Wireless Tools for Linux

The Wireless Extension is a generic API allowing a driver to expose to the user space configuration and statistics specific to common Wireless LANs. The beauty of it is that a single set of tool can support all the variations of Wireless LANs, regardless of their type (as long as the driver support Wireless Extension). Another advantage is these parameters may be changed on the fly without restarting the driver (or Linux).

The Wireless Tools is a set of tools allowing to manipulate the Wireless Extensions. They use a textual interface and are rather crude, but aim to support the full Wireless Extension.

• iwconfig manipulate the basic wireless parameters
• iwlist (formerly part of iwspy) allow to list addresses, frequencies, bit-rates...
• iwspy allow to get per node link quality
• iwpriv allow to manipulate the Wireless Extensions specific to a driver (private)

Modern versions of the Pcmcia package offer the possibility to set up various wireless parameters at boot-time (or card insertion time) through the file wireless.opts. This allow to fully integrate wireless settings in the Pcmcia scheme mechansism. This of course require that the above Wireless Tools are installed on the system.

Most distributions also have integrated Wireless Extensions support in their networking initialisation scripts, for easier boot-time configuration of wireless interfaces. They also include Wireless Tools as part of their standard packages.

Please note that the Wireless Tools (starting with version 19) supports fully IEEE 802.11 parameters and devices, support older style of devices and most proprietary protocols, and are prepared to handle HiperLan as well. More recent versions of course adds more 802.11 support.
But, unfortunately not all drivers support all these features...

The Wireless Tools package also includes two text documents on the usage of Wireless Tools to configure the card at boot time :

• DISTRIBUTIONS.txt describes how various Linux distributions implement Wireless Extensions in their specific configuration scripts. Please read this, as most distributions no longer use wireless.opts. I need your help making this document better.
• PCMCIA.txt describes the use of Pcmcia schemes and wireless.opts (i.e. configuration with the default Pcmcia scripts).

Some driver documentations (man page, web, README) describe what the driver support in term of Wireless Extension and how the various Wireless Extension parameters map to the capability of the card.

The Linux Wireless LAN Howto contains a section about the Wireless Extensions, but it's a bit out of date for the details...

I have also the following erratas and comments :

• In the rare cases where your kernel isn't compiled with Wireless Extensions (/proc/net/wireless non-existent), you need to recompile it with Wireless Extensions (CONFIG_NET_RADIO enabled).
• After recompiling a kernel with Wireless Extension, you have to recompile your driver or the Pcmcia package as well (and restart it).
• Compilation of the Wireless Tools used to be tricky, especially in the header area. I believe this has been fixed for good.
• For kernels before 2.2.14/2.3.30, use Wireless Tools version 19.
• For kernel after 2.2.14/2.3.30 use Wireless Tools version 20 or greater.
• The tools are supposed to be GPL. Version 21 and above has the proper licensing info...
• In the old time, you could upgrade Wireless Extensions by just changing wireless.h. Starting with Wireless Extensions v12, this is no longer true, you need to apply the full patch to the kernel. See above for the patches.
• Further down, you will find a FAQ about common problems.

Wireless Extensions (WE) is a API implemented in the kernel and drivers that allow various tools to set various wireless parameters and query various wireless statistics.

Wireless Tools (WT) is a reference implementation of a set of tools to access and manipulate Wireless Extensions. However, this is only one of the many available tools for this purpose.

The Wireless Extensions and Wireless Tools evolve independantly of each other, so have different versioning systems. You don't need to match the version of the WE and the WT (actually, you usually can't). The command iwconfig --version gives you the detail of your setup.

Each version of WT is designed (and tested) to accomodate multiple versions of WE : you can for example use WT-26 on kernels with WE-16, WE-15 or WE-11. However, to achieve that, the WT must be compiled for the proper version of WE. This is supposed to happen automagically, but often fails. Similarly, WE are backward and forward compatible, if your kernel has WE-15, you can use WT-23, WT-25 or WT-26 (as long as they are compiled for WE-15). Of course, only new version of WT add support for the new features in the new version of WE, but the latest WT may also fix bugs in older features of WE. The exact same stuff applies to other tools using WE.

The recommended setup is to use WE as available in your kernel (don't mess with the kernel and driver patches), and to use the latest WT (to have all the bug fixes) and to compile WT for the exact version of WE that your kernel have.

Both may find on the Pcmcia ftp server, in the contrib directory :

• Download the wireless tools package

In case of trouble, you can fetch also from here version 19, version 20, version 21, version 22, version 23, version 24, version 25 and version 26, but be gentle on this server...

Version 26 adds :

• Fix bugs in parsing encryption keys and setting encryption on in iwconfig.
• Update distribitions specific documentation in DISTRIBUTIONS.txt
• Really allow compile without maths library for embeeded platforms
• Support new iwspy features (setthr and related event) (WE-16)
• Add tool redirector for people having multiple kernels with different Wireless Extension versions (WE-16)
• Various trivial bugfixes and cleanup
• Various Makefile and and iwlib improvements

Version 25 adds :

• Start document distribitions specific wireless configuration scripts in DISTRIBUTIONS.txt
• Enumerate *all* network interfaces (fix problem with NWN drivers)
• Improve private extension support : new types, sub-ioctls, iwpriv -a, handle more than 16 extensions... (WE-15)
• Fix infinite loop with unknown Wireless Events (bad bug)
• Add new Wireless Events : IWEVCUSTOM, IWEVREGISTERED and IWEVEXPIRED (WE-15)
• Show current settings in iwlist for freq, rate and txpower
• New iwgetid options : mode, freq, protocol
• Implement --version to show tools and WE versions
• Improve version warning messages to be hopefully less confusing
• Allow compile without maths library for embeeded platforms
• Makefile fixes, various other cleanups

Version 24 adds :

• Fix a bug that prevents disabling encryption and setting authentication (introduced in version 23)
• Change the way tools enumerate wireless interfaces. Tools no longer lists interfaces not supporting /proc/net/wireless, but lists interfaces which are down.
• Wireless Event support (WE-14)
• Scanning support (WE-14 - replaces now obsolete iwlist aplist)
• Support iwconfig ethX ap auto/any/off
• Man pages for iwevent and iwgetid
• Improved system header definitions, more complete libiw, cleanups...

Version 23 adds :

• Fix a problem when trying to use iwspy before the interface is configured
• Add missing commands in the iwlist man page
• Fix "make install" and install man pages
• Automatic glibc/kernel header configuration
• Nicer iwconfig error messages
• Add iwconfig ethX commit (WE-13)

Version 22 adds :

• Fix minor bugs in parsing command line
• Most basic functions of the tools available as a library (libiw)
• Add a few extra wireless statistics (WE-12)

Version 21 adds :

• Improved power management support (WE-10)
• Transmit Power parameter (WE-10)
• Document wireless.opts and Pcmcia scheme usage (multi cards, multi setups)
• Better Makefile, header options can be set there
• Support for GLibc2.2
• Check Wireless Extension version mismatch (WE-11)
• Retry settings (WE-11)
• Split iwspy into iwspy and iwlist

Version 20 was already adding :

• Operation mode support (managed/ad-hoc) (WE-9)
• Power saving support (WE-9)
• New encryption support (WE-9)

However, the version 20 and later don't work for older kernels (prior to 2.2.14 and 2.3.30), for those kernel I recommend to use version 19, which is also very stable (but with less features). Note that most 802.11b drivers require Wireless Extension v9 or later, so won't work with those ancient kernels.

The latest beta version fixes problems with long interface names and redirection of iwevent to a pipe/file.

• Wireless Tools version 27-pre2 (beta)

The Wireless Extensions support come as 3 parts :

1. The Wireless Extension (the core API), part of the Linux kernel (mostly defined in wireless.h).
2. Driver support, implementing some of those extensions for the specific hardware.
3. Wireless Tools and other wireless applications, that the users manipulate.

Wireless Extension versions :

The core API is strongly versionned, so both tools and driver should adapt themselves to the version of Wireless Extension present in the kernel and activate features based on that. You can use iwconfig --version to get all the details on your current setup. However, Wireless Extensions offers only source level backward/forward compatibility, not binary compatibility, therfore after an update of the core API, both drivers and tools need to be recompiled.

Some wireless drivers require a minimum level of Wireless Extensions, and most often newer version of Wireless Extensions enable additional features in the driver. Usually, the simplest way to upgrade the Wireless Extensions is to upgrade your kernel (see table above). Most driver support the newer Wireless Extension only in their most recent version, so most often to get the benefit of the additional features you might need to upgrade your driver.

Alternatively, you can use the patches below. Those patches may not always apply properly to your kernel, they may crash or eat your hard drive, use at your own risks and don't expect much help, because I would rather have you upgrading your kernel. After patching the kernel, don't forget to recompile and reinstall the kernel itself, the kernel modules, the Pcmcia package modules and the various external driver modules.

• Kernel 2.2.X patches
  • Wireless Extensions v15 for kernel 2.2.25 : cummulative patch to upgrade directly from WE-10 to WE-15. Wireless Event is not available, the rest seems to work.
• Kernel 2.4.X patches
  • Wireless Extensions v11 for kernel 2.4.2, including various wireless drivers. Adds driver version check, retry setting. [Already in 2.4.3]
  • Wireless Extensions v12 for kernel 2.4.12. Adds more statistics, move iwpriv ioctls to a private space. [Already in 2.4.13]
  • Wireless Extensions v13 for kernel 2.4.18. Add the new driver API based on iw-handlers (to replace ioctl handler). [Already in 2.4.19-pre5]
  • Wireless Extensions v14 + WE-13 ESSID bug fix for kernel 2.4.19. Add a Wireless Event dispatcher through rtnetlink (driver and set events) and support for Wireless Scanning (iwlist ethX scan). Also fix a stupid bug in WE-13 patch above (of by one). [Already in 2.4.20-pre2]
  • Wireless Extensions v15 for kernel 2.4.20. Fix and enhance private extensions support, mostly for HostAP driver. Define additional Wireless Events. Get strict on buffer size for GET requests (this may break old applications using Wireless Extensions). [Already in 2.4.21-pre2]
  • Wireless Extensions v16 for kernel 2.4.21. Rework iwspy support : simplify driver side iwspy support and add iwspy Wireless Event. Also increase the number of bit-rates in iwrange for complete 802.11a/802.11g support.
• Kernel 2.5.X patches
  • Wireless Extensions v13 for kernel 2.5.2. Add the new driver API based on iw-handlers (to replace ioctl handler). [Already in 2.5.3-pre3]
  • Wireless Extensions v14 for kernel 2.5.6. Add a Wireless Event dispatcher through rtnetlink (driver and set events) and support for Wireless Scanning (iwlist ethX scan). [Already in 2.5.7-pre1]
  • WE-13 ESSID bug fix for 2.5.15, fix a stupid bug in WE-13 patch above (of by one). [Already in 2.5.16]
  • Wireless Extensions v15 for kernel 2.3.32. Fix and enhance private extensions support, mostly for HostAP driver. Define additional Wireless Events. Get strict on buffer size for GET requests (this may break old applications using Wireless Extensions). [Already in 2.5.37]
  • Wireless Extensions v16 for kernel 2.6.64. Rework iwspy support : simplify driver side iwspy support and add iwspy Wireless Event. Also increase the number of bit-rates in iwrange for complete 802.11a/802.11g support. [Already in 2.5.70]
• Obsolete wireless driver patches (wavelan, wavelan_cs and netwave_cs)
  • Update wavelan_cs to v23 : backport Pcmcia package fixes in the kernel. [Already in 2.5.3-pre2]
  • Shell script and Patch to move old wireless drivers : move wavelan.c, wavelan_cs.c and netwave_cs.c to driver/net/wireless. [Already in 2.5.3-pre3]
  • Additional fixed for wavelan_cs : fix trigraph warnings. [Already in 2.5.3-pre6]
  • Update wavelan_cs to v23 + extra : backport Pcmcia package fixes in the kernel, fix trigraph warnings and fix watchdog message. [Already in 2.4.20-pre2]
  • Conversion of the old Wavelan driver version 23 to the new driver API (WE-13). [Already in 2.5.6-pre1]
  • Conversion of the old Wavelan_cs driver version 23 to the new driver API (WE-13). [Already in 2.5.6-pre1]
  • Conversion of the Netwave_cs to the new driver API (WE-13). [Already in 2.5.6-pre1]
  • Trivial fix in wavelan : fix the watchdog message in the wavelan (ISA) driver. [Already in 2.4.20-pre2 and 2.5.37]
  • Use new iwspy support (WE-16) in the old Wavelan ISA driver. [Already in 2.5.70]
  • Use new iwspy support (WE-16) in the old Wavelan Pcmcia driver, plus cleanup backward compatibility stuff (which didn't work anyway). [Already in 2.5.70]
• Orinoco driver patches
  • Conversion of the Orinoco driver version 0.9b to the new driver API (WE-13).
  • Add some Wireless Events and Scanning (WE-14) to the Orinoco driver version 0.9b.
  • Moustafa A. Youssef has updated my patches to the Orinoco driver v0.11b (both WE-13 and WE-14 support : convert to new API and add Wireless Events and Scanning).
  • Orinoco v0.13a patch : convert the Orinoco to the new API (WE-13), and add Wireless Events and Scanning (WE-14). Contributed by Jim Carter, based on the patch from Moustafa (see above). I didn't yet test that patch.
  • Orinoco v0.13d patch : convert the Orinoco to the new API (WE-13), and add Wireless Events and Scanning (WE-14). Contributed by Pavel Roskin, based on the patch from Moustafa (see above). Also include scanning support for Symbol firmwares (from Jesus Molina). I've quickly checked this patch.
• Other driver patches
  • The Aironet driver has already been converted to the new driver API (WE-13) and has scanning and event support (WE-14). [Already in 2.5.20 ; 2.4.20-pre1 and CVS]
  • Use new iwspy support (WE-16) in the Aironet driver. [Already in 2.6.0-test2 and CVS]
  • The No Wires Needed driver has already been converted to the new driver API (WE-13) and has scanning support (WE-14).
  • The Prism2 HostAP driver has already been converted to the new driver API (WE-13), has scanning and event support (WE-14) and take advantage of the improve iwpriv support (WE-15). [Already in 2002-09-12]
  • Add support for "iwlist scan" in master mode in the HostAP driver. [Already in v0.0.1]
  • Add new iwspy support (WE-16) in the HostAP driver. [Already in v0.0.2]

• iwconfig says "no wireless extensions."
  1. Enable the config option CONFIG_NET_RADIO in your kernel setup.
  2. Recompile and reinstall this kernel.
  3. Recompile and reinstall the kernel modules.
  4. Do cat /proc/net/wireless. If the command returns an error, you are using the wrong kernel. Try again.
  5. If you are using Pcmcia, go into the Pcmcia package, do a make config
  6. Check that the following line appears : "Radio network interface support is enabled.".
  7. Recompile and install the Pcmcia package.
• iwconfig still says "no wireless extensions.", displays garbage or crashes before displaying anything.
  1. Make sure you have fully checked all the steps of the first question.
  2. The driver or driver version you are using probably does not support Wireless Extension.
  3. Check the list below.
  4. If your driver is listed, try a more recent version.
  5. If your hardware is listed, try the driver mentionned (there may be multiple of them - see also the Howto).
  6. Make sure that Pcmcia is loading the driver you think it is loading. Hack the various files in /etc/pcmcia/ until it loads the correct driver (grep is your friend).
  7. If you still can't get it, or if you find no suitable driver, complain to the driver maintainer.
• I try to change a specific parameter with iwconfig, it just returns an error message
  1. Check reading parameters and setting other parameters.
  2. If setting all parameters fail, see first two questions.
  3. No card support the full range of Wireless Extension, so your hardware or firmware may not have this feature.
  4. Check the Windows driver and card documentation to see if the feature exist.
  5. Then, your driver or your driver version may not export this particular feature. Try the latest version.
  6. For driver with otherwise rich support, it's more likely a hardware limitation. For driver with limited support, it might be a driver limitation.
  7. Check the driver documentation to see if the feature is supported.
  8. Lastly, ask the maintainer if it is a hardware, software or documentation limitation and what to do about it.
• I change stuff in wireless.opts, nothing happens
  1. Check that the MAC address prefix of the definition matches the MAC address of your card (with ifconfig).
  2. Check that no other previous definition would match your card (the first matching section is used, "*" matches everything).
  3. In particular, make sure that you have either commented or removed the "*,*,*,*)" at the top of wireless.opts.
  4. Check the scheme matching and the scheme you are currently using (with cardctl scheme).
  5. Restart the Pcmcia card manager.
  6. Check you system logs for error messages.
  7. See next question
• My config in wireless.opts is still ignored, and I have no error message in the system log
  1. If your card is not a Pcmcia card, it's normal, because wireless.opts is part of the Pcmcia specific configuration. The workaround is to use a distribution with integrated support for Wireless Extensions.
  2. Most distributions don't use standard Pcmcia configuration but their own network configuration scripts. In this case, they will ignore wireless.opts.
  3. Most modern distributions have integrated support for Wireless Extensions. When this is available, this is the easiest option, as you just need to add your settings the network configuration file of the distribution. Sometime you can even do wireless configuration in the graphical tools.
  4. For distributions that don't have integrated support for Wireless Extensions, file a bug report with the distribution and reinstall standard Pcmcia scripts, especially /etc/pcmcia/network.
• When I set my configuration in wireless.opts, it complains in the system log that it can't find iwconfig
  1. Install Wireless Tools somewhere on the system, like in /usr/local/sbin
• When I set my configuration in wireless.opts, I've got weird errors in the system logs
  1. Run iwconfig. See first two questions.
  2. Try to set the equivalent parameters directly using iwconfig to make sure that you get the syntax right and that the card support those.
• iwconfig crashes after displaying valid info...
  1. Do cp /usr/src/linux/include/linux/wireless.h /usr/include/linux
  2. Recompile and reinstall the wireless tools
• iwconfig says : "Warning: Driver for device XXXX has been compiled with version XX"
  1. Do cp /usr/src/linux/include/linux/wireless.h /usr/include/linux
  2. Recompile and reinstall the wireless tools
  3. Use "iwconfig --version" to check that versions matches
  4. If you still have this message after this, or if the driver version is a bogus number, your driver need fixing...
• iwconfig says : "Warning: Driver for device XXXX recommend version XX of Wireless Extension"
  1. Ignore, unless you can't configure your device
  2. Upgrade your kernel, and recompile/reinstall kernel/modules/tools.
• When compiling the Wireless Tools, it says "Wireless Extension earlier than XX detected"
  1. Ignore, unless you find a bug
• When compiling the Wireless Tools, it says "Wireless Extension later than XX detected"
  1. This is not problematic, but think of getting a newer version of the tools.
• When compiling the Wireless Tools, it complains that IFLA_WIRELESS is undeclared
  1. Make sure you are not messing up with wireless.h in the kernel, you could make things to not work at all.
  2. Do cp /usr/src/linux/include/linux/rtnetlink.h /usr/include/linux
  3. Recompile and reinstall the wireless tools
• In the kernel log, it say "wlan0 (WE) : Buffer for request XXXX too small (0<XX)"
  1. Find the wireless application that generates it
  2. Upgrade this application it to the latest version
  3. If the problem persist, file a bug on the application
• In the kernel log, it say "wlan0 (WE) : Invalid/Unknown Wireless Event"
  1. Your kernel and your driver are out of sync
  2. Recompile/reinstall your kernel, kernel modules, pcmcia modules and external driver modules

• The Wavelan driver is the reference implementation of Wireless Extensions for pre-802.11 devices. It supports NWID, Channel, Sensitivity, Encryption key, stats and spy.
• The old Wavelan IEEE GPL driver has slightly less support than the the Orinoco MPL/GPL driver (below).
• The new Orinoco MPL/GPL driver has a quite complete implementation Wireless Extensions. In particular, it supports ESSID, Frequency, Frag, RTS, Rate, Operation Mode, Power management, Encryption settings (all four keys), stats and spy. It doesn't yet support features beyond WE-12 (so no scanning and no events).
• The Wavelan IEEE binary driver (from Lucent) has limited support for Wireless Extensions (stats, channel), and as this driver have some strong similarities with the previous one, somebody should do something about it...
• The Netwave Airsurfer driver has the essential : Domain, Scrambling key, Mode and stats.
• The Proxim RangeLan2 driver has solid support for Wireless Extensions : Domain, channel and stats. More recent versions may add mode of operation.
• The Linux-wlan-ng driver version 0.1.13 support Wireless Extensions, thanks to the work of Reyk Floeter. The support is currently pretty basic and read-only, but you will improve that ;-)
• The HostAP driver has very complete support of Wireless Extensions and use intensively iwpriv. It is now the new reference implementation for Wireless Extensions for 802.11 devices. It fully support WE-14 (Wireless Scanning and Wireless Events).
• The Samsung MagicLAN driver support of Wireless Extensions is a clone of the Wavelan IEEE. It should support ESSID, Frequency, Frag, RTS, Rate, and stats, however it seems that some settings are not fully fonctional.
• The Symbol Spectrum24 driver supports only ESSID (so far).
• The Aironet driver (version 1.4 and later from Ben) has some extremely complete support for Wireless Extensions, including ESSID, Frequency, Frag, RTS, Rate, Operation Mode, Power management, Encryption settings (all four keys), stats and spy. It is the alternate reference implementation for Wireless Extensions for 802.11 devices. It fully support WE-14 (Wireless Scanning and Wireless Events).
• The Raylink driver has a quite complete support of Wireless Extensions (ESSID, Frag, RTS, Mode, Rate, stats, spy) but the majority can only be set before the card is brough up (so only in config files, not at run time).
• The Swallow driver has the essential : ESSID and Encryption. The support for encryption is very complete. It also support Wireless Scanning.
• The Poldhu driver has similar support to the Swallow driver.
• The Atmel driver has a quite complete support of Wireless Extensions (ESSID, Frag, RTS, Mode, Rate, stats...).

The first set of application are applications that make use of Wireless Extensions :

• Download my wireless tools package (iwconfig, iwspy, iwpriv).
• The Pcmcia package uses wireless tools for integrated wireless setting in wireless.opts.

• Stefan Winter has developped KWiFiManager, a very complete set of KDE tools using Wireless Extensions (configurator, link monitor) and compatible with many drivers/cards. It is the successor to the famous KOrinoco.
• Edward A. Falk has developped a new version of Netcfg, which main features are the support of wireless configuration and network profiles (implemented through Pcmcia schemes). Very nice !
• Sujal Shah has developped GWireless, a Gnome link monitor and configurator for 802.11b cards using Wireless Extensions.
• Tom Waters has written xwconfig, a GTK version of iwconfig.
• Werner Schulte has developped QWireless, a program for the X86 and ipaq allowing to analyse wireless lans.
• Don Park is writting ApRadar, a GTK application that use scanning support to show the list of reachable Access Point and to allow the user to easily connect to one.
• Jan Morgenstern has written wavemon, a very nice curses application to monitor your card using Wireless Extensions.
• Green Bay Professional Packet Radio has a modified version of my Wireless Tools for the Symphony, with nice colors and bar graphs, to allow better setup of Wireless Links.
• Luis Peralta has written a web based Wireless Configurator and a Link Quality Checker, which are perl wrappers around my Wireless Tools.
• Jim Carter has written a APHunter, a Perl wrapper around my Wireless Tools using curses to shows the result of Wireless Scans.
• Matthias Reif has written KWaveControl, a KDE application that display current setting and statistics of Wireless cards.

• Tobias Rundström did wvlanmon, a link monitor for Gnome using Wireless Extensions.
• Mark C. Langston has developed a very nice Enlightenment epplet, E-Wireless, that monitor link quality, of course using Wireless Extensions...
• Carsten Schuermann has developed a very nice Window Maker dockapp, WMWave, that monitor link quality, signal strength and noise level.
• Gtnx Sjoerd has developped a signal strength plug-in that fits into the GKrellM monitoring system.
• Trent Trautman has developped a signal strength plug-in that fits into the Entity XML framework.
• Tim Ehlers has modified xosview to monitor the wireless link.
• Jim Binkley has developped a wireless signal strength monitor. The Linux version uses the Wireless Extensions and has been designed for the iPaq.
• David Koski has written a Java Applet to monitor the Wireless Link.
• Gabriel Cain made a compact X11 wireless monitor.
• Rob Flickenger made a Perl script that display link quality in color on your teminal.
• Ico Doornekamp has written a simple applet that show basic network info and also wireless signal strength.
• Christopher TenHarmsel has written a KDE wireless monitor that will eventually evolve into a profile manager.

• Steven Hanley has developed a small package using Wireless Extensions to get the statistics at the other end of the wireless link (remote stats), with a nice graphical user interface, and which can be docked in your window manager.
• Eric Maland and friends have developped a package to log discovered ESSID (and related info) of wireless networks in range.
• Jeffrey Strube has written AP Hopper, a program that automatically hops between access point, check DHCP and log the result.
• Moustafa Youssef has developped a general API for interfacing with Wireless Extensions.

• Jim Binkley has developed a version of Mobile IP which is wireless aware. His Linux implementation uses the Wireless Extensions...

• Open1x is an Open Source implementation of the 802.1x protocol that uses Wireless Extensions.

• Jon Sevy has developped a Java-based AirPort/RG1000 Base Station configurator, that should please some people not owning a Mac... He has also done Wireless Link Test Utility and a Wireless Host Monitoring Utility for the Airport/RG1000.
• Johan Almqvist has developed a perl script to configure a D-Link DWL-1000AP Access Point via SNMP.
• Sujal Shah is writting a Gnome application to configure a Linksys WAP11 Access Point via SNMP.
• Ori Pessach has done a Gnome application to configure a Linksys WAP11 Access Point via SNMP, which really works.
• Roman Festchook has writen a set of ncurses based utilities to configure via SNMP protocol Access Points based on Atmel chipset (the case for most Intersil clone vendors), and also Access Points based on NWN chipset.

• Mark C. Langston has written some Perl script to check the status of the Airport Base Station.
• Tom Z. Meinlschmidt has developped an impressive package allowing to monitor a Wavelan Access Point using SNMP.
• Greg Hankins has done a similar monitor for the RoamAbout Access Points.
• V.Melnik has developped a package to monitor a Wavelan Access Point using SNMP and store the result in a mySQL database.
• Dominic Kilbride has developped a package to monitor various Access Points using SNMP and store the result in a mySQL database and show graphical results.

• Kirby Kuehl has developped a package discovering Wireless Access points from their wired side. It basically check MAC address that match known Access Point manufacturers.
• Jan.B.Fernquist has developped PrismStumbler, discovering networks in ranges with PrismII cards.
• AirSnort is the very famous tools that allow you to crack WEP encryption and snoop 802.11 traffic. Use only on your own network...
• Bruce Barnett has some tool to decode 802.11 frames.
• Mike Kershaw and friends have developped Kismet, a complete package for finding 802.11 cells and their characteristics and 802.11 traffic analysis (using the "monitor" mode of various cards).

• The NetPerf benchmark. That's the one I use, and I love it !
• MRTG seems an interesting tool to monitor the quality of TCP links (I need to try it...).

Wavelan, Orinoco and Wireless LANs - jt@hpl.hp.com Updated 15 April 03

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