstand. In a future audiocast, I’ll be covering another EAP method which does have two officially defined phases.

Step 7 Client Certificate

In this step, if the server has requested  a certificate, then the client will send one.

In the classic case of SSL being used in HTTPS for internet transactions with say an on-line clothing company, the customer or client would not normally have to provide any formal identification with the exception of say a credit card number. This is obviously somewhat a problem , as it means that fraud could and in fact does occur.

Step 8 Client Key Exchange

In common with many other security protocols, a true master secret key is not sent between the two parties. Instead, a key called the pre-master secret is created and sent from the client to the server. This pre-master secret will then be used at both ends of the link to create a master secret key.

A random number is generated at the client and this number is referred to as the pre-master secret key or PMSK

Firstly, the client encrypts the PMSK with it’s own private key. This private key is known only to the client.

This allows the server [ who has a copy of the client’s public key ] to authenticate that the PMSK did indeed come from the client.

The whole assembly [ that is the PMSK encrypted with the client’s private key ] is now encrypted with the server’s public key [ which came via the server’s certificate ] and sent to the server via a client_key_exchange message.

The server decrypts the package with it’s own private key.

The server’s private key should be known only to the server. This now leaves the original PMSK  which has been encrypted with the client’s private key.

The server decrypts this package with the client’s public key and hence authenticates the original PMSK.

At this stage, both sides have the pre-master secret key. In the next part, the actual or master secret key will be calculated at both ends of the link.

The master secret is calculated using a complex hash function involving the pre-master secret, the ClientHello.Random and the ServerHello.Random variables or nonces that were described earlier. The master key is 48 bytes in length. From the master key, a number of other keys are derived. These keys are used for encrypting data sent by the server, for MAC operations performed by the server, for encrypting data sent by the client and for MAC operations performed by the client. Initialization Vector values are produced for the situation in which block ciphers in CBC mode are used.

Step 9 Client Certificate Verification

A  certificate_verify message is sent if the client previously provided a certificate to the server. This message is only used with certificates that have signing capabilities.

Step 10 Change Cipher Spec

It should be noted that the Change Cipher Spec protocol is a separate protocol from the handshake protocol. It has been included here due to it’s critical  function within the handshake protocol itself.

SSL keeps a record of two states called the current state and the pending state. We can think of these two states as “Conditions that are happening now” and “Conditions that will happen later”.

When SSL is first initialized, both states are zero. Once the master key is established, that key is used for a pending state. Both sides end up with a pending encryption process waiting in the wings so to speak.

The pending Cipherspec is copied into the current Cipherspec. We just need some form of agreement between both ends as to when to begin implementing the encryption.  This occurs in the next step.

Step 11 Finished

The finished message is used to tell the other end that the key exchange and authentication procedures were successful. This message is encrypted with one of the newly produced keys, and authenticated as well.

Once the server receives the encrypted finished message from the client, it is able to send it’s own change_cipher_spec and finished messages in steps 12 and 13 of the process.

Finally we are able to encrypt any data that needs  to be sent from either party.

That was quite a lot of material, but the core of the whole process [ as for many other security protocols ] consists of :

Negotiation,  Authentication,  Key Exchange and  Ongoing Communications

In the show notes section, I have included an interesting trace of a client to server communication process

I hope that this audiocast was useful, and thank you for listening.

If you have any feedback on the show – please drop an e-mail to feedback@WirelessLANProfessionals.com.

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This week it’s all Keith Parsons by himself. First from the Interop Show floor with his reactions and sounds of the floor. Next is an interview with Ryan Woodings directly on the show floor about a new update to their Chanalyzer product, and finally a recording of the session Keith presented along with Lisa Phifer, Bob O’Hara and Joe Epstein about migrating to .11n.

This episode isn’t from the pristine studio, but recorded live on-site. We hope you enjoy this new format.

First of all, here is the small lightweight kit I used for my time at Interop. (Yes I had my laptops with me, but I left them in the hotel room and only used this small set to see if it would work)

Small messenger style bag, mic, digital recorder, iPad, Sprint Overdrive, small notebook. I’ll post a longer blog just on this kit, but overall I was very happy with the results. Much, much easier to carry, and still accomplished everything I needed.

I’ve been going to the Interop trade show since 1993, back when it was still called Networld+Interop. This year was so much smaller than past years. Many Wi-Fi vendors opted out of the show, stating it was too expensive for the leads it generated. Back in 1993-1995 my job was to produce the CNEPA Hands-On Technology Labs. One of the venues for our training sessions was at Interop. We had 20-30 20×20 hard-wall rooms for our hands-on training sessions… I think compared with that experience, the entire trade show floor was maybe 10 times larger than our labs took back in the hey-day.

That being said. There was the old ‘energy’ and enthusiasm of those there hawking their wares. It was loud, boisterous, and high-energy as usual. The highlight is, as always, the tour and demonstrations of the Interop NOC and labs! I just love to see how they put everything together and make it ‘Inter-operate’ as it should.

One big downside was the ‘overkill’ of Wi-Fi on the trade show floor. Even with my Sprint Overdrive very close… there was just to high of a background noise floor to get really great connections. (Go Copper, Go Fiber!)

I also had a chance to interview Ryan Woodings of Metageek about their new Chanalyzer Pro – and received a personal demo of some of it’s new features.

Then on Thursday I was involved in a panel discussion concerning migration to 802.11n.

Here are some of the graphics from my slide presentation to go along with the audio recording in the podcast.

If you have any feedback on the show – please drop an e-mail to feedback@WirelessLANProfessionals.com.

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We are glad to have the Laura Chappell on this week’s episode, sharing her knowledge and expertise on all things packet analysis with our audience. Laura has just released her latest book, Wireshark Network Analysis: The Official Wireshark Certified Network Analyst Study Guide. She shares with us some tips and tricks on how to best use this free tool to make our networks work better.

Next up is Todd Lammle, an author who has trained thousands of us to pass the Cisco CCNA exam with his many books and training programs. He speaks with us about the Cisco CCNA Wireless exam and his latest book that helps prep for this vendor-specific wireless exam.

Laura has been around packet analysis… well, forever… you can find her at one of the following sites, or on twitter http://twitter.com/laurachappell.

She has lots of sample chapters, and other webinars and online training available. Her latest project is working on the new Wireshark Certification program. If you are into networking at all, please follow and learn from one of the industry’s best packet-analysis gurus. Laura makes learning network analysis actually kind of fun. Her energy and enthusiasm for the topic is infectious.

Todd’s new book isn’t quite out yet. But look for it at your regular book resellers coming soon. If you have ever wanted to pass your Cisco CCNA exams, you’ll be wanting to get a hold of one of Todd’s CCNA books. He’s taught and prepared thousands of folks to be CCNAs. He has a writing style all his own, open, fun, and just a bit irreverent.

If you have any feedback on the show – please drop an e-mail to feedback@WirelessLANProfessionals.com.

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Wade Williamson joins us from AirMagnet/Fluke Networks, walking about Wireless Intrusion Detection and Prevention Systems. As Director of Product Management at AirMagnet, Wade will share answers to questions garnered from a recent Network World Q&A on WIDS.

For the second half of the show, we’ve brought in Jeff Keenan, a reseller dedicated to the Wireless space who answers some of the most popular FAQs he has seen from his clients.

AirMagnet Enterprise WIDS/WIPS

24X7 Wireless Intrusion Prevention/Detection System

Jeff comes to us from East Hampton, CT – who started Keenan Systems

Here’s a thread from Keenan Systems Forums on Wireless in a Hospitality Environment.

If you have any feedback on the show – please drop an e-mail to feedback@WirelessLANProfessionals.com.

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Kevin Sandlin from the CWNP program starts out the show with a couple of announcements about the CWNP program for 2010. Specifically talking about the return of the CWAP certification, the new CWDP certification, and how these will effect the future of the capstone CWNE program.

For the second half of the show, we’ve brought back Jennifer Huber – to talk with us about some of the issues and pitfalls in designing and implementing a Real Time Location Tracking system.

Here’s a link to the actual announcement of the new CWDP program, the return of the CWAP, and the changes to the CWNE requirements.

New logos for the various programs as well.

CWTS - CWNA - CWSP - CWDP - CWAP - CWNE Logos

CWAP® – Certified Wireless Analysis Professional
The CWAP certification is a professional level wireless LAN certification for the CWNP Program. The CWAP certification will advance your career by ensuring you have the skills to successfully analyze, troubleshoot, and optimize any enterprise Wi-Fi network, no matter which brand of Wi-Fi gear your organization deploys.

CWDP – Certified Wireless Design Professional
The CWDPTM certification is a professional level wireless LAN certification for the CWNP Program. The CWDP certification will advance your career by ensuring you have the skills to successfully design enterprise Wi-Fi networks for a variety of different applications, deployments, and environments, no matter which brand of Wi-Fi gear your organization deploys.

CWNE® – Certified Wireless Network Expert
The CWNE (Certified Wireless Network Expert®) credential is the final step in the CWNP Program. By successfully completing the CWNE requirements, you will have demonstrated that you have the most advanced skills available in today’s enterprise Wi-Fi market.
The CWNE certification assures that you have mastered all relevant skills to administer, install, configure, troubleshoot, and design wireless network systems. Protocol analysis, intrusion detection and prevention, performance and QoS analysis, spectrum analysis and management, and advanced design are some of the areas of expertise you will need to know.

Thanks to Kevin for sharing this information about the updates to this Vendor-Neutral Wireless LAN Certification Program.

Here are some of the links and notes from our discussion.

Jennifer did the math to find the percentages of additional APs required for a given type deployment.

Voice is from 22% ~ 26% more APs than Data only deployments
Location is from 25% ~ 43% more APs than Voice deployments

The low percentages are for standard office environments, the middle ground is educational facilities, and the high end is health care environments.

I didn’t factor for warehouse/manufacturing environments.

The Cisco LBS accuracy is stated as being within 10 meters 90 percent of the time

Wi-Fi Location-Based Services 4.1 Design Guide

Recommendation for re-calibration semi-annually in an active logistics shipping & receiving area

Minimum signal level thresholds

Access point placement

Tips for successful (client) calibrations

“First and foremost, it should be clearly understood that 802.11b asset tags that transmit tag messages using Layer 2 multicasts (and do not attempt to associate to any WLANs) will not cause the initiation of any 802.11g protection modes under any circumstances. This includes asset tags operating in strict compliance with version 1 of the Cisco Compatible Extensions”

If you have any feedback on the show – please drop an e-mail to feedback@WirelessLANProfessionals.com.

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The post WLW 013 – CWNP Program / RFID WLAN Designs appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

Here are the ‘basics’ that every Wireless LAN Professional needs to understand intrinsically. This should be fairly second nature to you.

So if you see a network with lots and lots of Management frames, and hardly any Data or Control frames, you can deduce you have an ‘Idle’ network.  Learning to recognize these ‘ratios’ will help in your troubleshooting efforts.

802.11 Quick Review

If you have any small tables or ‘tricks’ on how use troubleshoot your wireless networks, please send them along to feedback@wlanpros.com

The post 802.11 Quick Review appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

First a discussion with Max Lopez of the University of Colorado about issues with running a Wireless Network in a University environment. Max comes with lots of experience, not only at the University, but years in working with a variety of corporations.

The second segment is with Derek Sisterhen, lead financial coach with Lukas Coaching, as well as host of a weekly show called Past Due Radio. He’ll share with us some ways to get out of the financial ruts we might find ourselves in.

http://www.linkedin.com/in/maxlopez

For further details about their wireless network on campus, there is their web site.

Also, you might want to check out his weekly podcast/radio show over at Past Due Radio.

derek@lukascoaching.com
Twitter @DJSisterhen
facebook.com/djsisterhen

http://www.pastdueradio.com

http://www.lukascoaching.com

919-342-0801 ext. 302
Skype ID is DJSisterhen
Past Due Radio studio in their office in Raleigh, NC

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First about the iPad’s internal wireless setup. (photos come from iFixit.com) The system is using a  Broadcom BCM4329XKUBG 802.11n WiFi + Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR and FM w/2 antenna leads – this small chip allows for multiple RF functions in one package. It is connected to an antenna mounted on the back of the iPad underneath the Apple logo (made of plastic, so easier to get RF signals through)

iPad Wi-Fi Components

Quantitative Wi-Fi Analysis

Let’s now look at some results from the small experiment. All three devices connected to a dual-band Access Point, at the same distance away from both the AP and the ‘sniffing’ NIC running AirMagnet WiFi Analyzer.

MacBookPro, iPhone, and iPad Connected to AP

iPhone Probe Request

First the iPhone – it has an 802.11 b/g radio, supporting 2.4GHz only with 20MHz wide channels.

Here is a sample of one of the Probe Requests from the iPhone 3GS. Note there is no ‘HT’ information, as you’d expect from a Legacy device. Also note RSSI – Received Signal Strength Indicator. This shows 2.4GHz signals are normally stronger than their 5GHz cousins. (In this case over -20dBm different)

Next is the iPad – this new device has a dual-band, 802.11n NIC as noted above.

Here is the iPad’s Probe Request – note the added information about the iPad’s HT capabilities. Also note the lack of direct 40MHz support. I’m not sure if this is caused by the iPad itself, or just this current connection to the Access Point. You can also see only One Spatial Stream is supported.

iPad Probe Request

iPad Probe Request HT Info

And finally the MacBookPro as the ‘baseline’ device. This is a standard laptop, with built-in 802.11n supporting either 2.4GHz or 5GHz channels in 20/40 MHz configurations. For the test, I connected it to the 5GHz 802.11n SSID.

MacBookPro Probe Request

MacBookPro Probe Request HT Info

Bluetooth RF Analysis

I also did a bit of Spectrum Analysis using an AirMagnet Spectrum Expert system with the devices held about 12″ away from the receiving antenna.

iPhone Bluetooth Discovery Mode

iPhone Bluetooth Discovery Mode Swept Spectogram

They look to both use the same Bluetooth chip manufacturer (note the ‘gap’ in Discovery Mode coverage on the left side of the screens) Different Bluetooth chips exhibit different Discovery Mode ‘gaps’ depending on chip manufacturer.

iPad Bluetooth Discovery Mode

iPad Bluetooth Discovery Mode Swept Spectogram

The iPhone’s Bluetooth is substantially stronger than the iPad. I don’t know ‘why’ this is, just noting the -25dB differential between them. Perhaps it’s caused by the differences in cases, or power settings.

Please leave comments and your ideas concerning this small experiment. I look forward to your feedback.

The post Apple iPad Wi-Fi Detailed Analysis appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

Here are the links to those posts and some from George’s website.

http://wirelesslanprofessionals.com/rf-toolbox-iphone-app/
http://wirelesslanprofessionals.com/network-apps-for-iphone-revisited/
http://wlaniconoclast.blogspot.com/2009/04/wlan-professionals-portable-toolkit.html
http://www.my80211.com/product-reviews/2010/1/4/iphone-app-iphone-network-sniffer.html
http://www.my80211.com/home/2009/12/12/iphone-app-wifi-scanner-wififofum.html

I’ve had a day and a half or so to play with the new Apple iPad. (OK, I didn’t get much time to play with it today with all the family over for Easter dinner… they did enjoy themselves…)

Next week I’ll be doing more tests on the device using Protocol Analyzers and Spectrum Analyzers to get a bit more detail. But here goes for a ‘first pass’ on the device from a WiFi perspective.

Remember all those Wi-Fi apps that were removed from the iTunes store awhile back. Well, if you had downloaded/purchased those, and they are still in your personal iTunes, you are in luck. They work just fine on the new iPad. In fact, more than fine!

I was very impressed in whatever coding these developers used. The iPhone and iPod Touch only had 802.11b/g radios in the 2.4GHz range using 20MHz channels. But in my preliminary tests, those same Wi-Fi applications, when run on an iPad report with full dual-band 802.11n capabilities.

These older iPhone apps now report 40MHz wide channels (or 20MHz) in both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz range. Like some coders were either planning ahead, or the SDK automatically adapted with the advent of the iPad. Either way, I’m quite pleased!

Now these apps were not designed with the much larger screen of an iPad, yet they still work fine, just look either too small in the center of the iPad screen, or if you click the 2X button look too ‘chunky’ with blown up text with artifacts.

Not all iPhone apps worked on the iPad… but I’m amazed that most worked as well as they did in spite of the hardware platform and Wireless NICs being so different. Chock it up to a robust Apple SDK!

Below are some examples of the different Wi-Fi apps running on the iPad. More detailed packet-level analysis will be forthcoming.

On a side note. This little device is simply amazing. You WILL be using one in your future. From my 73-year-old mother, to 5-year-old great nephews, to all sorts of family in between. They all ‘Got It’ by just holding it, playing with the interface, and using it in their own way. Checking on blogs, updating Facebook, playing games, checking RSS Feeds, reading books, watching movies, looking at Comics, answering e-mails, and many many other tasks, the iPad just worked. Everyone was smiling and enjoying the experience.

For hard-core CLI-type folks, this isn’t anything you’d want… and people will have lots to say about what the iPad isn’t. But what it is, is… just great technology that works. Works the way people expect technology to work.

WiFi Analyzer - click to see 2X Artifacts

WiFi Analyzer - Graph

WiFiFoFum

WiFiFoFum Radar

WiFiGet Plus

WifiTrak

RF Toolbox Sample

The post Apple iPad and Wireless LAN Professionals appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

• Try to be in as quiet of a room as possible.
• Use a Headset. Do NOT use the computer’s built-in Mic/Speakers
• Position the mic to be above/below your lip level (check for no breathing sounds from mouth or nose)
• Check in the Audio Preferences and set your mic and headphone levels to be in the green
  Not spiking to the Red, and not too quiet… just right!
• Shut down all other application while in Skype
• Connect to the Internet via Wired Ethernet if possible – Wireless if you can’t do wired. 5GHz 802.11a would be a better choice that 2.4GHz 802.11b or 802.11g
• You can configure Skype to show Advanced Settings to check for VoIP details
  • Roundtrip should be under 200ms
  • BM (Bandwidth) is best >5000
  • UDP Status (both) should be Good
  • CPU should be <25% – this really helps
  • Relays should be 0
  • If it is 4 or more, you are probably behind NAT
  • You might need to assign the Skype Port to pass thru via Router Settings
  • Packet Loss – Zero is best – but try to keep this as low as possible

The post Getting Higher Quality Calls Using Skype appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

I would love to hear what you think. Did I miss any major vendor? Any of these placed in the wrong Tier?

Tier One

• Cisco
• Aruba
• Motorola

Tier Two

• Meru
• HP
• Enterasys/Siemens
• Ruckus
• Aerohive
• Trapeze
• Xirrus
• Bluesocket
• 3Com
• LANCOM
• Extricom
• Proxim Wireless

Tier Three

• Senao/Engenius
• Ubiquiti
• D-Link
• Proxim
• Belkin
• Linksys
• Netgear
• Meraki
• Fon
• SMC
• RealTek
• TrendNet
• ZyXEL

4/9/2010 – Update

I think I need to re-visit this list based on a bunch of feedback. Folks would like to see them ‘ranked’ (no, not going to do it) and add a different category for Mesh/PtP/PtMP kind of stuff. I personally don’t have a lot of experience there. Anyone want to tackle the job?

The post Wireless LAN Vendors – Tiers? appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

1 : a salad plate of chopped meats, anchovies, eggs, and vegetables arranged in rows for contrast and dressed with a salad dressing
2 : a heterogeneous mixture : potpourri

IT Professional Apps on iPhone

If you are interested in iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad apps that would help as an IT Professional, specifically involved in Wireless Networks, check out a couple of blog posts I wrote on the subject with lists of available network support tools.

I think you’ll be surprised how useful this can be to an IT Professional.

http://wirelesslanprofessionals.com/rf-toolbox-iphone-app/
http://wirelesslanprofessionals.com/network-apps-for-iphone-revisited/
http://wlaniconoclast.blogspot.com/2009/04/wlan-professionals-portable-toolkit.html
http://www.my80211.com/product-reviews/2010/1/4/iphone-app-iphone-network-sniffer.html
http://www.my80211.com/home/2009/12/12/iphone-app-wifi-scanner-wififofum.html

Study Exam Objectives

Can we take Wlanman09′s words and tattoo them to all potential CWNA/CWSP/CWNE students?

There are many shortcuts to passing exams – brain dumps, practice tests, etc. But the best so far is as he suggested… study the Objectives.

The exam questions do NOT come from the Study Guides, or from the practice questions. But they *are* tied directly to Exam Objectives.

All of the support materials will also try to map to the exam objectives… but there is nothing to guarantee they will prepare you in all ways for the test. Be sure you UNDERSTAND the objectives thoroughly before attempting the exams.

CEH, LPT and CWSP

I’ve taught all three, CWSP, CEH, and the LPT (as well as the associated CHFI and other forensics classes)

The CEH is very very broad – I was the technical editor on Kimberly Graves latest CEH Study Guide (Sybex) and it covers all types of hacking. The accompanying resources that come with the authorized student kits are HUGE. Massive amounts of information are covered, and needed to pass this broad ranging exam. (Kimberly is also CWNE #2 and a great instructor if you can find a CEH class where she is instructing)

The Licensed Penetration Tester is more hands-on, and detailed oriented more on the actual processes of doing Penetration Testing. (CEH more conceptual) plus you have to pass a ‘background check’ to show you are ‘of good character’. If you want to do Pen Testing for a living, this might be for you.

There are many other Forensics type classes… more along the lines of tracking hackers after the fact.

If you are into the generic Security – look into CISSP and GIAC… but nothing out there is better for Wireless Security than the CWSP. By the way, the new CWSP study guide from Coleman, Westcott, Harkins and Jackman is a fantastic resource. But you’ll also have a pretty fun experience doing the classroom labs.

If you don’t have the travel budget for an live-in-person instructor-led CWSP course. Rick Murphy over at http://www.wirelesstrainingsolutions.com/cwsp-training-classes has a great remote setup where you still get to do all the labs as well as the lecture portions.

As a ‘side note’ you might want to think about all the reading that will be involved in any of these Certifications. Security is an in-depth detail oriented topic with many many facets to cover in short periods of time.

WLAN Spectrum Analysis Devices

In the Spectrum Analysis arena there are a couple of options as well.

The cheapest is the AirView2 from Ubiquiti – a small USB 2.4GHz spectrum analysis tool. Probably the least resolution available though. But it is very inexpensive.

The folks over at Nuts About Nets also have a couple of options in lower-cost SpecAn devices, but I’ve only used their ‘jammer’ tools called ‘AirHorn’.

Metageek has some fine individuals working there and they have an entire series of small USB spectrum analyzers, starting at only $100 for the 2.4i and moving up to their flagship DBx that does both 2.4GHz and 5GHz analysis.

There are also ‘bug’ type spec ans from the guys at Berkely Varitronics, little hand-held units (based on like pocket pc devices) that are fairly light-weight but still do detailed RF analysis. But not too user friendly in their reporting. You’ve got to know what you’re looking at.

AirMagnet/Fluke has just started shipping their own Spectrum XT product – a very high-end professional tool designed to supercede the Cognio version, but in an easy-to-use USB form factor. This one also integrates very well with you local WiFi card for integrated analysis.

The big gorilla in this marketplace is the Cognio Spectrum Analyzer, the company was purchased by Cisco awhile back, and you can still get these OEM branded through a variety of sources, Cisco, AirMagnet, Fluke, etc. I’ve spent many many hours using this tool and feel very comfortable finding just about any RF source… but it is the most expensive of the WLAN SpecAns.

Of course if you have even more money you can go with a full-blown SpecAn from the big boys but those are huge, expensive, but can ‘see’ a wide variety of frequencies.

There’s a quick review of the SpecAn marketplace as of today.

WLAN Packet Capture Tools

Omnipeek Personal is no longer available.

I like the AirMagnet WiFi Analyzer, but it does cost a bit of coin for a professional tool. This one shines for ease of use, speed, and robust analysis.

Omnipeek professional is also a good choice. Very good live decodes, and lots of analysis above the MAC layer.

When doing packet injection I use Commview for WiFi. Also ties nicely in with NetResident for seeing upper-layer decodes (like watching websites, emails, voice, etc. over the WLAN)

Of course you can always go with Wireshark with a CACE AirPcap solution. Or if you are so inclined you can go with the Linux version of Wireshark and not need the AirPcap. Check out one of the Backtrack CDs.

I’ve just received the latest from AirDefense, called AirDefense Personal and I’ll be giving it a run-through as well.

I carry all of these on my main laptop, they each have features that make them worth using.

For an upcoming book I’m working on, we’ll be using Wireshark/AirPcap as the main deliverable since the base software is available for free download.

WIDS/WIPS

I’m personally a bit partial to the AirMagnet Enterprise solution. I’ve done many consulting gig installs/configurations with this and have found it to be a very robust solution for WIPS. But in my opinion most people purchase such a solution with ‘security’ money, and it does a great job there. But the real ROI comes from the performance improvements it can find to help make your Wireless LAN more efficient.

I’ve also worked with AirDefense and AirTight and think they are also very good solutions.

In my opinion any of the ‘overlay’ WIPS solutions will always be a better solution than any of the ‘time-slice’ solutions the AP vendors try to sell. (read up on the Joanie Wexler WIPS series)

Cost wise an Overlay solution needs dedicated sensors, and a time-slice solution needs additional APs put into ‘monitor’ mode. For my money (and these both cost about the same) I’d go with a device that had been designed and dedicated to specifically doing one job well.

I know the AP Vendor sales folks would much rather sell you ‘spare’ Access Points… but dedicated sensors can do a far superior job of ‘watching’ your network.

You can also install an Overlay WIPS in a ‘no-wireless’ policy area where/when you have no Access Points in the area.

Just one man’s opinion,

WIDS/WIPS Capabilities

Now to answer the other part of Wilddev’s question.

Kimberly Graves, CWNE #2 and I developed a course awhile back on Wireless LAN Penetration Testing called WLSAT (Wireless LAN Security and Assessment Toolkit) where we taught folks how to use the latest in penetration testing (read HACKING) into wireless networks.

There are many many techniques. But you asked: “how well the can detect and prevent someone who knows wireless well from getting past them?”

Both the Overlay and Time-Slice models allow for the Detection of just about all forms of Wireless Attacks. They all use some sort of Denial of Service to do the ‘Prevention’ bit of a WIPS service. This in itself was designed to protect the client’s own network from unwanted wireless connections. But this also has an unintended consequence, it in itself perpetuates the Denial of Service for the clients’ employees who happened to be connected with the Rogue devices. Be sure your help desk knows the signs and symptoms that occur when your WIPS is in ‘protect’ mode.

Also be cognizant of the legal ramifications of having a system that can cause DoS attacks to your neighbors if implemented and configured incorrectly.

WIPS/WIDS systems can do a great job protecting your Wireless infrastructure, but from the hackers standpoint, wireless is only one of the access methods into your network. You’ll need a broad spectrum security solution, wireless is only a component in that system.

Learning to Read SpecAns

In response to a blog post by Ben Miller over at http://www.sniffwifi.com/2010/03/pleasant-wispy-surprise.html

Ben thought the WiSpy Spectrum Analyzer was something ‘less’ because it doesn’t include Device Identification. I like using all the Spectrum Analysis tools… but have found you as a ‘human’ have the best ‘pattern identification’ there is.

Though I teach folks how to use the Cognio Spectrum Expert (AirMagnet’s version) as well as AirMagnet’s own Spectrum XT, both of which have built-in identification. I try very hard to NOT use the built-in device identification.

Instead I teach how as a ‘human’ you can also beat the computer in identification, the ability to ‘see’ things/patterns in the FFT plots and Swept Spectograms. It takes more effort. More experimentation. And more time. But the results are better as well. Anyone can read the auto-identifier’s report that it sees a Bluetooth device. But as a ‘human’ with better recognition, you can see the pattern that can only belong to an iPhone or see the ‘signature’ of a Palm Pilot.

It’s kind of like learning to read sonograms or x-ray results. It takes lots of practice. But in the end, a ‘human’ will always be able to beat a computer in pattern identification. (Think of hearing your child’s cry at a noisy playground)

Student Study Lab Equipment

I’d strongly recommend working with at least ‘tier three’ type enterprise products. If you can get your hands on any Cisco or Aruba controllers and APs…that would be best for your career. But you can probably use the semi-enterprise stuff from Engenius or Ubiquiti stuff to get you the experience you need for the CWNA exam.

Anything from the ‘tier two’ enterprise vendors would be more than enough as well. (Ruckus, Aerohive, Trapeze, Meru, Motorola, HP, etc.)

Working on just SoHo type equipment won’t be enough. Most only support WPA I/II with PSK – and you should have experience with Radius if at all possible.

From the ‘old days’ of Novell CNEs – those who had their own lab setups at home were always prized over the ‘paper-CNE’ types when it came time to getting hired.

“Ripple Tank” Animations

I’ve used the program Eminem extensively to view wave forms to show Amplitude, Polarity, Frequency, etc.

But this Java Applet might be what you’re looking for.

http://www.falstad.com/mathphysics.html

Try both the 3D and 2D wave applets.

Begging for Comments and Suggestions

Comments or suggestions on these or other topics is always appreciated!

Let me know if you think any of these short blurbs justify longer blog posts or white papers. Thanks!

The post Salmagundi appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

We’ve brought back David Hutchieson to share some knowledge about the use of Maps and Compasses with respect to Wireless LANs. Dave gives a great set of analogies to make this topic easy to understand.

Then we follow that with a segment with Cliff Ravenscraft, aka PodcastAnswerMan, who also hosts a podcast on Social Media, where we’ll talk about how you need to have your own personal brand, and how you can benefit from a Social Media strategy.

Magnetic North

One of many theories about how the earth’s magnetic field was formed

View Multimedia Version – The Solar System – How to Make a Planet

Magnetic Declination
Magnetic Declination Part 2

True North

Grid North

Finding North Using The Sun and a Stick

Using a Compass

http://video.google.com/videosearch?sourceid=navclient&rlz=1T4ADBS_enUS249US249&q=using%20a%20compass&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wv#

Using a Map:

http://www.ghosttowns.com/topotmaps.html

http://jc-schools.net/write/socst/readingmaps.ppt

http://mapzone.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/mapzone/PagesHomeworkHelp/docs/easypeasy.pdf [ meant for kids.... contains some good graphics though ]

http://magazine.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/magazine/tscontent/editorial/mapfacts/leaflets/map_reading_made_easy.pdf

http://www.linz.govt.nz/topography/publications-faqs/topo50-map-guide.pdf

http://www.uvm.edu/~goldbar/FM3_25.26.pdf [ very detailed military manual ]

The following give some interesting insights into the daily lives of some of the pioneers mentioned in the audiocast:

John Napier

James Watt

Lord Kelvin

Alexander Graham Bell

James Clerk Maxwell

Watson-Watt

Scottish Inventions and Discoveries

If you have any feedback on the show – please drop an e-mail to feedback@WirelessLANProfessionals.com.

Subscribe To The Wireless LAN Weekly Podcast:

The post WLW 011 – Maps & Compass / Social Media appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

This week’s podcast includes a great segment with Chris O’Donnell of Vocera on things to think about when designing Wireless LANs for Voice Deployment. Chris’ experience as a CWNE who has focused on voice WLANs brings some great ideas to this important topic.

Followed by Andy Traub, a business technology coach and consultant, speaks with us about Online Tools that help make your business life better. As co-host of the Business Tech Weekly Podcast, Andy has some helps and tips on using these tools that help him, and can also help you as well.

In addition to the ideas and topics covered in a previous blog post on “Designing for Voice is a Big Deal!” – Chris and Keith discuss some additional ideas on how to design for Voice over Wireless as noted below.

• Be aware of SSID/WLAN counts -  as each SSID needs to advertise its beacons on each interval. Imagine 8-16 SSID’s beaconing and probing and trying to also pass time sensitive VoIP traffic.
  Many “high performance” networks today are designed with low 802.11 basic rates enabled. Sending beacons at 1mbps is not conducive to good capacity design and imagine the above scenario when transmitting each beacon at 1mbps. WVoIP traffic will be in a traffic jam and this also creates even more co-channel interference in the environment. I have seen channel utilization at 40%+ with just 802.11 management traffic alone (no data).
• Be sure to properly mount AP’s and antennas. We would think this is fundamental but many designers today are still unaware of the implications of improper RF design and it’s affects on retries/errors and connection reliability of a WVoIP system due to multipath and compromised antenna diversity. This would also include using “carpeted office non-challenging RF AP’s” in a very complex and challenging RF environment just to save money.
• Keeping in mind that some WLAN applications using Multicast for delivery of packets (broadcast and PTT applications), imagine when you have that same lower 802.11 basic rate (e.g. 1mbps) and sending all multicast at that rate.  That would surely cause voice quality issues and interruption to the WLAN due to the slow downstream flood of frames.  This is important as Multicast is normally sent at the lowest “basic” data rate specified in the AP/Controller.
• Authentication timeouts on 802.1x systems. Setting your authentication timeouts to a short interval (say 15 min) will cause FULL 802.1x roams even in the presence of fast secure roaming key caching mechanisms such as Cisco’s CCKM and PKC/OKC. Recommend setting timeouts to a full user shift to minimize interruptions to the network during work hours.
• RTLS designs can also have a negative impact on WVoIP networks due to required AP location (more perimeter) and inducing more co-channel interference. Just because you needed to add 5-10% AP’s for accurate location tracking, does not mean you need them to service the network. RF monitor mode AP’s work great at RTLS with also preserving the physicians creed of “do no harm”. AP’s installed mainly on the perimeter of the building can cause excessive roaming points in hallways (due to cell edges) and this is where users are very mobile and in conversation with WVoIP products.

Tech Tools That Make Business Life Better
- Andy Traub

1) Google mail

a) Conversational email
b) Automatic labeling
c) Multiple in boxes
d) Archive – don’t delete e) Calendar/chat/documents

2) Google Documents / Dropbox

a) Web based – accessible from anywhere
b) Share w/ collaborators
c) Automatic backup / syncing
d) Different file types

3) Firefox browser

a) Shortcuts for my shortcuts
b) Add-ons – weather, accessing google voice, add html signature to my google mail
c) Permatabs – never close
d) Favicon – Shrink my tab to just the favicon
e) IE tab add-on
f) Screen grab – copy entire page, selection of a page or just the viewable portion
g) Sync bookmarks between browsers – xmarks

4) Google Voice Phone

a) Phone # linking to my real phone lines
b) Customized widgets on different pages that direct visitors to different voice mail messages or
phone lines
c) Archived call records incorporated with my other Google contacts

5) Posterous

Update multiple blogs / sm networks with one post via an email message or using a bookmarklet in my browser by clipping portions of a web page then posting it to my sites.

6) Logmein.com

Remote desktop access

7) Adobe Connect Now

On-line collaboration/meetings for free with individuals for screen and file sharing

If you have any feedback on the show – please drop an e-mail to feedback@WirelessLANProfessionals.com.

Subscribe To The Wireless LAN Weekly Podcast:

The post WLW 010 – Designing for Voice / Tech Tools appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

IEEE Handbook

802.11 Wireless Networks: The Definitive Guide, Second Edition

802.11 Wireless LAN Fundamentals

Cisco Enterprise Mobility 4 1 Design Guide

Cisco Wi-Fi Location-Based Services – Design and Deployment Considerations

Vocera IP Phone Deployment in Cisco Unified Wireless Network Infrastructure

Cisco Spectralink Phone Design and Deployment Guide

SpectraLink  “Deploying Netlink Wireless Telephones: Best Practices“:

CWNP Resources and Books
- CWTS Official Study Guide

- CWNA Official Study Guide

- CWSP Official Study Guide

- CWAP Official Study Guide

- CWNP_exam_terms.pdf

- CWNE Exam Objectives.pdf

Wi-Fi Alliance docs ( – membership required):
- WFA Certification Roadmap
- WFA WMM Power Save
- WFA WMM Support for Multimedia Applications
- WFA WMM_Specification_1-1

IEEE Standards (membership required):
- IEEE 802.11e-2005 (or later)
- IEEE 802.11h-2003 (or later)
- IEEE 802.11ma-d9.0 (or later)

CBT Nugget’s CWNE Video Certification Series:

The post Resources for CWNE Exam Prep appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

This has been corrected and the corrected version is now available.

Thank you for your understanding.

The post Wireless LAN Weekly – Episode 009 updated appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

In our craft of working on Wireless Networks… we need to have our own phrase to follow:

In many of the Wireless Networks I’ve worked with, the designers, installers, and folks who have to maintain the network get all focused on the Access Point side of the equation. Worrying about the APs are doing, is there adequate coverage, what the controller reports, etc.

But when was the last time you had to directly troubleshoot an AP?

No, we are always tracking down problems with the clients, yet we do our entire Wireless LAN designs with Access Points in mind.

I’m suggesting we start thinking more and more about the Client side of the equation. Thus, “What Would Clients Do” should become our watch words.

Here’s some examples of where to think from the Client’s perspective instead of from the Access Points:

Coverage Overlap – the Client wants to see a ‘primary’ AP and a ‘backup’ AP – they don’t care a bit about what the coverage looks like on a floorplan. Measure for Primary and Backup coverage in dB – not in percentage.

Channels – Clients will *always* move to the channel of the AP their algorithm chooses as ‘best’. Don’t worry about channels from a client side, make sure your AP’s channels keep co-channel interference as small as possible.

Collision Domains – from the Client’s perspective, all those APs and other clients that it can ‘see’ from wherever it is, it has to contend with, and wait for, ALL of those to access the frequency to send it’s own frames. Thus many times when the human clients complain about a ‘drop’ in their wireless, they are referring to the delay caused by a collision domain, NOT by a lack of RF coverage. Minimize Collision Domains by LOWERING POWER.

Coverage – we tend to want to have more and more power, but that’s NOT what Clients want to see. They need to have one strong signal, a backup signal, and then as little as possible. You can measure this by turning on your favorite tool of choice, and seeing how many APs you can see at what RSSI levels from any location. If you are troubleshooting a Client, and yet at that location you can see more than two strong APs, well you don’t have an RF coverage problem! You have too much coverage and that causes a collision domain, and all the bad things associated therein. Design for adequate coverage, not too much coverage.

Heat Maps – many vendor’s controllers will show you ‘heat maps’ — but this is from the Access Points perspective, the Clients are not included in the equations. If you want accurate heat maps, you must do a survey with a client, at a client height. AP to AP communications, though nice, are NOT sufficient to know what the clients will see. Survey regularly with a client, at client height, with regular traffic loads, to get accurate heat maps to really know what your coverage patterns look like.

Dropped Sessions – sometimes we opt to think when laptops somehow lost a connection, it was caused by a drop in wireless. Many times it isn’t a lack of signal, (see coverage above), but a dropped connection higher in the stack. If you were trying to diagnose a wired laptop who complained about a ‘dropped connection’, but when you arrive on scene the ‘link light’ is still glowing steady, would your first thought be the patch cable is somehow broken and merely replace the patch cable? Of course not. Yet many times our first ‘solution’ is to look down the stack to the MAC and PHY layers–only because we can easily see the ‘link light’ on wireless. If a clients is still associated to an Access Point, the problem is higher in the stack. Remember, association is to wireless what a link light is to wired.

I welcome your comments and suggestions on this and other Wireless topics.

The post What Would Clients Do? (WWCD) appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

We’re glad to have Jennifer Huber with us to talk about her path to achieving CCIE Wireless, including her first pass at the Lab. She shares with us some of her study techniques, and ideas on how to better prepare for this most difficult lab exam.

Then we have Ed Schlichtenmyer back to talk with us about some of the things you can do to improve your professional and personal reputation.

Enjoy!

Jennifer’s Blog

George Stefanick’s Site

CCIE Wireless Study Blog

CCIE Wireless Advanced Lab Boot Camp

FastLane’s CCIE Wireless Lab Bootcamp

Course Fox’s CCIE Wireless Lab Boot Camp

CCIE Wireless Pursuit Blog

Ed Schlictenmyer’s “Four Steps to Enhancing Reputation”

1. Integrity
2. Commitment
3. Communicating with People
4. Managing Projects

We’d love to have you subscribe to our RSS feed – just click the button in the upper right corner of the web page. Until next week, thanks for listening!

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The post WLW 009 – CCIE Wireless Lab Prep / Professional Reputation appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

Well in the example above, and from this graphic – it looks like Collision Domains are a only problem of a wired Ethernet system. But in addition, it is also very prevalent in Wireless Networks. Whenever devices, including Access Points as well as Client Stations, can ‘see’ each other on the same channel (with enough RSSI) they will be forced because of the protocol to wait for others on the same channel to stop transmitting before they can start their transmissions.

This process of a ‘Contention Window’ is a part of the 802.11 design specs.

As an example, here is a capture from the baggage claim area at a large airport. Note all the Access Points that are sharing the same channels. Adding more APs does not always add more capacity. Sometimes, when the APs can ‘see’ each other, they only add to the contention window and don’t ‘net’ any additional throughput.

In fact, many times this is the problem when clients are having ‘difficulties’ with their wireless connections!

This is easy to find. Just fire off your favorite tool that lets you see the access points, their channels, and their signal strengths. If from one location you can see more than two Access Points on the same channel with RSSI’s greater than -80dBm… then that channel has a ‘Collision Domain’. Plain and simple. Meaning when either AP talks, the other *can’t* talk–because it is waiting for the other to finish. (a definition of a Collision Domain)

Try it on your wireless networks and see what kind of Collision Domain’s you’ve designed into your network. What? You didn’t design in collision domains? Then why are there more APs showing up on the same channel at the same location? If you didn’t do it, then who did?

Many times folks who do ‘AP-on-a-stick’ site surveys and call them wireless network designs NEVER check this co-channel interference and you are left to deal with the results of having way too many devices sharing the limited capacity of a specific frequency!

Measure, Measure, and Measure your wireless network to *verify* not only where you have signal, but also where you have too much signal. (you measure your cable plant, why don’t you measure your wireless media?)

You also might want to check out my White Paper called ‘Want, Don’t Want, Don’t Care‘ and be able to define what your client stations use to determine those three levels.

As a side-note. My friend David Coleman, of CWNP, CWSP, and CWAP study guide fame, refers to this ‘Collision Domain’ as a ‘Contention Domain’… I agree with him.

Questions? Comments? Please leave your thoughts in the comments section below.

The post Remember what a ‘Collision Domain’ is? appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

But many times their Anti-Virus ‘screams’ at the ‘Hacking Tools’ (like the ping-sweeper AngryIP) included in the set. Sometimes these student’s machines even delete files from my USB sticks and so the next student doesn’t get all the files.

Enter AirStash. I heard about this a while back and have been patiently waiting for an ‘official’ announcement. Well today it was official. And so I purchased one as soon as it was available.

This small device forms a little mobile ‘HotSpot’ and shares whatever is on the inserted SD card via Wi-Fi. Way cool.

It can work with your iPhone, Mac, or PC — to share media files, music, or data files — easily, simply, and without wires or plugging anything together.

I’ll give a full review as soon as mine arrives. waiting… waiting… waiting… when is that UPS guy going to arrive?

The post AirStash – A solution for a problem appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

When I started with Twitter years ago, I was less than impressed. A bunch of people talke about what they ate for breakfast, and I only used the Twitter Website. Then later after someone suggested I start using a Twitter Client (Like Tweetdeck, HootSuite or Tweetie) – I finally found I really enjoyed the friendships and camaraderie found between folks with like-interests. The clients allow you to have much better control and access to your twitter feed.

You can even start using #hashtags and @replies to communicate and search for information pertaining to your own specific interests. (This isn’t going to be a tutorial on Twitter – just ‘Google’ it and you’ll find lots) Just understand – twitter can be much much more than status updates – it can be a place for knowledge, learning, entertainment, and friendship!

I’ve put a page together with the Twitter folks I follow (not all are Wi-Fi Folks – but most are)

The CWNP Program also has built some lists specifically for CWNTs, CWNEs, and WiFi Vendors.

If you’d like to be added to the Twitter Follow List - or have any suggestion, please send your information to feedback@wirelesslanprofessionals.com.

The post Wireless LAN Twitter Follow Lists appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

Feel free to peruse the older posts, there is some pretty good information contained therein.

To track down those older posts go here.

Any comments or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

The post The WLAN Iconoclast Blog Moved To http://wlaniconoclast.com appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

I’ve tried little speakers that attach to the side of your laptop, speakers that have their own internal batteries, those that recharge off of USB power, speakers with little ‘pop’ out bass enhancers, ball speakers, brick speakers, foil speakers… well you get the idea. I’ve even tried a fairly heavy little brick shaped speaker from k-box that made the entire desk into a large bass’y sound producer.

But I’ve finally found the ultimate speaker for me. Aaaaah. Speaker bliss.
It is small, charges from USB, connects to computer or iPhone, sounds good with movies, sounds good with both classical music, and has enough thump to not embarrass the Hip Hop sounds.

I’ve started to carry with me the TuneBug Vibe.

It’s not really inexpensive… but it does make up for the cost in the sound quality and workmanship. (It has a nice solid feel and heft to it, without feeling too heavy to carry with you) Though it is like the k-box in making sounds via some other conductor, the sound is far superior.

It works best on something a little lighter-weight than a desk. I’ve successfully used it just sitting on the wrist-rest of my laptop, or on my Dr. Dre Beats headphone case, or even on a small snack box. The sound is crisp, clear, and has enough bass to be just right. It even comes with a little box – just put it on the box and you have great sound. But I’ve found I an always find something in the hotel room to use as the resonance chamber.

I can strongly recommend this speaker to be included in your travel kit!

The post Ultimate Traveling Speaker appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

I’ve known Laura for many years, as well as worked with her on multiple projects and training tours. She is a fantastic trainer and author. You won’t go wrong by reading and learning from this book. There is quite a lot of detail in this book on many levels of network analysis and troubleshooting, including information important to Wireless LAN Professionals.

You’ll get 35% off by using discount code “998nws35“

I’ve pre-ordered my copy, get yours here

For more detailed information read the table of contents. (PDF)

The post The Official Wireshark Certified Network Analyst Study Guide appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

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Today’s episode features Ben Miller, of Global Knowledge, talking to us about ‘Sniffing’ Wireless networks. Ben has a blog dedicated to this. He bring some insights on the various types of Wireless Sniffers available and why we should be adept at these to help in our Wireless LAN Troubleshooting.

He is followed by a return of Elaine Rogers of Seefin Coaching talking to us about the proper use and skills needed have proper E-mail Etiquette. Something we all need a little reminder to do in our hurried lives.

Enjoy!

E-mail Etiquette Show Notes

We use e-mail to communicate with our boss, colleagues, clients, or prospective employers, family and friends.

At times e-mail is the only communication we have with certain people.

What is Email Etiquette?

It’s a loose term that refers to the customary code of polite behavior in society or among members of a particular profession or group.

Like every other form of communication, one must use proper etiquette when dealing with other human beings. There are, of course, rules of etiquette which pertain to email, and I am going to discuss a few here later in the podcast.

Why do we need Email Etiquette?

Professionalism: an organisation will portray a professional image by using proper language

Efficiency: emails that get to the point are much more effective than badly worded emails

Protection from liability (or at least lower costs in liability): employee awareness of email risks can protect an organisation from costly law suits

GENERAL:

1. UPPERCASE LETTERS – too many will seem like you are shouting – which is rude. We can use uppercase to emphasise one word, We can also use italics and emboldening for emphasis
2. Treat an e-mail as privately as you would a postcard – anyone could see it and it cannot be erased as easily as burning a snail mail letter if intercepted
3. Always check spelling and punctuation – texting type wording might be ok for friends, but it’s more effort to read them. Never use inappropriate acronyms [TTYL – talk to you later, IMHO – in my honest opinion, lol] or shortened words when e-mailing in a professional capacity
4. Never send spam – it is unsolicited
5. Emoticons have become popular and highly accepted forms of showing emotion or feeling in the non-emotive world of written e-mails. Keep it at an acceptable level – not too much waving, pumping lovehearts, laughing
6. Leave out ?????? and !!!!!!! – again overuse of these portray aggression
7. Someone upset you? – count to ten (100 if you have anger management challenges) before you reply – don’t respond immediately – sleep on it before losing a customer or upsetting your boss
8. Keep your message short and to the point – try and cut out waffle
9. Create an Out – of – Office reply – you are responding that you cannot deal with their email immediately but will on your return (ensure you do deal with their mail on your return)
10. Subject Line – pertinent and blunt – don’t use an old Subject to talk about something else – change it so when the receiver is sorting their inbox – people can see related mails grouped together
11. Don’t get involved with chain e-mails – they are a form of spamming
12. Use Reply-All button appropriately. Nothing worse than being in a list of 20 people and everyone is replying to all when not necessary
13. Be careful of overusing the “high priority” or “important” flagging system – the term “Crying Wolf” comes to mind here
14. Be careful with formatting – may not convert well in older programs or plain text messages

STRICTLY BUSINESS:

1. Be concise and to the point
2. Answer all questions asked, and attempt to pre-empt questions to reduce return mails
3. Use templates to make your life easier – make sure to personalise them
4. Use short paragraphs and blank lines to structure your mail – harder to read on screen than on paper. Make sure your email has an Intro, Body and Closing
5. Never reply back and discuss a different subject without changing the Subject Line
6. Do not discuss confidential information by e-mail
7. Use CC to copy only – no action is required by anyone who is mentioned in the CC line
8. Use the Bcc line to send e-mails to multiple parties whilst protecting individual addresses
9. Leave out read and delivery receipts – it portrays that you do not trust the receiver. Ultimately they can ignore it and you are still unaware if they received it or not

Final Words

Every company should have an E-mail policy that an Employee or Manager can refer to if problems arise or questions need to be answered.

We’d love to have you subscribe to our RSS feed – just click the button in the upper right corner of the web page. Until next week, thanks for listening!

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The post WLW 008 – Wireless Sniffing / E-mail Etiquette appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

This is from the WiFi Edge blog by Steve Williams.

Please go and check out the entire post.

I just wanted to put this here to bring up the point of why I personally don’t do Linux any more. This was also a great reminder of all the steps that I *know* have to take place, yet I’m totally fine with the Mac OS X or Windows versions where I just have to point, click, and be connected.

Here are the commands to have a Linux client connect to a WPA Wireless Network:

• wpa_passphrase APN yoursecretkey

• Copy your wpa_passphrase output to /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf

• ifconfig wlan1 up

• iwlist wlan1 scanning | grep -i essidiwconfig wlan1 essid APN

• wpa_supplicant -iwlan1 -c /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf

• dhclient wlan1

• ifconfig wlan1

At this point, you should be connected to your AP. Whew!

The post Steve’s Great Post on Linux Clients and WiFi appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

I was going to post a review of the various iPhone app WiFi Scanners… instead I’ll do this one on Macintosh WiFi Scanners.

WiFi Scanner

First is a new totally free application from Zaib and friends over at WLANbook.com blog. Zaib has done a great job on his blog, offering useful and timely information on Wireless LANs as well as some pretty cool downloads to help you with your Wireless LAN. The latest tool from WLANBook is called Wifi Scanner.

This tool is pretty small, launches quickly, and give you the basic information on what WiFi services are within range of your Macintosh. It has a simple, clean interface, giving you the basic information you might need.

Additionally, WiFi Scanner gives you detailed information on your current connection and about your own Wireless Interface card.

WiFi Scanner uses the actual dBm in its’ signal strength – showing RSSI, Noise and SNR. As well as MAC address and an optional Vendor OUI lookup.

A really cool extra feature in WiFi Scanner 1.1 is the ability to click on one of the rows in Scan view and open a new window that allows mapping of the AP in Google Maps and/or Google Earth.

Thanks for offering this to the community for free!

iStumbler

Next up is the donationware iStumbler. This tool has a ‘donation’ suggested price of $20.

This tool also includes not just the WiFi information around you, but also Bluetooth and Bonjour services nearby. You can easily modify and adapt the interface to best suite the information you’d like on the WiFi services around your Macintosh.

This interface is more ‘fixed’ in your choices of columns, but you can move them around, and sort by any column. Included is a ‘visual’ signal strength meter – an easy-t0-read view of RSSI. (for those who like pretty bars in addition to the hard numbers in percent of signal strength.)

iStumbler also has the ability to graph not only the signal strength over time of the AP you are connected to, but also any of the APs you’ve been seeing within range. A nice extra feature to be sure.

You might think of this as a free option, but it is actually shareware. If you choose this as your option, be sure to give back to the developer to support further shareware offerings.

AirRadar

The final application in this review is Koingo Software’s AirRadar. Currently part of many utilities bundles, but also sells as a stand-alone piece of software for $19.95 (for individual use – other options available)

This WiFi scanner also has an easy-to-configure interface. With many options of column data available to choose from. Including:

• Ad-hoc status
• Beacon Interval
• CF Pollable Flag
• CF Poll Request Flag
• Channel
• Channel Agility Flag
• Encrypted Status
• Encryption Type (WEP, WPA, WPA2, None)
• Encryption Cipher (AES, TKIP)
• First Seen
• Last Seen
• MAC Address (BSSID)
• Managed Flag
• Miss Count
• Name
• Noise Level
• Reserved Flag
• PBCC Flag
• Signal Strength
• Average, Min, and Max Signal Strength
• Short Preamble Flag

Way more that you probably need, but this information is available and can be shown in sortable columns if you’d like.

Like iStumbler, AirRadar also can graph the signal strength over time, but also noise over time, of any of the APs you can see.

This is a professionally produced and sold application – it will cost you at least $20 – but is the most flexible of the three alternatives.

Conclusions

I personally keep all three installed on my machine. For the cost – it’s easy to have all available. I have to admit, I’ve had AirRadar in my dock and use it frequently — but after doing this review I’m leaning a bit towards adding iStumbler back to the dock for it’s additional capaiblities with Bluetooth and Bonjour.

I’m still torn between the WiFi Scanner’s reporting in real actual dBm and the other two showing RSSI in a percentage. I think they have been targeted at different audiences. Not everyone who needs a WiFi scanner understands the nuances of negative dBm.

WiFi Scanner is a great free alternative, fast, easy, uses dBm, and the price is right.

The post WiFi Scanners for Mac OS X appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

These are the blogs that share things of value – so the purpose of this post is to salute those who spend un-told hours preparing and delivering great content for the rest of us to consume and use in our daily lives. My hats off to these dedicated bloggers. To a job well done!

I’ve picked a sampling of their posts to share and link back to. Please feel free to click through on these links for the specific posts… but also spend some time on their site to see all the other posts and items that are available.

Personally I *really* don’t like the sites that make me ‘register’ to see their stuff. I understand ‘Why’ they want my contact information, but I *will* come back if your content warrants it.

On to the list for this week – Go ahead and click to see the posts:

What are some of your favorite blog posts?

Leave comments with your suggestions.

The post Wireless LAN Blogs To Follow appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

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This is a special ‘double-tech’ episode without any of the ‘soft-skills’ we normally add in the second half of the show. Today we have back Devin Akin of Aerohive talking to us about Quality of Service with respect to Wireless LANs. This is an in-depth discussion of how QoS works in our networks. We’ve tried to add lots of graphics and support to the show notes. Enjoy the ride!

Some terms used in today’s discussion on Quality of Service over Wi-Fi:
L2 = Layer 2, Data Link Layer, MAC sublayer, Ethernet frames, 802.11 frames
L3 = Layer 3, IP Layer, packets*
802.11e = An amendment to the 802.11 standard that introduced L2 QoS
WMM = Wireless Multimedia, a term coined and owned by the Wi-Fi Alliance, which is an implementation of 802.11e QoS
802.1p = An old-school, QoS term that indicates 802.1Q priority markings in an Ethernet header, when header expansion is used
Access = An access connection (or port) is one that does not use or support 802.1Q** Ethernet frame header expansion
Trunk = An trunk connection (or port) is one that does use and support 802.1Q** Ethernet frame header expansion
DSCP = Differentiated Services Code Point, DiffServ, L3 QoS markings

QoS with Controller and Thin APs Upstream from WLAN to LAN

QoS with Controller and Thin APs Downstream from LAN to WLAN

QoS with Controller and Thin APs No End-to-End QoS

End-to-End QoS

Fast to Slow Network Transition

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The post WLW 007 – End to End Quality of Service appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

I am totally open to your critique on this – please send feedback with your comments!

The discussion usually starts when the client already has a working Wireless Network, and is asking me to simply add voice to the existing Data Wi-Fi system.  They always make is sound so easy, “just add the voice thing”… but it isn’t easy at all.

Data networks and Voice networks have different design parameters. Different packet flows, and way different expectations with respect to coverage, continuity, etc.

Controllers and APs will use the ‘Automagic’ function… yeah, right…

In the ‘old days’ we designed networks for coverage – only spec was to get signal to the designed areas at a specific RSSI (dBm).  To verify the design, we could easily go out and walk around watching the signal strength and ‘prove’ we had a good wireless network.

No longer is mere coverage measured by RSSI (dBM) sufficient, you also have to meet ALL the other design constraints for Voice. By the way, these each might have different answers depending on the VoWiFi handset of choice.

After going through the following list with clients, they either push back hard asking why I’m asking them so many questions—they just want it to work without any work on their part.

Or, they get overwhelmed with all the details and think their Controllers and APs will use the ‘Automagic’ function and all will be well with the world.

Designing Wireless LANs to actually work… is WORK. Designing for Voice takes even more work. (and a lot more money!)

By the way, I haven’t even touched the client side of this equation, or the call manager, or RF interference… we’re just getting started folks!

Oh, and one more thing… all of these delays listed below are on top of VoIP network latency caused by Propagation Delays, Handling Delays, and Queuing Delays on the Wired Network. Fun, Fun, Fun!

To get a Wireless Network that actually works, be sure to design, measure, and verify the following Wireless LAN Specs:

First AP Coverage

• Usually something like −67dBm or better
• I describe this at the ‘want’ area

Second AP Coverage

• Perhaps −70dBm or better (Cisco phones want −67dBm)
• Some people call this ‘overlap’ but it’s not measured in percent of area, but in dBm for the ‘backup’ coverage
• You can’t measure the ‘overlap’ in percentage, but you can measure ‘backup coverage’ in dBm.

Co Channel Interference

• Above −67dBm and less than −85dBm on same channel equals Interference
• In my terms I describe this as the ‘Don’t Want’ area – less than −85 is the ‘Don’t Care’ zone
• By the way, this is the HARDEST to achieve, but when you don’t achieve it, you have large collision domains, where many clients and APs must ‘share’ the frequency, resulting in many additional problems

Client to AP Density

• Usually something like 10:1 or for some VoWiFi handsets 7:1
• (you actually need to do an Erlang analysis to find how many ‘average’ minutes of call per hour for this calculation)
• You need to be able to measure and verify there is appropriate number of APs for clients

Additional Density

• Areas where there might be an abnormally high concentration of devices
• (Auditoriums, around nursing stations, etc.)
• You need to be able to measure and verify there is appropriate number of APs for the clients IN that area

Data Throughput

• First would test for ‘gross’ data rate, like 1, 2, 5.5, 6, 11, 12, up to 54Mb/Sec
• More importantly, check for NET throughput with iPerf to meet design standards
• You can check data rates *to* the AP (wireless rates) by sending packets to the AP
• You can check data rates *through* the AP by placing the iPerf server directly behind the AP
• Or check data rates *through* the Network by placing iPerf server back near your core where your servers are

Jitter

• Less than 5 msec
• Variation of latency between packets
• Measure both upstream and downstream jitter during a two-way conversation call in progress

Latency

• Less than 50 msec – total end-to-end delay

Packet Loss

• VoIP really likes to see less than 1% packet loss
• Achieving a 1% packet loss is highly unlikely given the physics of Wi-Fi

AP Handoff

• Less than 50 msec
• This can be improved with a proprietary Distribution System (all APs enterprise-class from same vendor)
• Fast Secure Roaming can also help
• Try testing on an ‘Open’ SSID first, then test again with your Authentication system in place

Codec

• Use a Codec that has the highest potential MOS score
• Don’t try to use compressed Codecs, we have lots of bandwidth, it’s a quality issue with Wi-Fi

Roaming

• Data usually has a ‘Portability’ need for coverage
• Portability – loose session, but not IP upon roaming – Like sleeping your laptop as you move to another room
• Voice has a ‘Mobility’ need for coverage
• Mobility – can’t loose session at all during any roam

Authentication

• Open is the fastest for supporting Voice over Wi-Fi, but has no security
• WPA-PSK still requires a key exchange upon roaming
• WPA-Radius might require a full authentication cycle clear to Radius Server
• Some vendors support key caching or fast secure roaming

Coverage Areas

• Usually designs for Data include areas where laptops go (carpeted or vinyl floors)
• Voice designs also need Elevators, Stairwells, bathrooms, parking structures, etc.

Collision Domains

• You can’t change the Physics of Wi-Fi, it will always be a Shared Medium
• Design accordingly

Quality of Service

• Choose your Priority Queues appropriately; realize with Wi-Fi we don’t have an Absolute Priority
• Only a statistical advantage, Data WILL sometimes get in front of Voice traffic
• Make sure ALL your APs and Clients can support the QoS system you choose
• Put Voice and Data on separate frequencies to guarantee they don’t share the same medium

Error Rates

• Set parameters and design goals for Retry Rates and CRC rates on your Wireless Network
• Measure and be sure to verify before starting the Voice clients on the Wireless Network

Translation Delays

• 802.11 Wi-Fi to 802.3 Ethernet translation adds a slight delay

Transport Delays

• Lightweight APs have to send their frames back through Access and Distribution switches prior to reaching the Controller at the Core, then forward back through same process from Core back to Access layer devices

End to End QoS

• Check to see your QoS set at the client carries those priority bits clear through your network to the receiving client

Whew! – and those CMRs thought it was going to be easy to add voice to your Wi-Fi network.

Protection Mode

• When designing around a b/g mixed mode environment the Protection Mode adds overhead to every packet exchange
• Get rid of all 802.11b clients on your network, as well as within range of your network – if possible
• Set expectations accordingly if you must support mixed b/g networks—at least ½ data rate loss minimum plus additional packet overhead

Power Management

• Use the most efficient Power Mode supported by your clients and APs
• Some of the older versions were terribly inefficient, especially with respect to Voice packets

SSIDs & VLANs

• When configuring a unique SSID for Voice, remember adding a VLAN to Wi-Fi does NOT break up any broadcast domain, you are still in a collision domain and broadcast domain with all other devices on same frequency within hearing range

Oh, and did I also forget to mention all the issues of working with the new 802.11n header structures, new power management schemes, MSDU lack of Priority in the header, MPDU size delays, and Non-Greenfield protection delays, as well as overhead caused by DIFS, Preambles, Headers, SIFS, Preamble, ACK — plus the whole Contention Window Delays?

Oh, and did I also mention you need to have the correct tools and skills needed to test and VERIFY all these items?

Whew! – and those CMRs thought it was going to be easy to add voice to your Wi-Fi network.

The post Designing for Voice is a Big Deal! appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

I’ve worked with Wi-Fi analysis tools for many years now, from the old Compaq iPaq based devices, to the ‘Bug-named’ devices, and onto many laptop tools. So perhaps my experience is a little biased. But this cute little thing is amazingly fast and easy to use.

Without a single prompting from the Fluke Networks rep, I was able to start the device (wicked fast by the way) and start analyzing the local Wi-Fi environment, do some sample troubleshooting, and even do a ‘find’ on a Wi-Fi device.

The form factor of the device is easy to grasp, and the color screen very readable. But what amazed me most is the absolute speed of how fast it does it’s assigned tasks.

In no way was this device intimidating. I found the interfaces elegant, and very intuitive to use.

I’ll be doing an in-depth review of the Fluke Networks AirCheck device soon, but wanted to do a quick post to whet your appetite. You *will* be wanting one of these in your kit!

You can get the details on Fluke Networks Website.

There is a pretty good demo of the AirCheck here.

The post Fluke Networks AirCheck Wi-Fi Tester appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

I wonder if those are ‘All Weather’ Linksys boxes. Perhaps those ‘cantenna’s will also be home to nesting birds in the spring. What about the 100 mph wind certified green duck tape and the hedge-trimmer yagi. But don’t worry, those all seem to be low-loss cables and completely lightning proof.

Priceless!

The post Redneck Telecom Tower appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

This episode is targeted to coincide with the launch of the latest edition of Sybex’s CWSP Study Guide – it started shipping this month! We are lucky enough to get David Coleman, one of the Authors of this new book to share some thoughts about Wireless Security with us.

In the soft-skills section we are glad to have a business and success coach, Justin Lukasavige to speak on setting goals to help meet your success needs.

David has been the author of both the CWNA and the CWSP study guides… including this latest incarnation of the CWSP book. He talks about some of the issues surrounding Wireless Network security. He spoke with us from his offices at his company, AirSpy from their offices in Atlanta. You can follow David via twitter @mistermultipath

Justin ended his successful career as an airline pilot, to help others through private coaching to help meet folks goals… and speaks to us on how to use some of these goal-setting techniques to also help our listeners to reach the success they are looking for. You can find his new Podcast and website at CoachRadio.tv. Or via twiiter @pastdue.

Thanks to both David and Justin for sharing their expertise with us this week.

We’d love to have you subscribe to our RSS feed – just click the button in the upper right corner of the web page. Until next week, thanks for listening!

If you have any feedback on the show – please drop an e-mail to feedback@WirelessLANProfessionals.com.

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The post WLW 006 – Wireless Security / Setting Goals appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

This weeks episode starts with a segment with Ryan Woodings, Chief Geek of the developers of the Spectrum Analysis tool from Metageek talking on ‘Visualizing RF‘. The final segment comes to us via David Hutchieson, an world-traveling experienced technician talking to us about the ‘Reliability of Electronics‘ and some of the ways we can help protect against failures.

Coming to us from his small office in Boise Idaho, Ryan runs a small company producing a variety of spectrum analysis products. Metageek makes the WiSpy series of USB-based Spectrum Analyzers.

In this presentation, Ryan talks about some of the methods and ideas behind using the raw data from the cards–to turn it into usable information to help you better understand the Physical Layer information in RF environment.

Their website is http://www.metageek.net/ – and while you are there checking out the WiSpy products, also download their free inSSIDer software to help you inspect and troubleshoot your Wireless Network.

You can find Ryan on twitter at @ryanwoodings – or via e-mail at ryan at metageek dot net.

David Hutchieson can be reached at dhutchieson@yahoo.com or on the CWNP forums as Dave1234

Thanks to both Ryan and David for sharing their expertise with us this week.

We’d love to have you subscribe to our RSS feed – just click the button in the upper right corner of the web page. Until next week, thanks for listening!

If you have any feedback on the show – please drop an e-mail to feedback@WirelessLANProfessionals.com.

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The post 005 WLW – Visualizing RF / Reliability in Electronics appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

Then in my own business I’ve been through literally 50+ bags that have been ‘mine’. But now I’ve used the same backpack for over three years now… a World’s Record!

I had some time last week and I thought I’d document up what is in my Backpack.

I have had many years of travel experience and have honed my packing skills to bring along just the right set of equipment and supplies to support me wherever I might be. I can work, be entertained, read, relax, and generally take pretty good care of myself with just what is in my backpack.

Every item on this list has a specific purpose and reason for being included. This backpack has to fit in the overhead compartments of even the smallest of Regional Jets, or under the airline seat. And… I have to carry it with me and send it through TSA security checkpoints over 100+ times per year!

This combination of equipment is the culmination of thousands of hours of travel and on-the-road work. Work in Hotel rooms, Crown Rooms, Airports, client offices, backs of bouncing pickup trucks, subways, and even at my home and work offices…

Everything can be recharged via USB 5v systems – and I carry two spare 5v batteries and three USB Charging stations so I’m never without power for these devices. Everything is also 110v/220v so I can travel internationally. Depending on the country, I just have to add a small bag of adapters and I’m ready to go.

So here it goes…

__________________________________

Keith Parsons – Backpack Contents

Backpack

- Brenthaven Expandable Trek Backpack

In Bottom of Front Pocket

- Main Unit – Small case I can pull out and easily setup on a desk
32GB USB Drive – Corsair – Backup and All my install files
USB SD Card Reader
USB Charging Battery – Lennar
USB Charger Cable for iPhone
8GB USB Drive – Temporary Files
16GB USB Drive – Instructor Master
8GB USB Drive – Aruba PTT Course
Flashlight – Surefire Executive Defender
Mini Cable to VGA for MacBook
Red Pen – Bic 5mm
Black Pen – Sharpie Mini
20GB Firefly USB powered Hard Drive
CarryAll – NiteIze Mobile Accessories
- USB Charger w/Dual adapter iPhone and Mini USB
- Apple AirPort Express Extreme – set to WPA to share Wired
- 60Watt Apple Macbook Power Suppy
- Allsop Mouse Beanbag
- Apple Bluetooth ‘Mighty Mouse’
- Canon Sureshot Digital Camera

Charging Unit

Tums EX
Toothpick
Tube of Tylenol Extra Strength
Cherry Chapstick
Ceramic Paper Cutter
Fingernail Clippers – A.G. Russell
Fingernail File
Twezzers – L.A. Cross
USB Charger Cable for Kindle
USB Charger Cable for Mini USB
USB Charger Cable for iPhone
USB 4-port Hub – APC
USB AC Charger – Lennar
USB Charging Battery – Lennar
USB Male to Mini USB Cable – Zio Shorty
USB AC Charger – Apple
CarryAll – NiteIze Mobile Accessories

Network Unit

RJ-45 to DB-9 Console Cable Adapter – Aruba
USB to DB-9 Serial Adapter -
USB to Serial Converter w/cord
USB to Serial Drivers Mini CD
RJ-45 Cross Over Adapter
3′ Cat-5 Cable
6′ Cat-5 Cable – Retractable
4-port USB Hub with Octopus Cable
AirMagnet abgn Wireless LAN Adapter w/AirMagnet Licenses
Ubiquiti abg Wireless LAN Adapter w/2dBi Antenna w/AirMagnet Licenses
CarryAll – NiteIze Mobile Accessories

Back Main Section

Spare Bifocal Glasses in Protective Case
Spare Computer Glasses in Protective Case
Sunglasses in Protective Case
Package of M&Ms
Package of Salted Peanuts
Monster ‘Dr. Dre’ Noise Cancelling Headphones
Amazon Kindle2 in Leather Case
Apple Macbook 13″ – Aluminum Unibody 2.66GHz w/500GB HD
Monster Cable – 4-port Portable Power Strip
Passport in Mesh Liner
Wallet ‘spare’ ID and Credit Cards in Mesh Liner
Cash – $300 in $20s

Right Side Pocket

Garmin Nuvi 250 Portable GPS
w/Suction Mount & USB Charging port
Outside Mesh used for loose change
Ball Speaker – USB Powered

Left Side Pocket

IO Scribe Digital Pen
Portable Microphone
Earbuds w/Airline Adapter
Variety of Medicines in Single Serving Packets

Front Left Zipper Pocket

Car Keys
Ninja’ Remote
Eyeglass Cleaner Pads
Pre-moistened Lens Cleaning Tissues

Front Right Zipper Pocket

Tide Stain Remover Pen
Fingernail Buffer Tool
Large Pre-Moisten LCD Cleaning Tissues

Front Zipper Pocket

Spare Mont Blanc Rollerball Pen
Spare Mont Blanc Rollerball Refill
Airline Coupons and Pre-Paid Vouchers
Spare Red Pens and Sharpies
Sleeping Eyemask and Earplugs
First Aid Kit

Front of Backpack

S-Biner Snap-On Caribiners – 10Lb Versions
Altoids Sugar-Free Wintergreen Smalls
Delta Skymiles Platinum Medalion Tag

Top Front Pocket

V-Mode High-Quality Earbuds
Airline Adapter for Headphones
Motorola Bluetooth Earpiece w/USB Charging Port
Spare AAA Batteries
USB Charging Cable for Ailph Jawbone Bluetooth
Aliph Jawbone Slim Bluetooth Adapter
2GB SD Card
Business Cards
3×5 Cards PrePrinted with my Information and Grid Patter
Small Narrow Notepad
2″x2″ Yellow Post-It Notes
Spare Mont Blanc Rollerball Refill
Microfiber Cloth
2GB ‘Temp’ USB Drive
4GB ‘Master’ WLAN Student USB Drive
Crown Room Card
Delta Airlines Platinum Status Card
United Airlines Gold Premier Status Card
United Red Carpet Lounge Passes
Small Leather Case to Protect Jawbone2 Bluetooth Adapter

The post What’s In Your Backpack? appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

Years ago, I was teaching a class in Seattle, and we had the need for a flashlight… one of the students whipped out his SureFire Executive Defender… I was very impressed. Never one to have a Leatherman or Maglight strapped to my belt… I did think for a moment how it would come in very handy at times.

Since I fly a lot, I can’t quite get a Leatherman through TSA scrutiny… but I *can* always have a flashlight with me.

Ever since that day in Seattle, I’ve carried a Surefire Executive Defender with me. Not your cheapest flashlight… but it is *amazingly bright* – so much so I have to carry a ‘diffuser’ to tone down the amount of light.

These lights do such a good job that I got them as gifts for my family the next Christmas.

Thinking of always having the proper tools nearby…

Always have pen and paper with you

I was taught by my father – and hopefully I’ll pass it on to all my children – to always carry a pen with you! It is a sign of maturity and preparedness!

Also, within the last couple of years I’ve also started to carry 3×5 cards in my pocket. These have also been invaluable at times. Someplace to write little notes, take information down, jot down a phone number or address.

Even in the age of iPhones – an index card in your pocket can be a great thing.

Always have a Pen and Paper with you!

The post “The value of a good flashlight can’t be overstated. That is all.” appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

This was brought home this past weekend. My daughter had a little ‘difficulty’ with her phone, and was without it’s capabilities for awhile. It was driving her ‘crazy’ – being without her phone was actually quite devastating to her young life. Not being able to contact her friends, respond to SMS, no longer have her music, etc.

Through a series of horse-trading, Genius Bar generosity, and a little cash we were able to not only get back her phone in working condition (not actually her phone… but one pre-loaded with all her contacts, music, SIM-card, etc.) as well as a ‘spare’.

Earlier in a previous blog entry I waxed a bit poetic about my relationship with the iPhone, how it is there to wake me up in the morning, keep me informed and communicated with during the day, and entertains me whenever I have a ‘down’ moment, lets me read a book during dinner, and reads a story to me when I’m on my daily walks… it has become part of my life. Another previous post about my upgrade to a 3GS also talks about how I use this technology in my personal and business life.

So now I’m feeling just a bit ‘safer’ – that ‘Peace of Mind’ that comes when you know you have a disaster recovery plan already in place. That good feeling that comes along with knowing you have redundancy built-in to your network. Knowing if one of your controllers goes down, the ‘spare’ that you took so much time installing and configuring will allow your wireless users to continually merrily on their way.

I know have that feeling! – I have a new–still in the plastic wrap– ‘spare’ iPhone in my backpack. If there is an accident and my current iPhone goes down, I can quickly swap the SIM card and be on my way. Now that is a great feeling. Now I know how my clients feel when we finish designing a fully redundant system. Aaahhh. Peace of Mind.

The post Need for Redundancy – a Spare iPhone appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

We’re back again for the fourth week – this time starting off with a technical discussion around High-Capacity Wi-Fi with Jon Freeman from Xirrus, and then the Soft-Skills segment with an old friend of mine, Ed Schlichtenmyer on how to Delivery Better Service.

Jon Freeman is an Area Vice President and Technologist with Xirrus. His presentation refers to the following graphics in discussing how we can better design and use Wi-Fi in high capacity situations.

Jon can be reached the following ways:
e-mail – jon DOT freeman AT xirrus DOT com
Twitter – http://twitter.com/@Wi_FiMAN
LinkedIn – http://www.linkedin.com/in/jondfreeman
(personal – just request to link by having listened to this interview)
Website – www.xirrus.com
Xirrus_Product Brief_Array Architecture

Cellular vs Wi-Fi Array Architecture

Delivering Better Service

Our second segment is from Ed Schlichtenmyer a consultant with Impact Weather. Ed brings to the table years of being one of the best professionals in our craft. I’m proud to call Ed my friend, and glad he can share some of his insights concerning our IT professionals can better interact with their clients to provide higher quality service.

If you have any feedback on the show – please drop an e-mail to feedback@WirelessLANProfessionals.com.

Subscribe To The Wireless LAN Weekly Podcast:

The post 004 WLW – High-Capacity Wi-Fi / Delivering Better Service appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

These are useful to mount USB Wireless Devices to the back of your laptop lid, out of harms way, and not sticking out dangerously from the sides of your laptop – ready to break off with the slightest bumping and jarring.

I also carry a couple iPhone charge/sync cables with me (just in case…) and these short little ones fit just about anywhere and stay out of the way until you need them.

I enjoy having more space in my bags and not having to ‘wrap up’ the longer cables I used to carry with me.

A big ‘thumbs up’ to these folks who obviously listened to what the industry needed!

You can find these at the ZioTek website.

The post ZioTek ‘Shortys’ Cables appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

As a consultant and trainer in the Wireless Networking arena – I’ve found this little app well worth the $7.99 cost. (OK, I know it seems like a lot when compared with other ‘free’ apps – but it is truly a small cost to pay for this functionality)

It will run on either an iPhone or an iPod Touch.

I’ve got an iPod Touch dedicated to just running tools and apps for Wireless LAN Professionals, this post will turn into a continuing review of the tools and techniques I’ve found that help in the craft.

This app comes with both RF Tools and GPS Tools

For you ‘indoor only’ kind of networking guys – this tool has parts for you. One of the calculators is for Link Budget Analysis, another that will be of use to you is the dBm/Watt Converter.

The real strength of the app is in helping the ‘outdoor type’ folks with their Wireless LAN deployments. Supporting these installations are Fresnel Zone, Downtilt Coverage, Free Space Loss and other important calculators.

But in the GPS set I find myself using the Lat/Long Conversions most. AirMagnet Survey Pro requires it’s GPS coordinates in decimal format, and Google Earth keeps theirs in Degree, Minute, Second format – so I use this calculator to move back and forth between the two.

This tool is Highly Recommended – ***** (that’s five stars)

The post RF Toolbox – iPhone App appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

Jess Silverstone from Revolutionary Concepts created a cut-out of the iPad that you can print and glue/tape up yourself!

Paper iPad Print

Paper iPad Finished

Click here to download the iPad Front and iPad Back. Have really big printer? Check out this PDF created by a Taiwanese fellow that will let you print to full size.

Enjoy!

I saw this first at http://iPadinCanada.ca.

The post Can’t wait for your own iPad – Try This appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

One of those has to do with the ‘Gross‘ versus ‘Net‘ data throughput results with respect to Wireless LANs. Just because the stated data rate is 11Mbs, doesn’t mean you’ll actually get 11Mbs of net throughput.

For 802.11b – the max stated rate of 11Mbs works out around 5.5Mbs of net throughput. It is NOT the “half-duplex” nature of RF communications that is lowering the throughput, but the rest of the 802.11 protocol. Though many people make this incorrect assumption.

The ‘net’ throughput is brought down by overhead inherent in the protocol itself.

• Time wasted in the DIFS delays
• Time wasted in the Contention Window Delays
• Time and Bits wasted in Preambles
• Time and Bits wasted in SIFS/ACK delays
• Time and Bits wasted in RTS/CTS with their associated Preambles and SIFS delays
• Time and Bits wasted in large MAC Headers, etc.
• Time and Bits wasted in MAC Layer Fragmentation (Extra Headers)

Those are the real reasons you have a lowered net throughput.

In a typical packet exchange below lists those parts that are overhead – some are based on wasted time, and others on wasted bits – then there are parts that contribute to net throughput.

DIFS

Contention Window Delays

Preamble

RTS

SIFS

Preamble

CTS

SIFS

Preamble

MAC Header

Data frame payload

SIFS

Preamble

ACK

Only the actual payload of the Data frame contributes to the net throughput. Everything else in the packet exchange, time wasters like DIFS/SIFS and contention window delays, as well as all the other parts are just overhead. But it’s the use of the overhead that makes the 802.11 protocol actually work in a sometimes harsh RF environment.

It is a ‘ratio’ of those wasted time/bits to the total time/bits that takes you from gross bits in the air, to net bits of payload throughput.

This comes to bear with much more evidence as you delve into the 802.11n packet structures and their effects on throughput.

Again, it is NOT a result of only the half-duplex nature of RF communications – but the actual protocol itself.

For further information on this process, check out Marcus Burton’s great white paper 802.11 Client Arbitration.

I would appreciate your thoughts and comments on this subject. Thanks!

The post Why is the Wireless Network Slow? – Overhead Issues appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

The first three episodes are now available either from the Website or on Apple’s iTunes.

Even though it is called a ‘Podcast’ you don’t necessarily need an iPod to listen. The files are standard MP3 – and can be listened to on an iPod, Zune, portable MP3 player, or just on your computer. In fact you can listen in directly from the web site as well.

The goal of the podcast is to educate, inform, entertain, and inspire folks who work day-in, day-out with Wireless Networks.

We bring you weekly information from a wide variety of contributors. The host is Keith R. Parsons, and each week he has at least two others helping with either tech or soft-skills related content pertinent to Wireless LAN Professionals.

Come join in the community of your peers!

The post Wireless LAN Weekly Podcast Launched appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

If you want to see both sides of the conversation, follow me in Twitter (@keithrparsons) and also follow whomever I’m talking with.

If my post starts with an @name – this means I’m responding to that person. So there was a part of the discussion that went on before.

If my post starts with a ‘RT @name‘ – this means I’m re-quoting something someone else said.
After the quote I might add my own comment.

Sometimes I’ll embed a picture in my post. This will look like the following URL http://twitpic.com/qqy53 (BYU Spring Lax Schedule)

Sometimes I’ll embed a link to another web site using a ‘URL Shortener’ service. It looks like this http://tinyurl.com/yabdexb

Remember, you might be reading these posts in reverse order, so start at the bottom of the conversation.

And finally – sometimes I might add a hashtag. So others can follow the topic easier online. These will start with a # followed by a tag.

Sometimes I’ll make comments about Technology, sometimes about my Professional Interests, or other times just what I’m doing.

Sometimes I use this forum for ‘mini blogs’. Short 140 character comments. If there is more to say I might post a larger blog entry.

If there is a blog entry – I’ll post it with a URL so you can link to the larger blog post. At either my personal or professional blogs.

Further questions? You can reply in Facebook, Twitter, or drop me an e-mail to keith at inpnet dot org.

The post Following Twitter Conversations on Facebook or LinkedIn appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

Electromagnetic Spectrum Cartoon

The post Electromagnetic Spectrum Cartoon appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

Jumping right into it – this is the third episode of the Wireless LAN Weekly Podcast.

This week we have again two featured segments. The first is an Introduction to WiMAX by Rick Murphy, You can find Rick in Boulder, Colorado working at Wireless Training Solutions.

The second segment on soft skills is from a Elaine Rogers, a business and communications coach with Seefin Coaching out of Ireland sharing with us some tips on Communications Skills.

Thanks to both Rick and Elaine for their work on this week’s episode.

Below are some of the supporting documents and graphics from the WiMAX presentation. If you’d like further information on the subject, you can contact Rick Murphy directly at rmurphy@wirelesstrainingsolutions.com.

"Just the facts, ma'am"

What Is WiMAX?

IEEE 802.16e

Why is WiMAX important to a Wi-Fi Engineer?

How is WiMAX similar to Wi-Fi?

How is WiMAX different from Wi-Fi?

Where can I get more information on WiMAX?

If you have any feedback on the show – please drop an e-mail to feedback@WirelessLANProfessionals.com.

Subscribe To The Wireless LAN Weekly Podcast:

The post 003 WLW – Intro to WiMAX / Communication Skills appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

To help launch this new Podcast, please leave voice mail questions at the 801.418.9018 number, or e-mail you questions to feedback@WirelessLANProfessionals.com

Subscribe To The Wireless LAN Answers Podcast:

The post 000 WLA – What Is the Wireless LAN Answers Podcast? appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.