Wireless Access Point monitoring software?

[fuzzylizard]

Hey,

 

I just bought and installed a wireless access point (smc ez-connect 2655W) and I have turned on wep and mac filtering. However, I have noticed at times that people seem to be connecting to it. (according to the little blinking lights on top of it)

 

What I am wondering is this: is there any software that will allow me to monitor the access point and see if anyone else besides me is accessing it?

 

I also have a smoothwall router/firewall that the access point is behind, so software that allows me to see how many computer (or how many IP addresses) are connected to the router would work as well.

 

thanks

[arthurking]

Hi fuzzylizard,

I don't know anything about your model access point thingy, but I got a netgear router that has firewall etc, and I view all traffic to and from it with Ethereal.

I think it's at 0.9.13-1.1mdk version at the moment.

Easy to use (too much information for a dunce like me ) and free, etc.

There's no pretty graphs and stuff, just loads of info on network traffic etc.

 

http://rpms.mandrakeclub.com/rpms/mandrake...-1mdk.i586.html

 

or maybe etherape (with pretty graphs and stuff) (I haven't used this)

 

http://rpms.mandrakeclub.com/rpms/mandrake...-3mdk.i586.html

 

Is this the sort of thing you were after?

[Michel]

Don't know what your setup is actually...but mac-filtering should help already. Towhat I have read..WEP is not very good. I know it's a kibnd of RC4 and thought RC4 was good (128 bit), has to do with something else I SUPPOSE. You should try setting up ipsec maybe or encryp it maybe another way.

 

Anyway..if it first enters your linuxbox or so..the firewall there can help you filetering...Does certificates work with Accesspoints?? Else this could be a possibility for authentication...I suppose so. (I know a tool that lets you sign certificates. It uses java. I just used the java-stuff that let's you do this also in my current school-project: for teh interested: it's called bouncycastle(teh java stuff). I think it's safe, but you better firsdt check.

 

for the people there is some stuff around. Where to find it....

 

I can only give you some links since I don't have a Wireless accespoint myself.

 

http://ap-utils.polesye.net/

 

http://ap-utils.polesye.net/?links :

http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_Tourri...inux/Tools.html :

http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_Tourri...ools.html#links

 

http://www.google.be/linux?q=cache:BV6p9pY...&hl=nl&ie=UTF-8

 

I hope it helps some..

[arthurking]

Hi again fuzzylizard,

I just installed EtherApe and I think it may be what you want (?)

It's graphics are good, but I'm yet to figure out how to find (if it can show) any real info on the traffic it's reporting. It seems to show traffic type only, no info as such, like in ethereal.

 

See Ya.

[fuzzylizard]

Interesting software. I like the graphical interface. I wonder if anyone has built a gkrellm plugin that interfaces with ethereal and provides a nice little graphic thingy?

[jleaman]

what about setting your computer to s static ip from your smooth wall. turning off the dhcp server on your wireless router and plugging the cat5 cable into the port 1 2 3 4 ? and only allowing traffic from your laptop's ip through the smooth wall firewall.. personally i do that : O) works good. too.. im going to be installing my mandrake snf/mnf firewall again and using that because i like logging in and seeing the network usage and stuff. : O)

[fuzzylizard]

Thanks, but I actually got rid of the smoothwall firewall and went with an all-in-one linksys firewall/router combo. The linksys solution uses a lot less electricity then the smoothwall computer does, that was the reason behind the change.

 

The really nice thing about the linksys solution is that at any time I can go in and view the dhcp table for the router. This allows me to see exactly who is connected to my system. So far, no problems.

 

I have also set the access point to filter by MAC addresses, and the only mac address that it allows to connect is the one attached to my notebook.

 

So far, this has worked great. And is hopefully saving me some money every month as well.

[jleaman]

yeah i was in the same posistion. 4 compters running 2 laptops 4 others. now it is down to 2 computers one mac : O) for the download box. and the server mandrake 9.2 running smoothly and Nicely...

[iphitus]

Airsnort? i think that does what is wanted

[fuzzylizard]

Airsnort? i think that does what is wanted

I checked it out and AirSnort slowly breaks the WEP encryption used wireless connections. It does not monitor wireless connections, just cracks them. Nice looking software, the only problem is that it needs 5 - 10 million packets before it will work.