Essential Wireless Software?

[wrugoin]

Hello All,

I've got a wireless network in my home based around my ASUS RT-AC66U router. Connected are two desktops with a PCE-AC66 and a USB (N) as well as laptops, and mobile devices.

My question is, besides the router software and InSSIDer 3, do you have any other essential software suggestions that a well minded home network administrator should be using?

As listed above, I currently only use InSSIDer to monitor the best channel in my neighborhood and the latest ASUS (Merlin Firmware) router software to maintain all my settings.

I'm I missing out on anything essential? I'm not looking to be "super admin". I just want the right tools to maintain a fast, stable, secure, home wireless network.

Thanks for all your help!

 

[RMerlin]

One tool which I like for its simplicity of use is LanBench:

http://www.zachsaw.com/?pg=lanbench_tcp_network_benchmark

It makes it easy to quickly test throughput between, for example, a wireless and a wired computer.

There are better tools available, but this one is great for quick test runs.

 

[wrugoin]

One tool which I like for its simplicity of use is LanBench:

http://www.zachsaw.com/?pg=lanbench_tcp_network_benchmark

It makes it easy to quickly test throughput between, for example, a wireless and a wired computer.

There are better tools available, but this one is great for quick test runs.

Thank you Merlin, and thank you for all the hard work you put into your custom firmware.

 

[PrivateJoker]

If you are in the OSX/iOS ecosystem I like Fing, iTeleport (vnc client), & NetAnalyzer for iOS, also this is a cool utility if you have DD-WRT APs on your WLAN.

And built into OSX since 10.7.? is a really cool tool that is called Wi-Fi diagnostics under Lion, or Wireless Diagnostics under Mtn Lion. You can get to it by holding down option key and clicking airport menu bar icon, then selecting wireless diagnostics. Then enter your admin user p/w, and once in the app do not click continue! Hold down Command-2 to get to the cool utilities!

I'm posting a link to a small gallery of images I just took instead of posting a bunch of pics direct to the thread.

I really wasn't sure what kind of malevolence, if any, could be turned my way by releasing full MACs or IP addresses to the world, so I just kind of cropped some of the pics, it probably doesn't make any difference. You already know my router can be easily found at 192.168.1.1.

http://imgur.com/a/MOdCb#0

The handiest part of that suite of utilities has been the ability to do quick, easy wi-fi site surveys from multiple places within my house/property. I've found that while a site survey from within the AP itself, at its location, might find X,Y,Z networks on whatever channels and strengths, if I'm often in location upstairs bedroom and outside patio using wifi, it behooves me to do a quick wi-fi survey at those places too. Long story short, "auto" channel selection at AP location might not be the best depending on where you do most of your wifi usage. . .just helps informed decision making & network planning (and I've greatly increased my wifi speed in the garage which I use for an hour or more a day, with no physical changes to my APs, just by doing fresh surveys and adjusting channels, tx/rx powers, etc, accordingly).

I mention this only to those who have never done multiple wifi surveys of their home or whatever, Inssider has similar, if not better in some places features. But, OSX users you may have built in what you need already? Inssider is available at Mac app store for OSX for $4.99 too. I downloaded NetSpot the other day, haven't tried it yet, but it looks really interesting for doing low level survey work with nice google sketchup style layout. I have Kismac & iStumbler on my mac, but don't think they are fully supporting new hardware and haven't used either much as of late.

I also use iStat Pro widget for OSX on all my Macs to so I can quickly do a four finger swipe to the dashboard and monitor my true ethernet and/or wifi speed at that moment, especially if I'm testing something.

I've installed Wireshark on my PC but don't really use it yet (too complex for me).

PS - You may or may not notice in some of those pics that my SSIDs all have the extension "_nomap". That forces google streetview cars and android devices not to harvest your SSID's MAC & geolocation for their location services database. Unfortunately Apple collects similar info as well from iOS devices automatically and aren't as clear how they use it or how to opt-out, but this is a start.

 

[RogerSC]

If you are in the OSX/iOS ecosystem I like Fing, iTeleport (vnc client), & NetAnalyzer for iOS, also this is a cool utility if you have DD-WRT APs on your WLAN.

I hope that Apple is allowing apps like WiFi Analyzer on Android into the Apple Store now...when I last had an iPhone, you couldn't get an app for iOS from Apple that would show surrounding wireless networks, just amazing. So even though you may have paid $650 for your iPhone (or $200 if subsidized), you couldn't use it to optimize your wireless network relative to your neighbors (minimize interference, etc.). That was one of the reasons that I switched to Android phones, that and the much larger displays, the ease of rooting and getting rid of ads, etc.

The reason for it, as I heard it, was that they didn't want their users shopping for unsecured wireless networks. I don't know how many people do that with their phones, but they can certainly do that with a laptop, with inSSIDer (also available on Android *smile*), so I don't see that's a reason for not allowing users to have a nice tool for helping them set up and tune their home wireless networks. I usually have my phone in my pocket, so it's very convenient for that sort of thing.

My guess is that if you jailbreak your iPhone you could get a useful app for this. But that was never enough reason for me to go through that.

 

[PrivateJoker]

I hope that Apple is allowing apps like WiFi Analyzer on Android into the Apple Store now...when I last had an iPhone, you couldn't get an app for iOS from Apple that would show surrounding wireless networks, just amazing. So even though you may have paid $650 for your iPhone (or $200 if subsidized), you couldn't use it to optimize your wireless network relative to your neighbors (minimize interference, etc.). That was one of the reasons that I switched to Android phones, that and the much larger displays, the ease of rooting and getting rid of ads, etc.

The reason for it, as I heard it, was that they didn't want their users shopping for unsecured wireless networks. I don't know how many people do that with their phones, but they can certainly do that with a laptop, with inSSIDer (also available on Android *smile*), so I don't see that's a reason for not allowing users to have a nice tool for helping them set up and tune their home wireless networks. I usually have my phone in my pocket, so it's very convenient for that sort of thing.

My guess is that if you jailbreak your iPhone you could get a useful app for this. But that was never enough reason for me to go through that.

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/apple/apple-purges-wi-fi-discovery-apps-from-app-store-updated/6202

Excellent point, and no, they have not allowed any apps like that back in, it has been a permanent ban. I heard a lot of speculation on the reasoning behind that at the time as well, and am not really buying whatever they were saying. And yes, having something pocketable with dual band wifi & very accurate GPS seems like a waste not to be able to do some wifi surveying. . .

However, a little bit of reading and some speculation on my part makes me think that Apple is trying to protect its very valuable geo-location database that it scans for itself from every iOS device being used, to help make its maps better (you can go to "settings > general > about > usage > diagnostics & data > D&D data" to peruse the voluminous amount of info you share back with them, don't worry it's "not personally identifiable ). To allow other programs to have hooks into that info would mean making an API out of it, which means instantly Google Maps, Google search, etc, could have all of it's users data coming in the Android pipeline in addition to all iOS users as well, making their A-GPS wifi based database that much better with something like 60-80% of cell phones in the world adding their info to it every day.

It sound kind of trivial, but it's not when you consider that wifi (or info it has garnered based on it's database of SSIDs & GPS) will always, always get the jump on a cold boot GPS (30-60 sec or less, minimum before it can get 3-4+ GPS satellites with a good fixed signal, and that's outdoors), and it beats cell tower assisted GPS as well (accuracy is just not there). And GPS usage indoors is augmented/improved massively by wifi harvested info.

So the more apps and functionality lean on GPS/location awareness, the more a given company's database (and ability to grow it) is a very hot commodity.

I don't like this fact, and how it affects the use of my phone, but I understand why they do it.