Access Points that do site surveys

Perhaps opinions on the reliability and cost-effectiveness of the access points on the following list, which do have the site survey function, and additions to this list would be helpful:

AirLive WL-5430AP D-Link DWL-900AP+ SuperPass SuperBase SP-LINK-*

SNMP management is preferred vs. web-based management and AP vs router functionality is also preferred.

Regards,

Michael

Any access point or wireless router that runs alternative Linux firmware such as DD-WRT or OpenWrt. See:

The "site survey" button in DD-WRT (on the Status -> Wireless page) returned:

Neighbor's Wireless Networks SSID Mode MAC Address Channel Rssi Noise beacon Open dtim Rate Join Site JM Wireless AP 00:11:24:27:E3:52 1 -91 -96

100 No 0 12(g) CBMALVIN AP 00:19:5B:5F:95:BB 5 -66 -96 100 No 0 12(g) CMS AP 00:14:6C:A3:8B:A2 6 -72 -93 100 No 0 12(g) 2WIRE562 AP 00:14:95:06:38:49 6 -77 -93 100 No 0 12(g) 2WIRE206 AP 00:14:95:89:16:C9 6 -75 -93 100 No 0 12(g)

DD-WRT also includes Wiviz:

which is interesting but methinks confusing. However, it does show wireless clients as well as access points and wireless routers.

There are also command line incantations that can obtain the same results using the WL command. However, various people have been messing with the WL command and methinks it no longer works.

There's also the "/sbin/site_survey" program in DD-WRT which returns:

root@router:/sbin# site_survey buflen=[1264] version=[108] count=[5] |[ 0] SSID[ JM Wireless] BSSID[00:11:24:27:E3:52] channel[ 1] rssi[-93] noise[-94] beacon[100] cap[411] dtim[0] rate[12] enc[WEP] |[ 1] SSID[ CMS] BSSID[00:14:6C:A3:8B:A2] channel[ 6] rssi[-72] noise[-91] beacon[100] cap[431] dtim[0] rate[12] enc[MULTITKIP TKIP WPA-PSK] |[ 2] SSID[ 2WIRE206] BSSID[00:14:95:89:16:C9] channel[ 6] rssi[-74] noise[-64] beacon[100] cap[431] dtim[0] rate[12] enc[WEP] |[ 3] SSID[ 2WIRE562] BSSID[00:14:95:06:38:49] channel[ 6] rssi[-78] noise[-91] beacon[100] cap[431] dtim[0] rate[12] enc[WEP] |[ 4] SSID[ CBMALVIN] BSSID[00:19:5B:5F:95:BB] channel[ 5] rssi[-66] noise[-93] beacon[100] cap[431] dtim[0] rate[12] enc[MULTITKIP TKIP AESCCMP WPA-PSK]

DD-WRT runs on a wide variety of hardware:

Same with OpenWRT:

Hi Jeff and thanks for your response.

I have used Linux wireless tools and drivers on various platforms but have not considered doing so for an access point. I did a quick check of the projects your listed and not finding ready answers I pose these questions:

1. Is a bridged mode supported? I don't want the radio interface to be routed, only bridged.

1. Do the projects support IPX traffic?

Regards,

Michael

I see that DD-WRT does Access Point and Bridging, haven't looked at Open-WRT yet.

I see nothing for DD-WRT out of the box.

Michael

I see that the Linksys WAP54G (at least Ver. 3, others not checked) has a basic site-survey function and also does SNMP

Michael

msg hath wroth:

Yes. DD-WRT and OpenWRT both have a bridging mode. However, it's not exactly transparent bridging and may cause problems if you expect transparent bridging. Search this newsgroup and the DD-WRT Wiki for "transparent bridge" for details.

Your unspecified application may not need a transparent bridge.

No. You'll need to build an IPX over IP tunnel. See:

I've never tried this on a router, although it works well on a full server. (Yes, I still have one remaining Novell 3.11 customer running a mixed IPX/SPX and IP system. They even use NETX on some DOS clients).

msg hath wroth:

If you're expecting such things to "just work", you'll be disappointed. DD-WRT, like Linux, is a learning experience.

There are a list of packages that can convince to run on the router using ipkg at:

I'm too lazy to see if what you need is in there. Worst case is to build your own ipkg wrapper, and post it to the "unstable" list: