.TH wavemon 1 "March 2012" Linux "User Manuals" .SH NAME wavemon \- a wireless network monitor .SH SYNOPSIS .B wavemon [-h] [-i .I ifname .B ] [-l] [-r] [-v] .SH DESCRIPTION \fIwavemon\fR is a ncurses-based monitoring application for wireless network devices. It plots levels in real-time as well as showing wireless and network related device information. Currently, wavemon is still based on the wireless extensions by Jean Tourrilhes . The \fIwavemon\fR interface splits into different "screens". Each screen presents information in a specific manner. For example, the "info" screen shows current levels as bargraphs, whereas the "level" screen represents the same levels as a moving histogram. On startup, you'll see (depending on configuration) one of the different monitor screens. At the bottom, you'll find a \fImenu-bar\fR listing the screens and their activating keys. Each screen is activated by either the corresponding function key or the key corresponding to the first character of the screen name. The following screens can be selected: .TP .B Info (F1 or 'i') This is the most comprehensive screen. It displays a condensed overview of wireless-specific parameters and network statistics, as well as bar graphs. The layout is arranged into several sub-sections. The .B Interface section at the top shows information about the monitoring interface, including interface name, type, ESSID, and available encryption formats. Below, in the .B Levels section, you can see up to four bargraphs showing (1) relative signal quality and (2) signal level in dBm. If the wireless driver also supports noise level information, additionally (3) noise level in dBm and (4) Signal-Noise-Ratio (SNR) in dB are shown. The colour of the signal level bargraph changes from red to yellow and green at fixed levels. If thresholds have been set, two arrows on the signal level graph will show the positions of the current thresholds. The .B Statistics section displays packet and byte counters and a few other packet-related statistics. The subsequent .B Info subsection lists the current operational mode and configuration of the wireless interface. What parameters are actually shown depends on the capabilities and selected mode of your network device. Lastly, the .B Network section shows network-level parameters. The MAC-address is resolved from \fBethers\fR(5). The IPv4 address is shown in CIDR notation (RFC\ 4632 \fIaddress\fR\fB/\fR\fIprefix_len\fR format). Since often those two values also determine the broadcast address (last 32 \- \fIprefix_len\fR bits set to 1), that address is shown only if it does not derive from the interface address and prefix length. Likewise, the interface MTU is shown only if it differs from the default Ethernet MTU of 1500 bytes. .TP .B Level histogram (F2 or 'l') This is a full-screen histogram plot showing the evolution of levels with time. The screen is partitioned into a grid, with dBm levels shown in green at the right hand side (depending on configuration). At the very minimum, the evolution of the signal-level is shown. If the wireless driver also supports noise-level information, additionally a noise graph and associated SNR graph appear. .TP .B Scan window (F3 or 's') A periodically updated network scan, showing access points and other wireless clients. It is sorted depending on \fIsort_order\fR and \fIsort_ascending\fR, see \fBwavemonrc\fR(5). Each entry starts with the ESSID, followed by the colour-coded MAC address and the signal/channel information. A green/red MAC address indicates an (un-)encrypted access point, the colour changes to yellow for non-access points (in this case the mode is shown at the end of the line). The uncoloured information following the MAC address lists relative and absolute signal strengths, channel, frequency, and the mode if the node is not an access point. A status line at the bottom informs about the current sort order and a few statistics, such as most (least) crowded channels (least crowded channels are listed when sorting by descending channel). The \fIsort_order\fR can also directly be changed via these keyboard shortcuts: \fIa\fRscending, \fId\fRescending; by \fIe\fRssid, \fIs\fRignal, \fIc\fRhannel (\fIC\fR also with signal), or by \fIo\fRpen access (\fIO\fR also with signal). Please note that gathering meaningful scan data can take several seconds. .TP .B Preferences (F7 or 'p') This screen allows you to change all program options such as interface and level scale parameters, and to save the new settings to the configuration file. Select a parameter with and , then change the value with and . Please refer to \fBwavemonrc\fR(5) for an in-depth description of applicable settings. .TP .B Help (F8 or 'h') This page might show an online-help. .TP .B About (F9 or 'a') Release information and contact URLs. .TP \fBQuit (F10 or 'q') Exit \fIwavemon\fR. .LP \fBNote:\fR some operations, such as displaying encryption information or performing scans, require \fBCAP_NET_ADMIN\fR privileges (see \fBcapabilities\fR(7)). For non-root users, these can be enabled by installing \fIwavemon\fR setuid-root. .SH "OPTIONS" .IP "\fB\-i \fIinterface\fR\fR" override autodetection and use the specified \fIinterface\fR. .IP "\fB\-d\fR" dump interface parameters to stdout and exit. .IP "\fB\-g\fR" check screen \fIgeometry\fR: a minimum size is required for proper display; this flag adds a check to ensure it is sufficiently large. Enable this if window does not display properly. .IP "\fB\-r\fR" generate random levels (for testing purposes). .IP "\fB\-h\fR" print help and exit. .IP "\fB\-v\fR" print version information and exit. .SH "ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES" .IP "LC_NUMERIC" Influences the grouping of numbers if set. See also \fBlocale\fR(1). .SH FILES .IP $HOME/.wavemonrc The local per-user configuration file. .SH "AUTHOR" Written by Jan Morgenstern . .SH "REPORTING BUGS" Send bug reports and/or suggestions to Gerrit Renker . .SH "COPYRIGHT" This is free software with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY. See file COPYING for details. .SH "SEE ALSO" .BR wavemonrc (5), .BR wireless (7), .BR ethers (5), .BR locale (1), .BR capabilities (7) n115' href='#n115'>115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360 361 362 363 364 365 366 367 368 369 370 371 372 373 374 375 376 377