>I've been trying to obtain signal strengths to multiple
>access points, with little luck. First a brief description
>of the configuration I'm using:

I work as a researh assistant at Lappeenranta University of
Technoloy, Finland. I have recently faced same problems as
you are with Lucent cards and accesspoints. I try to obtain
SNR information from multiple access points simultaneously
in order to construct maps of Wlan service availability.

> - Linux laptop running 2.4.3 kernel with the latest
>orinoco_cs driver with a Lucent Gold card

> - Two Lucent AP1000 access points in bridging mode

I have same hardwere, but I use cards in a desktop
workstation and use PCI-PCMCIA Bridge. So I am forced to use
2.2.19 kernel, becouse 2.4.5 doesn't seem to support
properly PCI-PCMCIA -bridges. I use wvlan_cs driver.

>iwspy will gladly give me signal strengths for any IP
>address, however they all appear to be signal strengths to
>the current access point. That is, even if I ask iwspy to
>collect statistics on the "other" access point, the signal
>values I get are still the values for the access point I'm
>bridging through.

At least wvlan_cs driver seems to update signal strenght
statistics only when packets are arrived. So if there is no
traffic between card and access point, it doesn't update
stats. The access point can be turned off and iwspy still
happily shows good signal strenghts. It doesn't even update
stats when I unsuccesfully ping accesspoint, becouse no
packets arrive. This situation is unsatisfactory for signal
level measurements on field.

To generatate traffic to all monitored accesspoints is not
solution in roaming network, where all access points are
connected to same ordinary lan. In that case ICMP echo
requests would still go to just one access point and be
bridged to others through ethernet. Is there a way to force
card to stay on certain channel?

> Further, if I request statistics for the
>radio-side ethernet addresses of the access points, I never
>get any results. I'm presuming this is because it is in
>bridging mode. Is there a way to get multiple access point
>statistics even in bridging mode? If I change out of
>bridging mode, will I get the numbers?

Lucent's Client Manager for Windows platform seems to update
snr statistics of multiple access points frequently, without
user generated traffic.

Access points and cards does seems to exchange snr
information. You can read snr values of connected cards from
access points using snmp.

Have you had any progress in your efforts?

I am ready to tweak WaveLAN/IEEE drivers to gather signal
strenght information to multiple access points, althought I
have no prior experience in kernel coding. But there seems
to be little information on internal workings of both
WaveLAN/IEEE card and AP-1000 access points in Internet.

I would be grateful if any list subscriber could point me
datasheets of these products, some other documentation or
any other resource which would describe internals of these
devices. Also SNMP MIB used by access points would be
useful to my colleaque. A Technical contact inside Lucent
would be even better.

---
Mr. Jussi Vestman
An IT student at Lappeenranta University of Technology, Finland
jussi.vestmanlut.fi
http://www.lut.fi/~vestman/

• Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ]