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| WLAN Analyzer and Protocol Decoder - CommView for WiFi |
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This tab is used for displaying detailed information on the active wireless nodes, i.e. access points and associated stations that transmit data on the channel(s) being monitored. Once you have selected a channel for monitoring using the Scanner, the program will start populating this table with detected wireless nodes. The packet analysis mechanism employed in the program will list all the access points found on the given channel, stations in ad hoc mode, as well as associated stations in infrastructure mode. Those stations that are not associated and don't send data will not be listed. 
It's important to understand that the radio used in a wireless adapter can receive data on only one channel at a time. Therefore, when you have selected a certain channel for monitoring, this table will contain data on the APs and stations transmitting data on the selected channel only. You can, however, select a different channel and restart capturing at any time without resetting data in the table, or even let the Scanner sweep through the channels so that you could see active nodes on different channels (be sure to check the Show data in main window while scanning box in the Scanner options if you want the Nodes tab to be populated while scanning). The meaning of the table columns is explained below: MAC Address – MAC addresses and/or aliases of the access points and stations. The icon next to the MAC address represents the node type. A box with two antennas is an access point, whereas a notebook represents a station in infrastructure or ad hoc mode. The golden key is shown when data encryption is being used. Channel – the channel the given AP or station is transmitting data on. Type – node type. Possible values are AP (for access points), STA (for stations in infrastructure mode) and AD HOC (for stations in ad hoc mode). SSID – Service Set Identifier, a unique string that differentiates one WLAN from another. Encryption – shows whether the node is using WEP or WPA encryption. For access points, this column shows available encryption methods being "advertised" by the access point. Signal – signal level in the min/average/max format. The average value is calculated since the data in this table was last reset. Please refer to the Understanding Signal Strength chapter for more information. Rate – data transfer rate in the min/average/max format. The average value is calculated since the data in this table was last reset. Bytes – the number of bytes sent and received by the node. Packets – the number of packets sent and received by the node. Retry – the number of packets where the Retry flag was set. ICV Errors – the number of packets with ICV errors. See Understanding CRC and ICV Errors for a detailed explanation. You can show or hide individual columns by right-clicking on list header or using the View => Nodes Columns menu. The column order can be changed by dragging the column header to a new location. Menu Commands Right-clicking on the IP Statistics list brings up a menu with the following commands: Copy MAC Address – copies the local IP address, remote IP address, or hostname to the clipboard. Create Alias – brings up a window where you can assign an easy-to-remember alias to the selected MAC address. Save Nodes As – allows you to save the contents of the Nodes tab as an HTML report. Clear Nodes – clears the table. More Statistics – shows a window with data transfer and protocol distribution statistics. |
