AirMagnet likes/dislikes

[Nunny]

This is in response to Fokro's questions about AirMagnet that arose in the security section of the forums.

We purchased AirMagnet about 2 months ago and I'd say that overall, I'm very pleased with it. I use it in conjuction with the Cisco Aironet Client Utility (ACU) to do site surveys. And stand alone to monitor overall activity and troubleshooting. I'm running it on a Compaq iPAQ 3850 with absolutely no problems. Our WLAN is not too big or active yet, so I have not seen too much activity all that once, but I can see this being very useful even in the largest of environments. Just to see what it'll do, I've done a bit of war-driving in some business parks close by and it picks up lots of APs and clients and show's all kinds of good info, especially configurations, etc. that you particularly want to avoid.

In no particular order, some of the good features that I like are: an overall picture of channels in use, AP's, clients, and alarms. This shows everything that AirMagnet sees (what/how many) at a single glace. The alarms feature discovers/alerts on things that you should watch out for, or didn't even know about, while being able to filter out any alarms that you're not concerned with. A simple spectrum analyzer with signal stats for channels, APs and/or clients shows signal/noise, utilization, tx/rx errors, retrys, frames per second, etc. There is a "find" feature that acts like a gieger counter, the closer you are to the target device, the more/louder it beeps. All sorts of performance graphing & statistics. Lots of basic tools like ping/traceroute/whois, etc. Creation of seperate profiles for different locations/WEPs/SSIDs. Logging/saving data for later review. Very simple packet sniffing, which is no comparison to real sniffing software,such as AiroPeek, but it gives the basic wireless info within the packets. There are a few other features that I have not had a chance to try or use effectively as of yet. Overall, once you learn the ins and outs of the software, it's easy and intuitive to use.

There are only a few negatives that I've discovered so far: one is the fact that it's tied to the Cisco Aironet 350 client adapter. Not a problem for me, but you can't use just any card. If you have one of the newer iPAQs with the internal card, you'll have to get a PCMCIA sled for it and disable the internal wireless adaptor. The sniffer could be a more robust, it doesn't seem to let you look at more than just the 802.11 portion of the packet, not the data portion, but I might be doing something wrong here.

Fokro: feel free to ask me any specific quesions and I'll answer them the best I can.

I'm sure others can add to what I have here, I'm sure I've missed both good and bad features of the software.

Cheers,
Nunny

[leedssit]

Hi,

My company is an Airmagnet reseller and I also personaly use airmagnet on an Ipaq 5450 and my laptop ( combo ), its a great tool and even better when they release support for 802.11g. Its a shame the PDA version does not support 802.11a but its just to intensive, but Im sure this is going to be fixed in future versions.
Totaly rate it.

lee
:)

[Wildcats]

We evaluated ISS Wireless Scanner, Fluke's Waverunner and AirMagnet Handheld Pro, along with NetStumbler. One at a time, we took each of these scanners/sniffers to each of our facilities and did some "war driving" along the way.

NetStumbler worked great as an "active scanner", but since NetStumbler must "probe" for wireless access points, it's only good for the basics. Hopefully passive sniffing will be added to NetStumbler.

ISS Wireless Scanner was nice, but way too pricey for what you get. It also was a pain to walk around with a laptop. If they could lower the price and run it on PocketPC, it would be really nice.

Fluke's WaveRunner was a very major disappointment. Granted, we got what appeared to be a beta eval unit.

My favorite for security analysis was AirMagnet Handheld Pro. We got a free 2 week eval unit from Frederik Engineering http://www.fetest.com. The salesman's name was Will Rosado, I think. It was easy to use and also easy to walk through the buildings with.

WildPacket's AiroPeek is also really really nice, but again, you need a laptop. It's a full wireless network analyzer though. You get a lot for your $$. The network guys where I work use the wired version (Etherpeek), and will be purchasing AiroPeek when we roll out wireless beyond our current wireless pilot. http://www.wildpackets.com

[JimGeier]

Airmagnet seems to provide a pretty good all around tool for RF site surveys, security assessments, etc.. I've written a review that offers my opition: http://www.80211-planet.com/reviews/SW/article.php/2013641

[lwheeler]

I bought the Fluke WaveRunner after researching them both. I like the Fluke WaveRunner very much and have used it on 10 large installs and have absolutly no complaints.
Larry

[BobY777]

Does the Airmagnet show uplink and downlink site survey info?

If I understand the Airmagnet correctly, I think it will work with most all APs. I assume it will show signal strength, signal to noise ratio, noise, packets sent and lost, etc.?

I use the site survey that comes with the Orinoco Classic Gold card. Only problem it doesn't work with all AP chipsets. I don't know how many chipsets it works with. I know it will work with Linksys wireless APs, Engenius, SEnao. They have Prism chipsets in them I believe.

But I got a ValuePoint AP a couple days ago to use in a hotel situation. Only problem, is now I can't use my Classic Gold card site survey software to do good site surveys, since the Valuepoint chip set won't work with the Orinocl Classic Gold card.

The Orinoco Classic Gold card site survey software is really good for the price. It shows signal strength, signal to noise, noise, packets sent and lost, plus other stuff. And all this not only on the downlink (the laptop receive), but also the AP (receive).

So now I'm trying to find another wireless PC card that will give me the info as my Gold card did and work with the Valuepoint (and not be so darn expensive). There has to be some basic wireless card that will do uplink and downlink site surveys, without having to spent tons of money for a site survey product.

[wirelessoceans]

Bob,

Airmagnet is the current standard. There is nothing I have found that competes. Its worth the money and its offers literaly hundreds of additional analysis options when compare to the Orinoco surveyor. Orinoco works well, epecially on backhaul links and p-t-p wireless, but in a public, multi-ap setting Airmagnet is king for now. And it works with all ap's I have encountered in a/b/g.

[BobY777]

Hi wirelessoceans:

Yes from my looking around, it seems Airmagnet is king.

Does it show the up and downlink? At the price it goes for, I assume it does?

Only problem, is I don't have as many WiFi jobs as I would like to easily pay for Airmagnet.

If I could get more jobs, I would for sure get Airmagnet.

My main problem, isn't the technical part (although I learn from you and others on this forum every day), but my main problem is the marketing and finding hotels, and other locations that may want to obtain a no-cost proposal from me...and my prices are pretty competitive too.

By the way, if anyone on here wants to refer me to any locations (hotels, MDUs, RV parks, marinas, etc.) for a free WiFi proposal...feel free to. Finders fees paid. (Am I allowed to say that?). I'm in PA.

In most businesses, the marketing is the big problem. Well...paperwork is a close second. I try to give quotes on what I think is a good quality system, but many of the small to medium sized hotel owners, I have found, are "pennywise and pound foolish" when it comes to getting a WiFi system. So I have lost out to lower priced, low quality, WiFI systems. Many of these installs I have lost out to, basically don't have any security in them at all. The hotel owner may not even know or care...and the WiFi user is open up to all sorts of hacking, but they don't know either.

Wirelessoceans: Did I understand you are in FL? My son, who owns our company (www.pc-tronix.com) , bought a home down in Boca Raton. He flys down there every few weeks. Keeps his boat down there. I don't know if you are near there or not. I know Hyperlink Tech is in Boca Raton. The next time I'm down there I will stop by Hyperlink Tech to see their operation if I can. I was down in Boca during the hurricane this past summer.

I have to ask Flawireless if he is near there also.

Have a nice weekend to all.

[spiderbite]

OK guys, somebody set me straight.

I have used Airmagnet (abg) and I dont get that warm fuzzy feeling.

Granted, I'm still a newbie but ponder some anecdotal evidence.

I have the Card supplied by airmagnet which I think is a Senao card.

It cannot be used as anything else and you cant use anyone elses card.

Signal strength and SNR's are very different with this card as opposed to a Cisco 350 card on the ACU...in the same space!!

What gives? I can see as much as a 10dB difference between the two cards surveying the same cell. Sometimes the cisco is better and sometimes it is the reverse.

I thought dBm was dBm, but using the spectralink phone as proof -65dBm is in very different places between the phone , the cisco card and the airmagnet.

That's not cool....

Plus all the really neat alarms go off regardless of anything going on.

I was playing with airmagnet fresh out of the box some tim e ago and I left all the alarms on.


In an environment that was not yet in production, yet turned up. I discovered that none of my AP's had any security, and someone was spoofing a mac. It also said that there was an RF jamming attack going on.


My AP's were secure and I was the only person on the network...


Other than the find tool and the ability to capture real data so you can prove it worked when you left (maybe a few other goodies) I just dont see the value.



Do others use the results given by airmagnet as far as SNR signal strength etc...and then deploy other peoples gear?


And- is Signal strength and SNR etc...dependant on the gear you plan to use or is dB just dB.


I always survey with the gear that will be in place..not the passive airmagnet card..


Somebody show me the light, be cause I'm out of matches.

[keenanj]

With the new AirMagnet build you can do a RF calibration under 802.11 config this allows you to adjust one wireless card to look like another it is a very usefull feature.

You can select a number of card presets from the dropdown and make the Senio card act like any one of them.

If you purchsed the software less than one year ago you can download a free update or purchase an additional year of support if you are over a year.

I use the software in my consulting business and there really is nothing like it for solving complex problems.

I am also a authorized reseller so if anyone has specific questions on the software please fee free to direct them to me.

[FlaWireless]

We use the Ekahau Site Survey 2.1 and it works well in most environments.
We also use spectrum analyzers when needed. I will look into Airmagnet again, but at the time we looked into it, the Ekahau was much better for indoor surveys.