The title of this week’s Wireless LAN Weekly episode comes from an article I read in the New York Times back in 1993. It seems the New York city parks department was having a bit of trouble with some overly rambunctious male youths terrorizing some of their female counterparts in the local swimming pools. They had started a trend of ‘whirlpooling’ by circling and taunting the girls in the pool.

To counteract this bad behavior, the mayor’s office came out with a marketing campaign targeted at the miscreants attempting to illicit better behavior. They made up posters, bumper stickers, and even had the mayor start wearing buttons that stated, “Don’t Diss Your Sis”.

In this episode we’ll be talking about Wireless Intrusion Prevention Systems running amok, causing harm to your own wireless network. Thus, “Don’t DoS Your Boss”.

Hopefully some of these stories will ring true, and you can learn from these mistakes others have already made.

Enjoy

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This should have a sub-title called:

“Here Be Dragons” – sometimes I think people selling legacy WiFi equipment are like map sellers today trying to hawk their wares by selling maps showing dragons and the world as flat!

This week is sure to cause some controversy, but hey – that’s what these kind of things are all about. Something to get other Wireless LAN Professionals talking.

The show notes are in the form of a new white paper on this subject.

Buying Legacy WiFi

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Twitter… What’s all the fuss about anyway?

You’ve heard things about this ‘social media’ thing, and wondered why everyone is talking about it. You might even have a Facebook page. But that’s just for sharing personal information about what you are up to with your friends and family. You also might be forward thinking a bit about your career and have already started a LinkedIn page, and shared your personal information and started to build your professional network.

Good for you, you’ve started down the path of adding some social media into your life. See, it’s really not all that bad.

Now on to the really powerful one called Twitter. I know, you’ve heard people talk about twitter, heard these funny new words like “tweet” and “tweeps”, and worse of all you’ve heard all people talk about is what they ate for lunch.

I too was in your same place a while ago. Looking back, my first sign up with Twitter was over two and a half years ago, right after it started. But I was turned off by the service because of a couple of issues. First, I really didn’t like going to the Twitter web page to interact, and someone suggested I setup my cell phone to receive all my ‘tweets’ via SMS texts. That lasted about 20 minute or so of a frustrating endless vibrate going on. Second, I didn’t know anyone personally or professionally that used this new service.

Fast forward to spring of last year. Based on a very simple suggestion, I learned to access Twitter, not via website, or cell phone, but to use a Twitter Client. Wow! Everything changed overnight when I could access a ‘twitter stream’ and control the flow and content of the Twitter feed. It was a whole new experience. It made the process much easier and more manageable.

Then out of the blue, a new Twitter ‘friend’ (someone I’ve never met in person, who lives in a different country, but shares some of the same passions for Wireless LANs) – did be a huge favor and sent me a local European SIM card while I was on vacation with my family in Paris. He basically over-nighted a loaded SIM for me, additionally gave me great suggestions on where to visit, and places to see. All because we had exchanged a few 140 character messages talking about our shared passion.

I found this Twitter thing could be valuable! I realized there are real people, who share many of my same goals and interests, willing to help and share their experiences with me, just for asking. And, that there were also people who could use my help as well. A community of people, not tied together by some artificial reason because of where they live or work, but based on shared interests.

There is an entire world of Wireless LAN Professionals who are using Twitter on a regular basis. Of course for the Social bit, sharing what they are up to, where they are traveling, etc. But more importantly, they also share ideas and tips, as well as interesting URLs and articles about a shared passion. Twitter can also be a place to ask questions and get very timely answers.

It kind of reminds me of the good ‘ol days with BBS’s and Online Tech Support Forums where we’d go in the past to get that same timely, authoritative answers to pressing tech questions.

Give it a try, set yourself up an account on Twitter.com, its not only free, but very easy. Then try out one of the many Twitter clients available. I now use a funny-sounding client called Osfoora on my iPhone and iPad, and Tweetie on my MacBookPro. But there are many other clients available on all platforms, from Blackberry to Linux and everything in between.

To get you started on finding some folks who might share your interest in Wireless LANs, check out this list of folks that I follow at http://wlanpros.com/follow. You might also want to search for the “hashtag” (a Twitter method of tagging information) of #WirelessWednesday when people share other Twitter users addresses they personally recommend.

There are also many searchable, well-written tutorials on “How to use Twitter”.

I’d be pleased to have you follow me, and my status updates on Wireless LANs via my twitter feed – @KeithRParsons – http://Twitter.com/KeithRParsons

Others who commented on using Twitter as a Wireless LAN Professional in today’s Podcast.

Devin Akin
George Stefanick
Jennifer Huber
Marcus Burton
Mohammed Anshad
Steve Williams
Gregor Vučajnk

We’d love to have you subscribe to our RSS feed – just click the button in the upper right corner of the web page. Until next week, thanks for listening!

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OK, I know… everyone is going to think I’m just sort of Apple Fan Boy. And perhaps that is true. Not that I think Apple does everything right, far from it. But I have learned to appreciate the elegance in their design simplicity.

I like not having to do the dreaded “Backup, FDISK, Format, Load OS, Re-load Apps, reload data” thing every six months or so.

I like not having to deal with viruses and malware on my working machines.

I like the speed and simplicity of moving to a new laptop – mere minutes of my time, not the full-day it used to take in a Windows platform.

I like the ability to quickly move installed apps between machines without resorting to registry edits, and having to re-install from the original disks. (I know they are here somewhere…)

But most of all. I like this these products “just work”.

I also know many of you are hard core into the CLI world, and LIKE to do things your own way, and it rubs you wrong to HAVE TO do things (like iTunes) Apple’s way.

All that being said, this podcast is about how I use Apple products, like an iPhone, iPad, and MacBook laptops to help me in my work as a Wireless LAN Professional.

Let’s start with the biggest, and move to the smaller options

iMac 27”

Big – large screen real estate – desktop – working on processor intensive applications – rendering video – multiple VMs, even on screen side by side.

MacBookPro 15”

My main computer (at least for the next week or so – until I get time to move the ‘magic’ over to the new laptop) is a MacBookPro 15” laptop. This machine has garnered many industry awards – not only for its sleek aluminum uni-body design, but as a fast, intuitive machine to help me get my work completed.

The specs on this machine are  – in order of importance to me…

• Apple’s OS X operating system
• 1680 x 1050 High Resolution Screen
• Intel 2.66 GHz Core i7
• 500GB Serial ATA Hard Drive – 7200 rpm
• 8 GB DDR3 RAM
• 802.11n Wireless NIC

I’ve found this to be a great workhorse, running for weeks at a time without rebooting, a bit slow to ‘sleep’, but fairly fast to wake up and start working again. I run VMware Fusion, and Parallels to also run Windows apps on this machine. I’ve had multiple VMs as well as a full suite of OS X apps running simultaneously – and not been disappointed.

I love the ‘spaces’ feature, that let me quickly move between pre-loaded screens, each app has it’s own dedicated space. (VMs each get their own as well) – And Yes, I do know you can get this type of feature in other OS’s.

My ‘professional’ tools, like AirMagnet, Omnipeek, and Wireshark run very well in a VM environment. In fact, I’ve got much better results, faster processing, and no crashing of apps when running in a Windows 7 VM compared with a ‘real’ dedicated Windows 7 machine.

I have found I don’t use the DVD too much – but sometimes it’s nice to have access to optical drives.

I wish it had more than the two USB ports – wish they were USB 3.0. But overall very very pleased with this computer. It is a big large in my backpack, I did use a MacBookPro 13” for a year or so, and it was quite comparable, but the extra screen real estate more than makes up for the larger size.

MacBookAir 13”

This is going to be my next machine. As soon as I do the little ‘magic’ bit and have it become my ‘main’ machine. You know that magic that happens – one moment your machine moves from the old platform to the new platform.  I have this new MacBookAir 13” ready for the transformation, but I haven’t moved all my files over and had the ‘christening’ yet. Still need some open time to make the move.

This unit is very light weight, much smaller and thinner than the 15” MacBookPro, and doesn’t have the RAM or the big Hard Drive, and really isn’t even close in the CPU department. But… and this is a pretty big deal for me. It has the exact same screen resolution. So everything on-screen that I’m used to will be in the same position.

In my preliminary testing, this computer just ‘feels’ faster. I know the CPU is inferior to the MacBookPro’s – but that fast SSD just makes everything feel faster.

I won’t be able to run multiple VMs – just OS X and one Window 7 VM – but that’s enough for the large majority of the things I need.

There are two major factors in making the move to the smaller, lighter Air – Speed and Size. With the weight and size differences, I can take a 13” MacBookAir and a second 11” MacBookAir in the same space in my backpack.

I normally teach off of a big Dell laptop – that will no longer be needed. I can use the MBA 11” in Bootcamp mode to be my instructor machine, and have my spare ‘main’ machine with me at the same time. Both together weigh less and fit in a smaller space than my single Dell D6400!

MacBookAir 11”

This guy was purchased for a single job – and paid for itself in a couple days of surveying. My main survey machine (a Motion J3400 Tablet) was being used by a client, and I had an additional job drop in my lap. So I went to a local Fry’s – picked up the MBA 11” and within a couple of hours had a sweet survey tool.

The thing is the smallest and lightest survey platform I’ve ever worked on. And fast… nothing else I’ve used is as quick. From dead off – cold booting takes under 12 seconds. Waking up from sleep under 2 seconds. And moving between the Windows 7 Bootcamp, and Mac OS X is about 22 seconds.

I don’t VM this one… I use bootcamp so 100% of the resources can be dedicated to the current OS. Its size allows me to carry it in a unique way, more like a book with the spine vertical. Much easier to carry. (Though any computer starts to get heavy after awhile)

I don’t know if I’d use this as my main machine – not quite enough RAM or Hard Drive space available, but it makes a wonderful backup/spare.

Accessories

An entire suite of professional tools are now available in USB form factor. 802.11n dual-band NICs for surveying and sniffing. As well as Spectrum Analysis in USB as well

Without the option of USB devices, the Macintosh as a platform wouldn’t make any sense.

Link to podcast with Ron Nutter talking about using a Macintosh as a Network Professional’s platform. Moving to Mac.

Software

I run inSSIDer, WiFi Inspector, Wireshark, AirMagnet mobile Suite, and other professional tools in this VM with fantastic results.

iPad

On to the smaller tablet size. I really like my iPad as a portable consumption device. It has 3G so it’s always connected to the Internet. E-mail, Facebook, Twitter, GPS, Movies, Games, and most importantly – a fantastic Tech Pub reader.

I wish Apple would allow this as a Wi-Fi enabled tool. But alas, they have stopped all really useful Wi-Fi tools from being developed because of some ‘private API’ issue. I sure hope they resolve it soon.

This would make the ULTIMATE Wireless LAN Professionals tool. Very light, touch screen, hi-res screen. Many people can quickly see how valuable this would be for conducting on-site troubleshooting, surveying, etc.

I’ve developed a 25-page document detailing all the features and screens needed for this ultimate tool – but until Apple releases the ability to support Wi-Fi in iPad apps – it’s just a useless folder of details sitting on my desk.

iPhone

Like it’s larger cousin the iPad – the iPhone also is ham-strung by Apple by not allowing the Private APIs any longer. There were some great tools available. But these have been pulled from the iTunes store. If you were lucky enough to have purchased them earlier (or if you don’t mind JailBreaking your phone) – you’ll have to live without these nice tools.

I wrote an entire blogpost dedicated to the wide variety of networking and wireless tools for this platform. Check it out at WLAN Professionals Portable Toolkit

Another article from Zaib over at WLANBook about iPhone apps. Scanner Apps Banned By Apple.

Thanks for listening.

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The post WLW039 – Apple Products as WLAN Professional Tools appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

Keith

What’s in My WLAN Toolkit Case

The post WLW038A – What’s in My WLAN Toolkit Case Video appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

I thought perhaps with this being the holiday season, and people thinking of their gift lists… I ought to have an episode dedicated to the various WLAN hardware and software tools you might want to have in your own personal kit.

I tried making an audio podcast out of this list… but failed to adequately describe all the items with just my voice… So this week’s audio podcast will be turned into a Video Podcast. But, it will take a bit more time to edit the video clips into something presentable.

In the mean time, I’ve included a list of the equipment and software I carry. Obviously I don’t carry all of this for every type of gig. For pre-deployment work there is one set, for post-deployment verification surveys a different set. For different training classes, different sets depending on needs. And when doing interviews and on-site work for the Podcast an even different setup.

Please go through these lists and let me know if there are any tools you’ve found useful in your Wireless LAN Professional work that I should include. Please e-mail your updates/changes/answers to keith at wlanpros.com.

Thanks – and I’ll send out a Twitter message when the Video Version of this episode is ready to download.

The *-asterisk denotes my personal favorites and what I use most of the time.

Hardware

Computer

• Windows XP/Vista/*Window 7  –  Laptop/Netbook/*Tablet
• *Macintosh OS X/VM/*Parallels/*Bootcamp  –  *MacBookPro, *MacBookAir
• Smartphone  –  *iPhone, Android, BlackBerry

Accessories

• *Fluke AirCheck
• *GPS
• *Spectrum Analyzers
• WiFi NICs – both PCMCIA & USB
• Jammers
• *USB to Serial Converters
• USB Hubs
• Cases – I favor Pelican Cases

Miscellaneous Supporting Software & Security Software

• *MapPoint, *GoogleEarth, *Visio, *Office Tools
• Senao/Prism – Queensland Attack – WiFi Jamming
• *NirSoft  – WirelessKeyView – WEP & WPA PSK Hacking
• *Immunity – SILICAU – Penetration Testing
• *Franson – GPS Gate

Software

WiFi Analysis Software

• *AirMagnet    WiFi Analyzer Pro
• *AirMagnet    VoFi Analyzer
• WildPackets    Omnipeek
• *CACE Tech    Wireshark
• CACE Tech      WiFi Pilot
• Tamosoft        Commview for WiFi
• AirDefense     Personal

WiFi Site Survey

• *AirMagnet    SurveyPro
• Ekahau           Site Survey
• Tamosoft        Tamograph
• Visiwave         Survey
• Veriwave        Wave Deploy

WiFi Pre-Deployment Design Tools

• *AirMagnet    Planner
• Motorola        LANPlanner
• Ekahau           Survey

WiFi Scanners

• Kismet             Kismet
• NetStumbler  NetStumbler
• Xirrus              WiFi Inspector
• *MetaGeek     inSSIDer
• PassMark        WirelessMon
• *NirSoft          WirelessNetView
• *Koingo           AirRadar (Mac OS X)
• iStumbler        iStumbler (Mac OS X)
• WLAN Book    WiFi Scanner (Mac OS X)

Spectrum Analyzers

• Metageek       Chanalyzer (WiSpy family)
• *Metageek     Chanalyzer Pro (WiSpy family)
• Eakiu               Eakiu (WiSpy for OS X)
• *AirMagnet    Spectrum XT – USB – Bandspeed
• *Cognio          Spectrum Expert – PCMCIA (Cisco, AirMagnet, others)
• Ubiquiti          AirView
• AirMagnet      AirMedic – Intel 5×00 series WLAN NIC
• Nuts About Nets        AirSleuthPro
• Nuts About Nets        WiFi Eagle

2.4GHz and 5GHz RF Interfering Devices

• *Nuts About Nets      AirHorn Jammer
• *Nuts About Nets      AirHorn Dual-Band Jammer
• Portable Phones        2.4GHz Narrow-band and Frequency Hopping
• Portable Phones       5GHz Narrow-band and Frequency Hopping
• *Wireless Cameras – Jamming
• *Narrow-Band Jammer
• *Wide-Band Jammer
• *Bluetooth Devices – Discovery & Piconet
• *Headset, mouse, keyboard
• *2.4GHz Wireless Mice
• WiFi Video Camera – just as a client
• Old 802.11 Frequency Hopping AP & Client
• Microwave Oven – good and bad
• Nintendo DS (WiFi Client)
• Xbox 360 Game Controller

We’d love to have you subscribe to our RSS feed – just click the button in the upper right corner of the web page. Until next week, thanks for listening!

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The post WLW038 – WLAN Hardware & Software Options appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

Hopefully this will be resolved before next week’s scheduled show.

In the meantime, here are a couple of white papers written by Keith Parsons all in one place for easy access.

Again, our apologies. Looking forward to regularly scheduled Wireless LAN Weekly Podcasts in the future.

Keith

Learning Wireless LAN Technologies

Quick & Dirty 802.11n Design

WLAN = Counterintuitive

Want, Don’t Want, Don’t Care – Meeting Design Specs

Using The Right Tool for the Job

Seven Rules for Accurate Site Surveys

The Fallacy of Channel Overlap

False God of dB

How to Cheat on a Survey

Designing for Voice

Thanks for listening.

We’d love to have you subscribe to our RSS feed – just click the button in the upper right corner of the web page. Until next week, thanks for listening!

If you have any feedback on the show – please drop an e-mail to feedback@WirelessLANProfessionals.com.

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I’ve been teaching about 802.11n for many years now. All about the new acronyms, technology at the hardware layer, PHY layer and MAC layer. There is so much to learn about this new protocol. But invariably the discussion leads to the question on how to design for .11n.

I was going to also talk about the ‘morality’ of designing and selling a Legacy Access Point solution in today’s market, when .11n APs are available and you KNOW they are better than any Legacy AP ever could be. But I’ll leave that discussion for a different episode.

There is the very long, technical and perhaps a bit boring answer. Or, as I’ve found after sharing this with hundreds of individuals, there is the “Quick and Dirty” method. This is NOT the best way to design for .11n. But it is a way that is very quick, simple, and provides the 80 in the 80/20 rule.

If you have lots of money, plenty of time, and want to over architect your Wireless LAN – there are much more sophisticated models. This isn’t the answer to all possible scenarios. Remember, it’s the “Quick and Dirty” method – so “don’t be hating” on this…

Well, here goes.

This method of designing for .11n makes a couple of initial assumptions. First, you currently have an 802.11abg system in place that is working fine for you. If you are thinking of designing for a brand new installation, you could design for 802.11abg, then follow the “Quick and Dirty” method and you’ll also be alright. (Again, there are many more sophisticated design methodologies for .11n – this isn’t one of them)

So if you do meet the stated assumption above, you already have an 802.11abg system in place – then you can choose from either of the two simple options listed below. The first is the easiest, and cheapest, but doesn’t take into consideration for current .11a clients. If you HAVE TO use current .11a clients, you might want to look to the second option.

Option 1 – Replace Access Points

Each location where you have abg AP replace with abgn AP

2.4Ghz Frequency

• 2.4GHZ is for Legacy Only
• 2.4GHz is 20MHz  – 1, 6, 11 ONLY -(normal channel planning)
• Turn off support for .11b (if you can) – Require 6Mbs
• Turn off support for 1, 2, 5.5 and perhaps also 11 data rates
• SSID = Corp (or whatever your current SSID is)
• Legacy Only – Everyone who is non-HT
• No .11n Support needed in 2.4GHz

5GHz Frequency

• 5-GHz is for HT Only (also known as Greenfield)
• 5-GHz is 40MHz  – use UNII-1, UNII-2, UNII-2e, or UNII-3 as country allows
• Turn off support for all Non-HT legacy devices (.11a)
• SSID = Corp-Fast
• HT Clients only (.11n)
• No 20MHz support
• Adapt channel plan if DFS situation within range

Complaint Driven Solution

Everyone who can ‘see’ the “Corp-Fast” network will self-move over to the faster network. Each person that moves over to .11n not only receives a huge boost in their own throughput, but also takes a small load off the currently over-crowded 2.4GHz band.

The only issue with this scenario, is if you have people currently using their .11a devices, they will no longer be able to access the 5GHz frequency and will have to return to the 2.4GHz mess. So if you have folks in this category, and they complain, just get them a brand new .11n card, either internal or external  and they’ll be able to reap all the benefits of a .11n Greenfield.

What is you have either lots of .11a clients, or your firm has already committed to a .11a 5GHz VoIP WiFi Phones… Well then, if you fit in that category, you ought to try out Option 2, below.

___________________

Option 2 -Additional Access Points

Each location where you have .11abg Access Point, leave it in place, and then add a new .11n Access Point

2.4Ghz Frequency - Same as in Option 1 above

Turn off the 2.4GHz frequency from the old legacy AP. This legacy AP is now only supporting .11b and .11g clients.

• 2.4GHZ is for Legacy Only
• 2.4GHz is 20MHz  – 1, 6, 11 ONLY -(normal channel planning)
• Turn off support for .11b (if you can) – Require 6Mbs
• Turn off support for 1, 2, 5.5 and perhaps also 11 data rates
• SSID = Corp (or whatever your current SSID is)
• Legacy Only – Everyone who is non-HT
• No .11n Support needed in 2.4GHz

5GHz Frequency

Part One – Currently Installed Access Points

• 5-GHz UNII-3 will be used exclusively for the .11a clients
• 5-GHz is 20MHz  – use UNII-3 as country allows (could be 5 available channels)
• Support ONLY (.11a) – no .11n things turned on
• SSID = Corp-Voice
• .11a 5GHz voice clients only
• Only 20MHz support

Part Two – New .11n Access Points (Same as in Option 1 above)

• 5-GHz is for HT Only (also known as Greenfield)
• 5-GHz is 40MHz  – use UNII-1, UNII-2, UNII-2e, or UNII-3 as country allows
• Of course leaving off the UNII band used for the .11a phones!
• Turn off support for all Non-HT legacy devices (.11a)
• SSID = Corp-Fast
• HT Clients only (.11n)
• No 20MHz support
• Adapt channel plan if DFS situation within range

Option 2 wouldn’t have any more Access Points than Option 1 above, but you would have additional costs, an additional network drop for the AP, as well as an extra PoE switch port. But you’d have basically two systems running side by side.

Keith

Thanks for listening.

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In this episode I spend some time with Mark Wuergler of Immunity Inc. talking about their SILICA-U Wireless LAN Pentration testign utilitiy. It is quite simple to use, single click kind of thing, and runs from a custom USB stick.

I think you’ll enjoy our conversation!

You can find Mark at immunityinc dot com.

Immunity’s approach to WLAN security, as it is with all other security challenges, is aggressive. SILICA-U is the only automated wireless LAN exploitation solutions on the market.

SILICA-U will quickly and automatically grab screenshots or password hashes, upload and execute software on target systems, or intercept and record network data. The unit includes standard Wi-Fi auditing features such as capturing live signal, spectrum and packet data. Immunity’s advanced research team continues to contribute updates to the software so the latest attacks are programmed in.

Bypassing 802.11b/g security: Enable hidden session identification discovery and the unit will reveal the non-broadcasted SSID of remote access points. Fed up of being filtered from MAC protection lists? Enable MAC address evasion and escape any MAC address filters set by the AP administrator. If you already know an allowed MAC, this feature also allows it to be manually set in order to audit your network. This feature can also be used to reveal hidden SSID’s configured by system administrators.

Aggressive attack: Want to enumerate which systems can be broken into remotely? SILICA-U will attempt to gain unrestricted access to all systems connected to your access points and extract valuable information in the form of screenshots, password hashes, or configuration details. It will even upload and execute your own remote access utility on target systems, giving you remote wireless access to insecure systems.

Evading personal firewalls: Unique passive operating system identification techniques will even identify machines running a personal firewall.

Gather usage data: Ever wanted to identify the most commonly used access points in a geographical location? Use probe mode along with non-stop scan, walk in an area collecting access point type information and configuration details such as encryption methods and signal levels. This scan will extract a list of operating systems and machines behind the wireless access point or ad-hoc network, allowing you to evaluate what networks are the most heavily used.

Map a network: Walk around running SILICA-U in non-stop scanning mode with GPS enabled. It will map out an entire area by constantly seeking for new access points and ad-hoc networks. GPS locations on the reports can be used to plot over mapping applications or services.

Security compliance: Launch the software in interactive scan mode with the attack option selected. Eliminate false-positives with our unique methods of breaking in to verify that a flaw does exist and is exploitable.

Advanced man-in-the-middle attacks: Our software allows interception of all HTTP traffic in a switched network between the wireless router, including any bridged wired network and all associated clients. The data includes cookie and authentication data within HTTP requests, which can be fed into a separate web browser session to allow email review, capture of sensitive authenticated traffic such as banking information, viewing of network device administration, password gathering, etc.

System identification: SILICA-U has unique methods for extracting information remotely from network printers, embedded devices, PDA’s, Windows systems, routers, Unix workstations, and more. Our remote identification and reconnaissance methods are found no-where else.

Rogue access point detection: Leave the unit running in your desk while in non-stop mode and it will identify any new access points or Ad-hoc networks discovered in range. This is particularly useful for monitoring buildings for suspicious devices being inserted into the premise without permission, or monitoring unapproved ad-hoc networks from open laptops.

Detect network misconfiguration: Often enough employees will open up wireless ad-hoc connections in their laptops, bridging them to a wired network without realizing the security implications. This imposes a serious threat to a company’s perimeter security. The software can detect this if launched in probe mode with any type of scanning method. Immunity recommends a scan-all scan that specifically targets your network. If anything is found it will be included in the report.

Pinpointing access points: Ever discovered a suspicious access point and wanted to find its location? SILICA-U will allow you to do this by viewing the interactive signal meter which displays various information about the device while you move around and approach it. Noise levels and quality may increase or drop depending how close you are to the access point. Alternatively, SILICA-U includes GPS.

Client-side exploitation: SILICA-U will allow you to bypass any firewall or host protection mechanisms by directing the attack on a client side application through an advanced connection hijacking attack which cannot be found in any other software.

Thanks for listening.

We’d love to have you subscribe to our RSS feed – just click the button in the upper right corner of the web page. Until next week, thanks for listening!

If you have any feedback on the show – please drop an e-mail to feedback@WirelessLANProfessionals.com.

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This week’s episode features two segments, each an interview with a Wireless LAN Professional. First is Jared Griffith of CinergyWiFi, a Wireless LAN Value Added Reseller (WLAN VAR) – and the second is a story about troubleshooting from Tim Dennehy of the University of Kansas.

Both of these interviews were an attempt to help share a little insight into the wide variety of positions available for Wireless LAN Professionals.

Jared Griffith
Cinergy Wi-Fi, Inc
Jared.Griffith@cinergywifi.com

http://cinergywifi.com/

http://RuckusGear.com/

“Our MacIntosh issue”….

We’re a large public university – 25,000 students and several thousand staff members. The main WLAN is “Jayhawk”, and is almost a coffee shop style SSID with no restrictions and a simple webauth for access. Of course we have other SSIDs on campus – for athletics, the bookstore, guests and even the parking department. Students and faculty all have accounts in Active Directory, so that is how they get online for our main Jayhawk WLAN. From a network administration standpoint, it is extremely difficult to control what clients come on our wireless network. There is no “standard machine” issued — you come to university with whatever you walked in the door with.

We have 1800+ Cisco radios on campus spread across 79 buildings, all with two fully redundant WiSM farms in two different locations. Any controller can fail and the secondary or tertiary controller (or any other controller for that matter) can easily pickup the load so the user doesn’t experience an outage other than the time the access point needs to find another controller. It’s a lot of work to setup on the backend, but the payoff is if any controller fails at 3am, my phone won’t ring. In fact, the night shift might even not notice if a controller failed since the help desk probably wouldn’t get any calls.

Last school year ended in May. In June, after the students left, we upgraded all of our controller code from 5.2 to 6.x and then to 7.x so we could start implementing the new Cisco 3502 series access points. Upgrading during the school year, as you can imagine, is extremely difficult to get as we need a change window just like every other 24x7x365 organization. The upgrade went well — at least it did for the next three months, anyway.

The Kansas Jayhawks play football — and of course during the football games the press shows up. The pressbox is only used for the football stadium, so if the wireless network got broken during an upgrade, it would probably go unnoticed until the next time a game was played.

Sure enough, about four weeks ago, we had our first football game. We have four WLANs being broadcasted in the 8th floor of our pressbox. Our main SSID, Jayhawk, the ticket scanner WLAN, the Athletic’s statistics WLAN and guest WLAN. Three hours before the game, my phone rang with “the press is coming to the 8th floor of the pressbox and we’re having issues getting their Macintoshes online. As a last ditch effort to them online before the game, and employee used his credentials to get them on Jayhawk.

The press is supposed to use the guest (KU-Passport) WLAN, but for whatever reason they were first getting on the WLAN called Jayhawk. A call to Apple confirmed that the Macintosh computers will first search for the strongest signal (all four wlans should have the same signal strength) and then if all SSIDs are of the same signal strength, will search alphabetically. Jayhawk is before KU-Passport in the alphabet, so the press would try to get online and end up on the wrong SSID.

The press would enter in the username and password that was given to them (they didn’t know they were on the wrong SSID) for that specific game — we would create usernames and passwords for the press using Cisco’s Lobby Ambassador that was built in to Cisco’s Wireless Control Server. They would not get online and immediately call for technical assistance.

The technical assistance representative for the game would assist them and inform them they are the wrong SSID, and they need to associate to KU-Passport and enter in your username and password. This is where the trouble began. The “press user” would navigate to the correct SSID and attempt to associate, only to not get an IP address or the web authentication page. The technical representative would then assume the username and password was “bad” and get them back on Jayhawk with his credentials. This would only aggravate the issue — they would try to get back on Jayhawk and this time they would not get an IP address and of course, not get redirected to the web authentication page. The user would end up rebooting their Macintosh and would either get online with the technical respresentative’s credentials on Jayhawk, or maybe they would get lucky and end up on the KU-Passport WLAN and get online like they should have.

After hours and hours and hours (probably more like days…) of Googling, I found that I am not the only one with Macintosh issues. Other educational institutions are having the same exact issues, only I din’t find any solutions to the problems. I called Apple, and they said “we don’t see this issue anywhere else — it must be your wireless network”. Of course five minutes’ worth of Googling shows we’re not alone.

I decided to call Cisco’s Technical Assistance Center. Jeff called me back within the hour asking me if I had a wireless sniff of the clients in question. I had to tell him I didn’t own a Macintosh, and there’s no way I can’t ask a member of the press to give me his/her Macintosh so I can install Wireshark on it either. He asked me to run some debugs on the wireless lan controller, so I did. The result was that I could not see a Macintosh laptop sending out a DHCP Request. I came to the conclusion I needed to find out if the Macintoshes were actually sending out DHCP requests, and the only way to do this was to run Wireshark on a local laptop that is having issues or have a laptop running a protocol analyzer in the press box with a promiscuous wlan adapter.

We own AirMagnet WiFi Analyzer, so we tried to use it to sniff for DHCP requests to no avail. I called Fluke and opened up a technical assistance case with them. They called me back and agreed that they couldn’t seem to capture a DHCP request either for whatever reason. No word back yet….

Next step… I downloaded Wireshark and put it on my WindowsXP laptop, but did not have a promiscuous adapter, so could not see all the traffic – hence no protocol analysis traces to send to Cisco. I contacted CACE Technologies and looked at their applications. A promiscuous adapter is about 800 dollars, so I wrote it up and submitted the request to management and have not heard back yet. Turns out if I buy three of their adapters, I can monitor all three channels in promiscuous mode and actually get traces of what is actually going on!

After looking around (and doing a lot of begging) I was able to borrow a Macintosh laptop running 10.6.x. I attempted to install Wireshark on the machine to no avail — I am not a Mac user and was literate enough to get to get the application downloaded, but unable to set the permissions in such a fashion to actually get it to work.

I then received a phone call from Cisco’s TAC. Jeff said that I could try enabling “fast SSID change”. He said enabling this would allow my clients to change between SSIDs faster than normal, and it might help. Of course I jumped right on it and turned that on.

We went right back to testing! We started testing with the Macintosh I borrowed – we tried changing between SSIDs quickly and could replicate the problem. We then enabled “Fast SSID change” on the controller and our preliminary results look promising. We have a lot more testing to do (and one more game this weekend for the ultimate challenge) before we call this a success, but for right now we’re happy with the results. Why our WinXP boxes and my Ubuntu laptop have no issues whatsoever and why the Macintosh comptuers have problems is beyond me. But if “fast SSID change” fixes our Macintosh computers, I’m a happy Jayhawk…

The day before the game, we tested everything again. We backed out all the configuration changes that have happened in the last 12 months, which was the last time we didn’t have any problems. Same results – the Macs would not change SSIDs and get an IP address without having “fast SSID change” enabled. Twelve months ago we did not have this setting enabled, and after backing out all of the changes in the last year we have proved the problem still exists. The only thing we could not back out easily was downgrading the code from 7.0 to 5.2. At this juncture we can only assume that upgrading the code caused this issue since that is the only change we could not “undo” easily without affecting the entire campus.

Game day. A complete success! We arrived 3 hours before game time and I personally walked in with a Win7, XP and two Macintosh laptops. All four machines associated to the network easily and we changed SSIDs quickly as expected. We then turned off the “fast SSID change” and tried again, which brought back all the issues we were seeing. We quickly turned turned it back on everything was okay. The press showed up an hour later and had no problems at all.

Tim Dennehy – timothybryandennehy@yahoo.com

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Sometimes students, or clients, ask how they can stay in tune with all the changes and updates to Wireless LAN Technologies. It is a very fast moving target. In the past one might have just read trade magazines, and attended annual technology conventions like Interop or Comdex. But in today’s ever moving world, you have to find more timely ways to stay on top of your industry.

This week’s episode will go over five ways to help you stay in tune with changes and updates to our chosen field.

Twitter

My first recommendation here is to BE ON TWITTER!
Ok, now that I’ve got that out of my system. Please use a Twitter client, looking at Twitter only through the eyes of their browser interface is difficult, and doesn’t give you any perspective. I wrote a blog post earlier in the year talking about my experiences with Twitter and some helpful hints to get you started. You can find it here:
http://wirelesslanprofessionals.com/twitter-what-is-all-the-fuss-about/

To help get you started on folks you might want to follow. I carry a ‘follow list’ on the Wireless LAN Professionals.com web site, you can reach it here: http://wirelesslanprofessionals.com/follow

Another way to find other like-minded individuals is to search on the ‘hash tag’ of #WirelessWednesday. This was started a while back, and each Wednesday, folks in our industry recommend other Twitter users you might want to follow. Sometimes these are people with an already-large following, who Tweet a lot, and other times another newbie to the world of Twitter, kind of asking for your help and attention to help welcome this new person to this social media forum.

Some people like Facebook, and other like Twitter, and still others use them both. I’ve found Facebook is a place to stay in contact with people you already knew, but lost touch with. Twitter, on the other hand, is a place for you to meet and connect with folks you don’t know, but would like to be in contact with.

Blogs

Weblogs, or blogs for short are fast easy ways to publish ‘posts’ or content to the web is a simple way, without requiring the direct use of HTML or CSS coding. They have become quite popular. But where to start?

On the Wireless LAN Professionals.com website I’ve added a page to help get you started: http://wirelesslanprofessionals.com/blogs

Most of these blogs fall into one of the following categories.
Vendor Blogs – some of these might be fairly old, and not updated a lot
Individual Blogs – the experiences and tips/tricks from individuals
Study & Exam Prep Blogs – from people prepping for CWNP or Vendor Wireless Exams
News Blogs – Blogs posting current information about our industry
Blog Aggregators – in our world its the CWNP’s twitter posts about all other new blog posts

Here’s a list of the Wireless LAN Blogs that I follow on a regular basis. I like fresh new content, not too vendor bias, but I’m not adverse to a vendor slant on things.

• Devin’s Aerohive Blog
• Zaib’s WLAN Book Blog
• Steve’s WiFi Edge Blog
• GT Hill’s Blog
• Laura Chappell’s Blog
• Meru’s Signal2Noise Blog
• Jim’s Wireless-Nets
• Joe’s Connect 802
• The WiFi Hack Blog
• AirTight Networks Blog
• The Ruckus Room
• Doug’s WiFi Jedi Blog
• Ben’s Sniff WiFi Blog
• Lisa’s Wireless Corner
• Ron’s TechBytes
• Daily Wireless News
• George’s My 802.11 Blog
• Josh’s ‘Will Hack For Sushi’ Blog
• WiFi Networking News
• Jennifer’s CCIE Study Blog

I’m sure there are many other great blogs, and I know I’ve forgotten some of you. Just drop me an e-mail and I’ll add you to the list!

Forums

Another way to get involved and learn about Wireless LANs is to get involved in one of the many ‘Forums’ – a place you can go to ask questions, get answers, and share information pertinant to your job or your industry.

Here’s a couple to help you get started: http://www.cwnp.com/bbpress/
Or AirMagnet’s new community forums: http://www.airwisecommunity.com/
Other Vendor Communities from Cisco, Aruba, etc. Name your vendor of choice, and there is probably a forum dedicated to helping their customers.

RSS

This RSS thing… see the RSS Primer at http://www.whatisrss.com/ to learn more about the technology. It is a simple way to get blog and/or website update information send directly to you, so you don’t have to continually search the websites for the latest updates.

This can be made easier through the use of an RSS ‘Reader’ – or RSS Client software. I happen to like using Google Reader, but you can search on the term RSS reader and find many many options out there.

This is the technique I use to follow many blogs everyday, but only need to go to one place to catch up on the latest posts.

Google Alerts

This final one is a simple, free service provided by Google to help you track certain keywords. I’ts not always the most timely way to get information, but it does allow you to use a much wider net in your searching. It is very easy to setup and use. Just pick some special ‘keywords’ you’d like Google to follow for you, as well as how often you’d like to be updated. Voila, every day (or whatever your time period happens to be) you’ll receive an e-mail with links to the websites or blogs that have triggered your keywords.

Sometimes you’d get something that doesn’t pique your interest, but other times you’ll have early access to things and topics you’re interested in, but don’t have the time to run daily searches on yourself.

You can find this service at: http://www.google.com/alerts

Your choice of ‘Keywords’ will help to focus in on the technologies and topics you’d like to stay current with. Here are a couple of examples I’ve loaded in my copy of Google Alerts – it helps me to stay on top of people talking online about the things I care about.

• Your name
• Wireless LAN Professionals
• Wireless LAN
• Wireless Site Survey
• WLAN Site Survey
• 802.11
• Wireless LAN Vendors
• WiFi and Wi-Fi and WLAN

Well, in this episode we’ve covered Five Ways to Stay Current with Wireless LAN Technology. Twitter, Blogs, Forums, RSS, and Google Alerts.

If you have any other ways you like to stay current, or blogs/Twitter users I should add to my list, just drop me an e-mail at keith at WLANPROS.com and I’ll update the website accordingly.

Thanks for your patronage. If you’d like to be included in our upcoming monthly newsletter, be sure to register with our ‘double-opt-in’ mailing list in the top right corner of the website.

Thanks for listening.

We’d love to have you subscribe to our RSS feed – just click the button in the upper right corner of the web page. Until next week, thanks for listening!

If you have any feedback on the show – please drop an e-mail to feedback@WirelessLANProfessionals.com.

Subscribe To The Wireless LAN Weekly Podcast:

The post WLW034 – Five Ways to Stay Current with Wireless LAN Technology appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

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Earlier this year I used this same title for a blog post… I thought I’d bring it back this week as a podcast episode. A chance to talk about a wide variety of subjects that have been on my mind lately.

Here’s a ‘reprint’ of that blog post.

Main Entry: sal·ma·gun·di
Pronunciation: \ˌsal-mə-ˈgən-dē\
Function: noun
Etymology: French salmigondis
Date: circa 1674

1 : a salad plate of chopped meats, anchovies, eggs, and vegetables arranged in rows for contrast and dressed with a salad dressing
2 : a heterogeneous mixture : potpourri

IT Professional Apps on iPhone

If you are interested in iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad apps that would help as an IT Professional, specifically involved in Wireless Networks, check out a couple of blog posts I wrote on the subject with lists of available network support tools.

I think you’ll be surprised how useful this can be to an IT Professional.

http://wirelesslanprofessionals.com/rf-toolbox-iphone-app/
http://wirelesslanprofessionals.com/network-apps-for-iphone-revisited/
http://wlaniconoclast.blogspot.com/2009/04/wlan-professionals-portable-toolkit.html
http://www.my80211.com/product-reviews/2010/1/4/iphone-app-iphone-network-sniffer.html
http://www.my80211.com/home/2009/12/12/iphone-app-wifi-scanner-wififofum.html

Study Exam Objectives

Can we take Wlanman09′s words and tattoo them to all potential CWNA/CWSP/CWNE students?

There are many shortcuts to passing exams – brain dumps, practice tests, etc. But the best so far is as he suggested… study the Objectives.

The exam questions do NOT come from the Study Guides, or from the practice questions. But they *are* tied directly to Exam Objectives.

All of the support materials will also try to map to the exam objectives… but there is nothing to guarantee they will prepare you in all ways for the test. Be sure you UNDERSTAND the objectives thoroughly before attempting the exams.

CEH, LPT and CWSP

I’ve taught all three, CWSP, CEH, and the LPT (as well as the associated CHFI and other forensics classes)

The CEH is very very broad – I was the technical editor on Kimberly Graves latest CEH Study Guide (Sybex) and it covers all types of hacking. The accompanying resources that come with the authorized student kits are HUGE. Massive amounts of information are covered, and needed to pass this broad ranging exam. (Kimberly is also CWNE #2 and a great instructor if you can find a CEH class where she is instructing)

The Licensed Penetration Tester is more hands-on, and detailed oriented more on the actual processes of doing Penetration Testing. (CEH more conceptual) plus you have to pass a ‘background check’ to show you are ‘of good character’. If you want to do Pen Testing for a living, this might be for you.

There are many other Forensics type classes… more along the lines of tracking hackers after the fact.

If you are into the generic Security – look into CISSP and GIAC… but nothing out there is better for Wireless Security than the CWSP. By the way, the new CWSP study guide from Coleman, Westcott, Harkins and Jackman is a fantastic resource. But you’ll also have a pretty fun experience doing the classroom labs.

If you don’t have the travel budget for an live-in-person instructor-led CWSP course. Rick Murphy over at http://www.wirelesstrainingsolutions.com/cwsp-training-classes has a great remote setup where you still get to do all the labs as well as the lecture portions.

As a ‘side note’ you might want to think about all the reading that will be involved in any of these Certifications. Security is an in-depth detail oriented topic with many many facets to cover in short periods of time.

WLAN Spectrum Analysis Devices

In the Spectrum Analysis arena there are a couple of options as well.

The cheapest is the AirView2 from Ubiquiti – a small USB 2.4GHz spectrum analysis tool. Probably the least resolution available though. But it is very inexpensive.

The folks over at Nuts About Nets also have a couple of options in lower-cost SpecAn devices, but I’ve only used their ‘jammer’ tools called ‘AirHorn’.

Metageek has some fine individuals working there and they have an entire series of small USB spectrum analyzers, starting at only $100 for the 2.4i and moving up to their flagship DBx that does both 2.4GHz and 5GHz analysis.

There are also ‘bug’ type spec ans from the guys at Berkely Varitronics, little hand-held units (based on like pocket pc devices) that are fairly light-weight but still do detailed RF analysis. But not too user friendly in their reporting. You’ve got to know what you’re looking at.

AirMagnet/Fluke has just started shipping their own Spectrum XT product – a very high-end professional tool designed to supercede the Cognio version, but in an easy-to-use USB form factor. This one also integrates very well with you local WiFi card for integrated analysis.

The big gorilla in this marketplace is the Cognio Spectrum Analyzer, the company was purchased by Cisco awhile back, and you can still get these OEM branded through a variety of sources, Cisco, AirMagnet, Fluke, etc. I’ve spent many many hours using this tool and feel very comfortable finding just about any RF source… but it is the most expensive of the WLAN SpecAns.

Of course if you have even more money you can go with a full-blown SpecAn from the big boys but those are huge, expensive, but can ‘see’ a wide variety of frequencies.

There’s a quick review of the SpecAn marketplace as of today.

WLAN Packet Capture Tools

Omnipeek Personal is no longer available.

I like the AirMagnet WiFi Analyzer, but it does cost a bit of coin for a professional tool. This one shines for ease of use, speed, and robust analysis.

Omnipeek professional is also a good choice. Very good live decodes, and lots of analysis above the MAC layer.

When doing packet injection I use Commview for WiFi. Also ties nicely in with NetResident for seeing upper-layer decodes (like watching websites, emails, voice, etc. over the WLAN)

Of course you can always go with Wireshark with a CACE AirPcap solution. Or if you are so inclined you can go with the Linux version of Wireshark and not need the AirPcap. Check out one of the Backtrack CDs.

I’ve just received the latest from AirDefense, called AirDefense Personal and I’ll be giving it a run-through as well.

I carry all of these on my main laptop, they each have features that make them worth using.

For an upcoming book I’m working on, we’ll be using Wireshark/AirPcap as the main deliverable since the base software is available for free download.

WIDS/WIPS

I’m personally a bit partial to the AirMagnet Enterprise solution. I’ve done many consulting gig installs/configurations with this and have found it to be a very robust solution for WIPS. But in my opinion most people purchase such a solution with ‘security’ money, and it does a great job there. But the real ROI comes from the performance improvements it can find to help make your Wireless LAN more efficient.

I’ve also worked with AirDefense and AirTight and think they are also very good solutions.

In my opinion any of the ‘overlay’ WIPS solutions will always be a better solution than any of the ‘time-slice’ solutions the AP vendors try to sell. (read up on the Joanie Wexler WIPS series)

Cost wise an Overlay solution needs dedicated sensors, and a time-slice solution needs additional APs put into ‘monitor’ mode. For my money (and these both cost about the same) I’d go with a device that had been designed and dedicated to specifically doing one job well.

I know the AP Vendor sales folks would much rather sell you ‘spare’ Access Points… but dedicated sensors can do a far superior job of ‘watching’ your network.

You can also install an Overlay WIPS in a ‘no-wireless’ policy area where/when you have no Access Points in the area.

Just one man’s opinion,

WIDS/WIPS Capabilities

Now to answer the other part of Wilddev’s question.

Kimberly Graves, CWNE #2 and I developed a course awhile back on Wireless LAN Penetration Testing called WLSAT (Wireless LAN Security and Assessment Toolkit) where we taught folks how to use the latest in penetration testing (read HACKING) into wireless networks.

There are many many techniques. But you asked: “how well the can detect and prevent someone who knows wireless well from getting past them?”

Both the Overlay and Time-Slice models allow for the Detection of just about all forms of Wireless Attacks. They all use some sort of Denial of Service to do the ‘Prevention’ bit of a WIPS service. This in itself was designed to protect the client’s own network from unwanted wireless connections. But this also has an unintended consequence, it in itself perpetuates the Denial of Service for the clients’ employees who happened to be connected with the Rogue devices. Be sure your help desk knows the signs and symptoms that occur when your WIPS is in ‘protect’ mode.

Also be cognizant of the legal ramifications of having a system that can cause DoS attacks to your neighbors if implemented and configured incorrectly.

WIPS/WIDS systems can do a great job protecting your Wireless infrastructure, but from the hackers standpoint, wireless is only one of the access methods into your network. You’ll need a broad spectrum security solution, wireless is only a component in that system.

Learning to Read SpecAns

In response to a blog post by Ben Miller over at http://www.sniffwifi.com/2010/03/pleasant-wispy-surprise.html

Ben thought the WiSpy Spectrum Analyzer was something ‘less’ because it doesn’t include Device Identification. I like using all the Spectrum Analysis tools… but have found you as a ‘human’ have the best ‘pattern identification’ there is.

Though I teach folks how to use the Cognio Spectrum Expert (AirMagnet’s version) as well as AirMagnet’s own Spectrum XT, both of which have built-in identification. I try very hard to NOT use the built-in device identification.

Instead I teach how as a ‘human’ you can also beat the computer in identification, the ability to ‘see’ things/patterns in the FFT plots and Swept Spectograms. It takes more effort. More experimentation. And more time. But the results are better as well. Anyone can read the auto-identifier’s report that it sees a Bluetooth device. But as a ‘human’ with better recognition, you can see the pattern that can only belong to an iPhone or see the ‘signature’ of a Palm Pilot.

It’s kind of like learning to read sonograms or x-ray results. It takes lots of practice. But in the end, a ‘human’ will always be able to beat a computer in pattern identification. (Think of hearing your child’s cry at a noisy playground)

Student Study Lab Equipment

I’d strongly recommend working with at least ‘tier three’ type enterprise products. If you can get your hands on any Cisco or Aruba controllers and APs…that would be best for your career. But you can probably use the semi-enterprise stuff from Engenius or Ubiquiti stuff to get you the experience you need for the CWNA exam.

Anything from the ‘tier two’ enterprise vendors would be more than enough as well. (Ruckus, Aerohive, Trapeze, Meru, Motorola, HP, etc.)

Working on just SoHo type equipment won’t be enough. Most only support WPA I/II with PSK – and you should have experience with Radius if at all possible.

From the ‘old days’ of Novell CNEs – those who had their own lab setups at home were always prized over the ‘paper-CNE’ types when it came time to getting hired.

“Ripple Tank” Animations

I’ve used the program Eminem extensively to view wave forms to show Amplitude, Polarity, Frequency, etc.

But this Java Applet might be what you’re looking for.

http://www.falstad.com/mathphysics.html

Try both the 3D and 2D wave applets.

Begging for Comments and Suggestions

Comments or suggestions on these or other topics is always appreciated!

Let me know if you think any of these short blurbs justify longer blog posts or white papers. Thanks!

Thanks for listening.

We’d love to have you subscribe to our RSS feed – just click the button in the upper right corner of the web page. Until next week, thanks for listening!

If you have any feedback on the show – please drop an e-mail to feedback@WirelessLANProfessionals.com.

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Years ago I produced a series of hands-on training classes for Laura Chappell, as part of the ‘toolkit’ we included a great set of tools from Kirk Thomas called NetScanToolsPro. This set of tools have found their place in my network analysis and troubleshooting toolkit for many years now. I thought Kirk would be a good person to have on this week to share a bit about his tool.

Kirk was also gracious enough to offer Wireless LAN Weekly listeners a fantastic 40% off discount code. (see bottom of post for details)

You can check out NetScanTools yourself at one of the following links:

Main Web Page

Training Videos

NetScanToolsPro Demo Request

Twitter

Blog

Managed Switch Port Mapping Tool

Here are a couple of graphics about the product. This set of tools also has some automated functions that ‘run’ a series of tools for you. Also be sure to check out the training videos and support documentation to learn more about how your TCP/IP network works.

The discount code is ‘WLW032′ (that’s a Zero in front of the 32)

Discount coupon is good for:

*NetScanTools Pro Full Version (normally $249, with coupon $149.40)

*NetScanTools Pro Full Version bundled with Managed Switch Port
Mapping Tool (normally $348, with coupon $208.80)

*NetScanTools Pro Full Version on 4GB Ready Boost USB stick, USA
delivery only (normally $349, with coupon $209.40)

*NetScanTools Pro Full Version 3 license pack (normally $710, with
coupon $426)

Select from the ‘PLIMUS’ ordering options in the table on this page:
Enter the WLW032 coupon code at the shopping cart
view and press ‘recalculate’ to get the discount applied.

———————-

*Managed Switch Port Mapping Tool Full Version (normally $199, with
coupon $119.40)

Select from the *top* ‘PLIMUS’ ordering option in the table on this
page:

Enter the WLW032 coupon code at the shopping cart
view and press ‘recalculate’ to get the discount applied.

Coupon expires on September 22, 2010

Thanks for listening.

We’d love to have you subscribe to our RSS feed – just click the button in the upper right corner of the web page. Until next week, thanks for listening!

If you have any feedback on the show – please drop an e-mail to feedback@WirelessLANProfessionals.com.

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This week’s podcast comes from a blog I posted up on the AirMagnet AirWise Community web site a while back. There is also a link to a PDF copy of this document if you’d like.

Maslow’s Maxim, or as some people know it, Maslow’s Hammer, has been stated and paraphrased many times.  It has become so widely accepted that the concept has become almost fabled.

You may have heard one or more of the following:
“When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem begins to resemble a nail.”
“He that is good with a hammer tends to think everything is a nail.”
“If the only tool you have is a hammer, you are likely to perceive every problem as a nail”

The concept is thus: individuals who are incomplete in their knowledge or training of solutions propose the same type of solution to every problem they encounter.   They opt for the more familiar solution to one that may be more effective yet with which they are unskilled.

Here is where many of us involved in Wireless LAN technologies find ourselves.

I’ve seen this in myself. I’ve been using and teaching others to use AirMagnet products for many years. A large chunk of nearly every day is spent using AirMagnet tools. I thought I was pretty good at them. Then the other day on a consulting gig, I had a client looking over my shoulder and asked why I did something a certain way.

I thought this was a good teaching moment, and so I slowed down, and started to explain the purpose behind my actions. When I was interrupted, and asked not about what I was doing, but why was I not using the ‘easy way’ in the software interface. With a simple click, the new user showed the master a much simpler process. I was a bit dumb-founded for a minute.

I’d spent countless hours doing something an old, slow way. Why you ask? Because that’s just the way I’d always done it. Sometimes we just need to see things in a new light, back up and see things with a different set of eyes to realize there might be a new way, or new idea to accomplish something.

Now back to the Hammer and all those nails.

In the Wireless LAN industry we go about our daily lives designing, maintaining, and troubleshooting a wide set of WLAN equipment. Usually using the same old tools and techniques we learned from our mentors. Doing things the same way, just because that was the way we did them in the past. I taught and consulted with my clients for many years they didn’t need to have a spectrum analyzer, why? Because they were expensive, and quite difficult to understand. And who needed a Spectrum Analyzer anyway when you don’t get paid to deliver dB’s (RSSI) but instead we get paid for delivering Bits (frames of data).

“If the frames are being delivered

properly, who cares about the RF”

The ‘old’ Keith Parsons, 2005

Then along comes AirMagnet’s Spectrum Expert, and we all learned quite a bit about the RF world around us. Regular Wi-Fi NICs just can not ‘see’ the ambient non-modulated RF. In fact, sometimes they’ll report ‘noise’ when there is very little, or the reverse; they’ll report no ‘noise’ when there is way too much ambient non-modulated RF.

Today we have AirMagnet’s Cognio-based Spectrum Expert, and additionally AirMagnet’s USB-Based Spectrum XT, and just released AirMagnet’s AirMedic USB to help us ‘see’ the ambient real-world RF environment.

We need to use the appropriate tool for the job.

My father once tried to change the oil in my new Plymouth Horizon. He had the same type of car, but mine was a bit newer and had a different Volkswagen engine that needed a special oil filter wrench. I saw him drive my car off the blocks and down the street dripping oil down the road. Upon his return an hour later, I learned he’d pierced the oil filter trying to use his “old reliable tool” that had worked for years. The nice folks at the Oil Lube place at the bottom of the hill by his house were kind enough to use the correct tool for the job and fix his mistakes.

• What tools are you still using to design, maintain, and troubleshoot your Wireless LANs?
• Are you still doing the old AP-on-a-stick method of designing only for coverage?
• Are you still trying to estimate cell overlap with old-fashioned percentage methods?
• Are you still using NetStumbler for Rogue AP discovery?
• Are you still using Wi-Fi NICs to gauge RF Noise? What about SNR?
• Are you still trying to understand Wi-Fi by looking inside the IP-layer payload?
• Are you still using an old laptop with PCMCIA slots just so your old tools work?

What is your Wireless LAN hammer?

Isn’t it about time check your toolbox and make sure you have the correct tools for your job of designing, maintaining and troubleshooting your Wireless LAN?

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A couple of weeks ago I did a review of Joe Epstein’s book on Scalable Mobile VoIP – but had made a technical error and didn’t have the recording of our interview. This week I had a chance to get back together with Joe and talk about his book, and VoIP over WiFi in general.

Thanks to Joe Epstein for spending the time to do this interview.

Enjoy the discussion on VoIP over WiFi.

You can find Joe and his work at MeruNetworks

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This week I’m on vacation with my family. And so we’ve invited back Ron Nutter, of TechBytes to guest host the show. His guest is Joe Bardwell from Connect802 and will be talking about some of the details around 802.11n.

Please go and check out both Ron Nutter’s blog, but Joe Bardwell’s site as well for great information for Wireless LAN Professionals.

Enjoy!

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This episode invites back Adam Conway of Aerohive networks to talk about their latest software upgrade. I asked Adam on the Wireless LAN Weekly Podcast specifically to talk about ‘Client Health Score’ as part of the 3.5 code release.

If you have 19 clients for every Access Point, the clients are 95% of all the wireless in your environment. Even if you have a very dense AP deployment and have only 9 clients for every Access Point, you still have the STA’s or client wireless as 90% of your wireless network. Clients are terribly important when it comes to maintaining a healthy, working Wireless LAN.

Adam will talk to use about this new type of technology, and how it can effect your Wireless LAN. Listen in, and enjoy!

Download the Solution Brief Understanding the Concept of Client Health Score

Watch the Video Understanding the Concept of Client Health

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My apologies about the messed up/missing audio on last week’s podcast with Joe Epstein. We’ll be having him back next week.

This week contains and interview with Carolyn Carter of Fluke Networks. Carolyn is the Portable Network Tools Product Manager – and one of her charges is the new AirCheck hand-held testing device for Wireless LANs.

For Further information you can contact Fluke Networks. They have a great online simulator where you can try a little virtual hands-on with the AirCheck device.

You can reach Carolyn Carter directly at Carolyn.Carter@flukenetworks.com or on Twitter at http://twitter.com/FlukeNetworks.

Now for those supporting graphics to go along with Carolyn’s descriptions in the audio interview.

I had a chance to play with a pre-production unit right before the official launch. Without any instructions, or hints from the Fluke sales rep, I was able to do everything the tool is designed for… it is just that intuative!

Since receiving an evaluation unit, I’ve taken it on gigs all around the world. Large industrial sites, hospitals, airports, hotels, office buildings, conferences, and even on a cruise ship. I’ve used it for my own clients, taught other field reps to use it, and as a backup to my larger laptop-based tools.

Simply put, the AirCheck does exactly what is was designed for. It is fantastic at discovery, quick and easy in ‘Find’ mode, connects and tests Access Points and the DHCP services behind an AP. All in a small, lightweight device.

You will be surprised, nay even shocked, at the speed at which it boots and gets down to scanning. (well under three seconds from powered off, to scanning the air for WiFi signals)

Those who understand 802.11 and WiFi, will instantly understand and know how to use an AirCheck. With those field techs I’ve trained on the device, they too pick up the interface quite quickly, but don’t always understand what the screens are showing them.

I’m very impressed with this device, it has early a coveted spot in my ‘go bag’ and WiFi toolkits!

It’s not perfect however… the power brick is large, heavy, and unwieldy. I don’t like carrying custom special power bricks. They should have allowed for charging from USB port’s 5v.

Configuration is also a bit of a pain. To prepare the AirCheck to connect with an authenticated Wireless LAN, you have to start a Windows session on your laptop, run the AirCheck software, configure then transfer a profile from the Windows machine to the AirCheck. (though you only have to do this once for each different profile you need. But this does take away from the ‘portability’ of the device.

If you are interested at all, use the link above to try the online simulator and see if the screens and information the AirCheck discover/display will help you in your own Wireless LAN analysis and troubleshooting, I know it has helped with mine.

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Looking at my bookshelf in my office I have over four shelves full of books on Wireless LAN technologies. I’m sure many of you do as well. It’s a big part of how we learn about the thing we deal with day in/day out.

Lately someone recommended I check out a book with a very long name, Scalable VoIP Mobility – Integration and Deployment. Now that’s a mouthful…

But when I heard the author was Joseph Epstein of Meru Networks fame, I thought this might be a good read. I was not disappointed!

I’ve been teaching folks around the globe on how to best design their Wireless LANs for a VoIP deployment, as well as teaching people to use AirMagnet’s VoFi Analyzer. Either of these tasks requires a very large baseline of knowledge.

You’ve got to know and understand:

• Network Components – switches, hubs, routers
• Networking Protocols – TCP, UDP, IP, MAC, etc.
• Voice Technology – Analog vs Digital, PSTN, CO, CPE, etc.
• VoIP Fundamentals – Codecs, MOS, Jitter, Latency, etc.
• Wireless LAN Fundamentals – Contention Domain, RF characteristics, 802.11 Protocols, roaming, etc.
• Network Security – Authentication, Encryption, etc.

All of those technologies, and then learn to synthesize those together into a cohesive bit of knowledge to apply on your Voice over WiFi network. Whew!

Well Joe does a great job in covering all of those items in great detail in his book!

This week we are pleased to have Joe Epstein in an interview to help explain in person some of the concepts covered by his book.

I’ve read just about every book on the market that has anything to do with Wireless LANs – and this one shines as a beacon of knowledge, lighting the way for further, in-depth understanding of not only the Voice over IP issues, but more importantly how 802.11 works, and how mixing the two effects each other.

Highly recommended!

You can get your copy on Amazon

The book contains many tables and charts just loaded with researched details any Wireless LAN Professional needs to have at their fingertips. We even found out in the call that Joe developed all the book’s graphics himself.

Here are a couple of those graphics – they can really help to understand some fairly complex topics.

If you want to learn about 802.11, or VoIP, or WiFi Security – you can’t go wrong with this book. I personally went the the Kindle version so I can have it on my iPad as a technical reference with me always available.

Thanks again to Joe Epstein for not only writing this book filled with knowledge we all need, but also for sharing his time on this podcast episode!

You can find Joe and his work at MeruNetworks

Last Minute Apology – Due to a technical problem in the recording. The interview with Joe Epstein will be postponed until a future episode. This is a big ‘Doh’! on my part. I connected up some of the recording equipment incorrectly and the resulting audio was un-fit for publishing. My apologies!

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This week’s content comes from an interview with Matt Holdrege, a wireless technologist who has helped many companies roll out new technologies. We get to hear Matt discuss Mesh Networking, as well as a description of a new intriguing Antenna Technology.

I am American and have always worked for American companies, but I am based in France and travel all over the world representing American technology. I also have done a lot of work in standardization, writing RFC’s in the IETF, chairing groups in the IETF, ITU-T, ETSI and other fora. I have done a lot of work in VoIP, especially in lawful intercept (wiretapping) for the FBI and other organizations. And I have been nominated as a Senior Member of the IEEE.

Access Points

First Generation – Autonomous
Second Generation – Controller-Based
Third Generation – Wireless Mesh

First Mesh – Single Radio, to ‘share’ for local access and backhaul
Second Mesh – Dual Radios, one for local access and one for backhaul
Third Mesh – Multiple Radios, multiple access frequencies, multiple redundant backhaul

See www.strixsystems.com

New Antenna Technology coming from the Wireless ISP arena.

Wireless is best effort communication. Smart phones, hand-held gaming devices, and Netbooks don’t transmit with strictly vertical or horizontal polarity. Like cellular antenna systems, the FSRD’s multiple dipole antenna arrays are oriented off-axis in order to catch more signal, at any polarity at any time.

Data throughput is most important. Just catching more signal is only part of the equation when it comes to wireless data communications. The FSRD’s high-speed internal signal paths ensure that RF signal gets to the radio as fast as possible.

Too much signal is too much of a good thing. Physics prevent radios from processing unlimited amounts of data. The FSRD’s patent-pending Frequency Splitting Receptacle (FSR) ensures that only one frequency is sent to the radio at a time. As a result, the radio can actually use most of the signal that the FSRD sends to it.

See www.samsohite.com

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Many years ago, I worked with Ron Nutter on the CNEPA Communications Committee, for those of you you are old enough to remember it, the CNEPA turned into the Network Professional Association… oh, the good old days…

Ron has been an editor with Network World for over 17 years writing articles on Help Desk, and answering your questions about networks. In his ‘day job’ he maintains a large multi-national corporate network.  In this episode we’ll talk a bit about his transition from a Windows guy, to a Mac person, and all that entails with respect to an IT Professional.

You might not be thinking of moving to a Macintosh, you might be satisfied using Windows and love your Dell/HP/Lenovo. But this discussion of the tools that are needed as a Network Engineer can be good food for thought for all of us.

You can get a copy of his free e-book with the same title here. Or check out his new website and blogs.

Some of the items we mentioned in the interview:

Keyspan USA-19HS adapter – USB to Serial Adapter

MacWise – Terminal Software

ZOC – Terminal Software

Super Looper – Rolled Adapter

Little Snitch – Outbound Firewall

MSecure – Password System

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For the last 15 years of my life I’ve been an instructor of networking technology. Yes, I’ve dabbled a bit in the consulting arena, spending between 20% and 40% off my available time helping others to design, troubleshoot, implement, and maintain with Enterprise Wireless LAN Infrastructure. But basically, I’ve been a teacher.

I started with the Novell tracks, CNA, CNE, CNI, Master CNE, Master CNI…

Then on to the Microsoft tracks of MCP, MCSE, MCT, MCSE+I

The entire CompTIA series from A+, Security+, Network+, Server+, etc.

And of course there was the Cisco tracks of CCNA, CCDA, CCNP, CCDP.

Then about ten years ago I decided to focus on just Wireless Networking, CWNA, CWSP, CWAP, CWNE on the vendor neutral track, as well as the Cisco CCNA Wireless (a couple options there as the programs change)

I mention that not because I want to tout my own education, but to set a base of knowledge that many of you have also taken in your careers. Basically, as a lead in for today’s podcast topic of “Learning Wireless LAN Technologies”

Learning Styles

I’ve taken thousands of hours of instructor-led courses, and even more hours of self-study, and even a couple of online courses. And in that process I’ve learned about how I learn. That is a fairly iterative statement, but one that makes sense.

How does one learn?

Linking to previous knowledge

Blooms Taxonomy

What is the goal of learning? Just to regurgitate things you’ve read? Different tasks require different levels of knowledge, thus Bloom defined this ‘taxonomy’ or pyramid that can help explain how different concepts need to be learned, to accomplish different goals. The more you need the top level in your work, the more education you need to attain. Double-click to view the graphic a bit larger.

What is your learning style? Do you learn via visual, auditory, physical,? Take the inventory assessement, but you probably already know what works best for you. Learning Styles Inventory

When is the best time to study?

Make a study area.

Get ‘permission’ for learning from your boss, spouse and even yourself.

“If you only learn by doing, then you’ll only ever know what you’ve done.”

Learning Options

Instructor-Led

Like many of you, I enjoy instructor-led training, it’s the way I assimilate new information the fastest. Not only because I’m in a room with someone who knows a lot more about the subject than myself, but more importantly, it forces me to sit still in one place and concentrate on a single subject. I don’t have the internal discipline to stay focused all the time. The costs for instructor-led training are fairly high, travel, hotels, food, plus the costs of the class. Oh, and the time away from earning a living. But this is the tried-and-true method that works best for me. Even with the extra costs involved, this allows me time to focus on the learning at hand. For certification training, this is the ONLY way that works for me. I can go and be free to study all day, and then all night without any distractions from work or family responsibilities.

Is instructor-led learning what works best for you? Why?

Self-Study

I’ve also done massive amounts of self-study. Via Books, CBTs, White Papers, and Audio Tracks. Personally, I’m very ‘addicted’ to books. I’ll buy a new technical book, if it only has a single chapter of knowledge I can learn from. White papers abound on the internet, get yourself a great PDF reader. I really enjoy GoodReader on my iPad. I can carry hundred of technical documents with me in a single, easy-to-read, easy-to-search, and ‘zoomable’ solution that can be with me all the time.

Where possible, I buy Kindle or e-book versions. If not available in those formats, I’ll opt for a PDF, and then finally, if I have to, I’ll buy the paper version.

If you find an author that ‘speaks’ to you, stick with it. If you don’t/can’t relate to the author, find another book.

Be a good student, ask lots of questions, use the index, Google, searches, and have some discipline.

Group-Study

Some people are social learners. They need the interaction with others to help them form their opinions. They ‘process’ the information before assimlation. This isn’t bad, but it’s just not me at all. In MBA school we had group projects, and to me group learning is like managing by a committee, nothing gets done but a waste of time. Each person individually will eventually do their own work. But some folks like this method. If you are one of them, then find groups, even online groups to help assist you in your learning.

Attending instructor-led training can usually help with this learner, but be sure to be friendly and find others in the same class where you can spend time together reviewing the materials.

Hands-On

OK, now here is one of the best ways for IT folks to learn. A lot of us learn though the interface. Trying, failing, and trying again. This technique can be quite useful and works wonders when you have the base understanding of the concepts behind what you are doing.

For many many of those I teach and consult with in the wireless world, they have used this to design, install, and maintain their Wireless LANs. But without the base understanding of how 802.11 works, their networks continue to have problems, and they continually are chasing down troubleshooting issues.

Many of these issues would go away, and stay away if they would only have understood the underlying principles BEFORE they started in on the interface.

SET RANT = ON

One of my biggest pet peeves in the classroom is when people HAVE TO get to the interface, and have questions about HOW to do things in a specific pieces of software, but refuse to learn WHY you should be in the interface at all. Learn the concepts first, and the interface will be much much easier to understand.

SET RANT = OFF

Online Training

How to be a good online training student.

Prepare the online interface before class, test and retest your connections.

Use headphones with a good mic.

Ask lots of questions.

You are only one click away from doing something you’d like to be doing.

Focus, focus, focus! Be a nice ‘neighbor’ to other students

This is much harder on the instructor than a face-to-face instructor-led training session. Lack of feedback, trying to maintain student attention. Help the instructor by providing feedback and asking questions for clarity.

Don’t study from you office desk, get rid of distractions, you are NOT working, this is learning. Priorities folks!

Certification Options

Different Goals

Vendor Neutral

CWTS – Entry Level, Vocabulary, Technical Sales Oriented

CWNA – Base level concepts, generic hands-on, in-depth knowledge

CWSP – Specific to Wireless Security, vendor-agnostic solutions,  in-depth knowledge

CWAP – Very detailed packet-level analysis, multiple vendor solutions, get to know ‘Why’

CWDP – Best Practices, vendor-agnostic, experience based

CWNE – Capstone certification, all encompassing, written exam & practical experience

Vendor Certifications

Cisco

CCNA Wireless – basic understanding of WiFi Techonolgy, heavy emphasis on the Cisco solution

CCNP Wireless – deatiled understanding of Wi-Fi, but even more emphasis on Cisco Solution

CCIE Wireless – experience based, written exam and very difficult practical exam, Cisco Partners

Other Vendors

AirMagnet, AirDefense, OmniPeek, Aerohive, Wireshark, Etc.

Conclusions

Be a good student:

Ask lots of questions

Never move on to the next topic without understanding the one you are on.

Ask lots of questions

Study, read, practice, and

Ask lots of questions

See a pattern here?

It is your responsibility for your own learning. Take a bit of control. Find the learning style that works best for you. Dedicate your time and energy into study. Use all available resources in your learning process. Do It!

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This week is on the ‘Seven Rules for Accurate Site Surveys’ – we’ve has some folks request an episode on Wireless Site Surveys… and so here you go.

This episode is only this one topic. Please give us feedback if you like this single topic format, of if you’d rather return to the multiple segments, with all the ‘little’ entertaining parts. Looking forward to your feedback – e-mail to feedback@wlanpros.com

Seven Rules for Accurate Site Surveys

The process of gathering appropriate and accurate data during a Site Survey is as simple as following a few easy rules. Break the rules, however, and you could end up with totally useless – but colorful – Heat Maps that have no value to your organization.

These rules have been gleaned through hundreds of site surveys and through teaching over hundreds networking professionals how to use Site Survey products.

Rule 1 – Calibrate Your Drawing Properly

Setting the underlying ‘grid’ is critical. If you don’t accurately calibrate the drawing to reflect the reality of the actual building, with the drawing on your screen – all your data will be virtually worthless. This is #1 in the list because it is the most important step, and you should always do it correctly as soon as you open a new project.

Do not use a doorway as your ‘baseline’ to calibrate from. Use a longer dimension, as long as you can measure. I use a Laser measuring device that works out to 50m or so. Measuring wheels, long tape measures, laser, or sonar all work; just try to find the longest edge. You only need to have one dimension to accurately calibrate a drawing that comes to you with the correct aspect ratio.

Better yet, have the CAD folks drop a Dimension Line underneath the actual building on the drawing to give you an even more accurate line to calibrate against.

Note: While we’re on the subject of the drawing, simplify your drawings as much as possible, using only black and white. ‘Flatten’ the drawing down to just the simple floor plan, no need for furniture, plants, where the jacks are located. Just simple black on white walls in your drawing is best.

Rule 2 – Set the Channel Scan to the Correct Frequencies

Scan ONLY the channels you want, and don’t scan the channels you don’t want. This sounds simple… but making a mistake here can cost you greatly in the accuracy of the post survey data. If you ‘accidentally’ set it to scan ALL channels (over 200 are available to scan) – even at only 250 ms each (1/4 second) the system will nearly a minute of time to return back to the starting channel. (and you can walk quite a long way in a minute!)

I recommend setting the scan channels to the 11 (or 13) base 2.4 GHz channels and the 5 GHz channels for your regulatory domain (in the US this can be the 4 Indoor Only, plus the 4 Indoor or outdoor channels) and do a passive survey of the outside perimeter of your building first.

This will give you a nice capture of your neighbors, as well as your ‘leaking’ RF. But better yet – it will give you a nice set of channels to concentrate on when moving indoors to do the real Site Surveys.

Perhaps even do two survey walks, one for 2.4 GHz and one for 5 GHz channels. That, or watch the bottom left corner of your survey screen and don’t move to the next data capture point until the channel scan marker returns back to ‘1’.

Scan what you want, and don’t scan what you don’t want!

Rule 3 – Set Your Guess Range Properly

This goes by the more professional term ‘Signal Propagation Assessment’ – but it basically means how far do you want your Site Survey application to ‘guess’ (Interpolate) in between your captured data points.

A really accurate survey would set this down to one meter. But the problem there would be that you’d have to go and click on every single meter of space in your building.  Accurate yes, but practical, no.

Or the opposite, go to the center of your building and take a single data snapshot… then set the Guess Range to 50 meters… This one is easy and quick, but not accurate at all.

Reality is somewhere in between. Most survey applications have a couple of pre-defined options for you. You do not have to use these pre-defined Signal Propagation Assessment (SPA) numbers. Use what you think appropriate for your site; the smaller the better. It will force you to take more data points and thus get more accuracy.

For most indoor buildings, I like about a 5m Signal Propagation Assessment value.

Rule 4 – Set Appropriate ‘Snap Rate’ For Your Situation

The automatic snap rate is based on a time. You set the number of seconds when your survey application will take an extra ‘snapshot’ of your RF information. Too fast and you’ll get ‘blue lines’ with too much information and slow down your processing. Too few and your snaps will be too spread out. (Think of Goldilocks… just right…)

If you are doing a Manual (red-dot-only) survey – be sure to take a snapshot no further than what your SPA is set to. So if you set your ‘Guess Range’ or SPA at 5m, you must take a snapshot (click) at least every 5m.

Rule 5 – Capture on Both Sides of What You Care About

No ‘One Way Guesses’. This happens when you don’t capture on both sides of what you care about. If you take one data capture point on the inside perimeter of your building, and don’t also take one on the outside, then your survey application won’t know anything about the ‘thickness’ (in RF Attenuation) of the exterior wall. It ‘learns’ this by having data captures on both sides of the wall.

If you don’t care about the RF leaking outside, then this is fine. But if you do care about some area, whether it is inside or outside, you must do data captures on both sides.

Thus another corollary to this rule – Capture Outside In, Not Inside Out. Capture on the perimeters of the rooms you want to prove coverage – not one single shot from the center of each room.

One additional part to this rule; If you have ‘special’ places you need to be real sure about – then take extra data captures at those locations, ie. CEO’s desk, Board Room, etc.

Rule 6 – Click Accurately

You don’t actually walk through walls, walk on water, or fly when you are doing a Site Survey – don’t have your data look like you did or your credibility will be shot.

Prepare your walking paths in advance. You might even put little numbers on your drawing before you import it with the locations where you want to click (capture data) – and then you’ll just have to play ‘connect the dots’ with your feet later during the survey.

The old adage, Fail to Plan means Plan to Fail… holds true in this respect. I’ve seen many people who get lost, or get stuck down the end of a hallway and don’t seem to know what to do with the Survey, or where to go next. Preparation is key on this point.

If you can’t easily find yourself on the floor plan – it is a skill that can be practiced you know – then work on it until you are comfortable moving around in three-dimensional space.

When you are doing an AirMagnet Survey ‘manual’ survey, with red dots only, the dots are connected with dashed lines. These dashed lines, without blue dots, can go through walls, walk on water, and fly… it’s the autosnap blue dots we worry about.

Note: Here’s a trick to use while doing a survey. While standing still at the end of one data capture point, place your mouse cursor at the next place you plan on stopping, then start walking. When you arrive at the designated point, you only need to ‘click’ and the data point is collected right under where the cursor was waiting.

Anytime you can see a specific marking on a blueprint or floor plan, add a click for accuracy. Of course, you could walk the entire hall and your survey application would place all the data points as soon as you finished the length of the hall. But accuracy improves as you have accurate intermediate click points.

If you don’t go to all the locations and click accurately, you’ll be tempted to increase your SPA to ‘fill in’ the missing data points. (no one likes to see white spots on their heat maps).

Rule 7 – Always, Always Do A Passive Survey

You might have a reason to also do an Active Survey, (see Passive vs. Active Surveys article) but you ALWAYS must do a Passive Survey on the entire building you care about. I’d also recommend doing a Passive Survey on the exterior of the building as well.

A Passive Survey can give you information on your neighbors, others, and all of your own devices.

This is especially important for determining RF interference. If you don’t have neighbor information in your Active Survey, you can easily miss the interference on specific frequencies. Additionally, this can show you where your ‘collision domains’ are.

In addition to these rules that pertain to Passive Surveys, Active Surveys have some rules of their own.

Additional Rules for Active Surveys

Capture Data from ALL Access Points

It is quite easy to do an active survey and only get data on a subset of your Access Points. You can merge this with a Passive Survey data set and end up with what looks like an accurate survey, but it is NOT. You need to have ALL Access Points included in your Active Survey for accurate representation of your RF WLAN environment.

Capture To The Edge

When capturing Active Survey data from an Access Point, it is easy to not go to the edge of the coverage area… it’s so far to walk – so we might stop as soon as we can see the coverage meets some design goal, like -65dBm.  But this is where the failure lies. The easiest requirement to design for a WLAN is RF Coverage, but it is only the first of many requirements (see False God of dB article). The hard thing to deal with is the interference, and you’ll only learn about this if you capture data to the edge of each Access Point’s coverage area. (yes, I know this is hard and expensive to do!)

Do NOT Set Roaming To Be Too Aggressive

I understand you may have the great power to over-ride the WLAN NIC’s roaming decision process with your survey application’s roaming options feature. This makes surveying much faster and easier. Don’t succumb to the temptation!  If you set the Roaming Option to only connect at 54, 48, and 36 data rates, then your data will only show 54, 48, and 36 data rates. Since you didn’t capture the other data rate information, your report won’t show it to you

In reality, your client cards will roam according to their own algorithms and will downgrade to whatever data rates are supported in the Access Points.

And another adage that should always be remembered with respect to wireless LANs – just because you can, doesn’t mean that you should.

De-Skew Data In Sticky Situations

Sometimes when taking an Active Survey the data gets a bit ‘skewed’ in the direction of travel: away from the access points. If this is the case you’ll need to do two Active Surveys for each access point, one clock-wise and one counter-clockwise and then merge those together to ‘de-skew’ the stickiness.

Merge All Actives Before Merging With Passive

Just like it says.

If You Don’t Do Active Surveys Right – Don’t Do Active Surveys At All

If you do Active Surveys wrong, you’ll end up with a less-accurate and ‘worse’ data set than not doing any Actives at all.

Conclusions

Obey these rules or else… Or else the data you capture will be suspect at best, and totally useless at worst.

Also – don’t let your sub-contractors break the rules or ‘cheat’ on you either. Check out the How to ‘Cheat’ Using Survey – Don’t be a Victim article.

Thanks for listening.

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This week is a short podcast, first talking about the WiFi available on the Alaskan Cruise I took last week, then followed by a soft-skills segment from Elaine Rogers on ‘Career Planning’

Thanks for listening.

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There won’t be an episode of Wireless LAN Weekly this week. (sorry)

I’m on a Cruise to Alaska with my wife, and though the brochures stated they had on-board Internet… they didn’t say that 4,000 people would be sharing a 1Mb pipe, And they didn’t share the costs… $.50 per minute online. The up-bound pipe is only 200k for the entire ship.

Thus, I won’t be able to upload the show this week.

But stay tuned, we’ll be back with new fresh content in next week’s Wireless LAN Weekly podcast.

Keith Parsons

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Comparing the RF, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi between Apple’s Wi-Fi iPad and 3G iPad.

In a previous blog post I reviewed using an Apple iPad as a tool for Wireless LAN Professionals. (http://wlanpros.com/iPad1)

And then did more detailed analysis of Wi-Fi and Bluetooth results from the initial Wi-Fi iPad. (http://wlanpros.com/iPad2)

In this blog and podcast I’ll be delving further into the radios included in the current two versions of Apple’s iPad.

Devices Used in Tests

First, lets introduce the players. I tested the following devices:

• Apple iPhone 3GS – MAC FF:6F
• Apple Wi-Fi iPad– MAC 39:C9
• Apple 3G iPad – MAC 54:9C
• Apple MacBookPro 13” – MAC 3C:D3
• Sprint Overdrive AP – MAC EC:D8

Bluetooth Signal Strength Test

For the first set of analysis, I compared the results of each portable station device broadcasting a Bluetooth Discovery signal. This is a pseudo-random frequency-hopping pattern. Each device was held the exact same distance from an external antenna attached to an AirMagnet Spectrum Analyzer. (Cognio chipset)

The results show the iPhone was strongest, followed by the Wi-Fi iPad and finally the 3G iPad.

I was a bit surprised with these results. I had thought the 3G version, with it’s RF friendly plastic antenna cover near the top would have been better than the Wi-Fi only version.

The plastic cover houses the 3G and GPS antennas in the 3G version, yet the Wi-Fi radio antennas are in the exact same location (behind the Apple logo) in the center of the iPad’s back. See the following URL for a detailed breakdown and photos of these parts. http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iPad-3G-Teardown/2374/1

Average Bluetooth Signal Strength

iPhone 3GS     -48 dBm

Wi-Fi iPad        -50 dBm

3G iPad            -52 dBm

This test leaves a lot of variables, but it is still a fairly effective way of testing various RSSI of each device without actually attaching directly to the device in question.

iPhone 3GS – Transmitting Bluetooth

Wi-Fi iPad – Transmitting Bluetooth

3G iPad – Transmitting Bluetooth

802.11 Signal Strength Test

The next test used an AirMagnet Wi-Fi NIC and the AirMagnet Wi-Fi Analyzer software to report the RSSI of each device in dBm.

As expected the AP came in fairly strong, and amazingly the MacBookPro was right up there. Followed by the portable clients, in the same order as before.

Device                                    RSSI

Sprint Overdrive AP            -36 dBm

MacBookPro 13”                 -32 dBm

iPhone 3GS                        -40 dBm

Wi-Fi iPad                          -50 dBm

3G iPad                              -52 dBm

802.11n Capability Analysis

Again, using the AirMagnet Wi-Fi Analyzer, I looked at the decodes to see what various parameters the devices supported.

Both the Wi-Fi iPad and the 3G iPad supported the same 802.11n capabilities settings.

They also both supported up to MCS index ‘7’.

None of the other higher-level .11n features were enabled.

802.11n Efficiency Analysis

Using the .11n Efficiency tool in WFA, I next compared the supported data rates and capabilities between the MacBookPro and the 3G iPad. The MBP far exceeds the throughput capacity of the iPad. The laptop could, in the best of circumstances transmit a symmetric 140 Mbps, whereas the iPad could reach just under 65 Mbps. (mostly because of the differences between an MCS of 15 on the MBP and only an MCS of 7 on the single radio-chain in the iPad.

MacBookPro attached to an Apple AirPort Extreme Access Point

3G iPad attached to an Apple AirPort Extreme Access Point

802.11n Frame Analysis

Below is the capture of an iPad connecting to the Spring Overdrive. No one has ever applauded Apple’s wireless stacks. One of the other stated problems with iPads on a variety of campuses has been the problem with their processing of DHCP lease times.

Laura Chappell has also done extensive analysis of the ‘chatty’ nature of Apple’s stacks, not only on iPhones and iPads, but on all their clients. (don’t get me started on Client firmware and drivers…  all vendors do some weird stuff – all meeting 802.11 specs, but the specs have lots of ‘optional’ bits.

For those of you who are into packet decodes, what type of authentication and encryption is being used in this exchange?

iPad Association to Access Point Trace File

Conclusions

I had purposely picked up a 3G iPad on the assumption the radios would work better than the Wi-Fi version. I was surprised to find with the two I tested the Wi-Fi version reported slightly higher results in both Bluetooth and 802.11 signal strengths.

I would still recommend the 3G version for the far superior GPS that is included onboard, as well as the capability to add a 3G signal (with a paid plan) in the future.

I would think the update to the OS later this year to 4.0 version will also improve the Wi-Fi and other radio bits with patches/fixes that come as a vendor gets an extended ‘beta’ test. As of this posting Apple has already sold over 2 million iPads – that should give them a very large pool of ‘testers’ to help them better refine their firmware and algorithms for 802.11 connection and roaming in a future update.

For now I’m still carrying my Spring Overdrive with me for 3G/4G Internet access that can be shared between all my devices.

I personally haven’t found any issues with either of my iPads with respect to Wi-Fi and dropped signals. (knock on wood) – but I was already using the recommendations, separating 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz into different SSIDs.

After having the iPads for many weeks of testing, I’m even more impressed with the technology. One easy way to sum up my iPad experience, of all those who might complain the iPad isn’t this, or isn’t that, or doesn’t support flash, or any of the many complaints… none of them actually owned an iPad! All those iPad owners I’ve communicated with are totally enamoured with the product and use it more than they ever expected.

No, it won’t replace my laptop anytime soon, but it sure make a fantastic light-weight addition. It is wonderful for the consumption of media, from TV shows, to games, to technical PDFs, to staying up on RSS feeds, to reading/watching news, and finally it totally replaced my Kindle.

I can’t recommend the iPad any higher. I am just waiting for Apple’s next developer code to support Wi-Fi analysis in the public infrastructure, http://www.wlanbook.com/iphone-wifi-scanner-apps-banned-by-apple/ then we’ll see some fantastic tools for the Wireless LAN Professional on this platform.  I’ve included a couple graphics from iPhone Wi-Fi apps that I happened to already have before the ban a couple months ago, so you can see what might be coming soon.

Keith

Thanks for listening.

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This week we’ll be talking about some of the counter intuitive issues concerning Wireless LANs

Many things in life are simple, easy, and just make sense. Take simple arithmetic. Two plus Two will equal Four. Easy to understand, a simple calculation. In our world of computer networks, there are other simple ideas. For example, look at the ‘Link Light’ on an Ethernet NIC. If the link light is off, we know where to look to solve the problem. (Physical Layer) But if the Link Light is on, we know to look up the stack for the issue causing a networking problem.

Our minds like to think about simple things. Things that can be easily understood. But all things in our lives aren’t always as easy or as understandable as we’d like.

On the surface, we think one thing, then as we come across empirical evidence, we soon learn our initial, might I say “intuative” reactions were wrong. Check out the following graphic of ‘additive’ colors. Without actually seeing the results, your first reaction might not be that White is the result of mixing all those other colors together.

Other times, in other situations, our perceptions can tend to distort reality. We have to look hard, and study well to make sure we really understand what is going on. The 802.11 protocols can be quite complex, and vendors have been given lots of latitude in their implementations, so a strong background in the fundamentals will help see through the vendor-hype. In the following graphic, the line drawing on the left suggests a box that is coming toward the viewer, or perhaps the box has it’s opening on the top. What do you see? (the box on the right is there just to mess with your mind)

This blog in going to focus on some of the things that are Counterintuitive with respect to Wireless LANs. And there are many aspects Wireless LAN Professionals need to be prepared for. The initial first intuitive reactions will lead you to failure. So pay attention, and lets talk through some of these counter intuitive issues.

Thanks to all those who helped contribute some of these issues via e-mail, twitter, and conversations. This is by no means an exhaustive list, just something to get you started.

By the way, it’s not just Wireless LANs that have counter intuitive issues…

On to our lists of counter intuitive issues with Wireless LANs -

• Add more overhead, decrease throughput
• More RSSI the better
• I can see 16 APs from here, I’ve got great signal
• VLANs on Wireless LANs separate collision domains
• The Noise function in Wireless NICs will show us ambient RF issues
• We need a different SSID for each purpose in our network, our system supports up to 16
• If  you point your antenna right at the signal source it will work better
• We designed our Wireless LAN for Voice, Video, Data, Bar-Code Scanners, and Location Tracking
• 802.11n actually typically decreases collisions and retries to get higher throughput
• We just installed 802.11n, we’ll get 300Mbs throughput
• Multipath is good
• Multipath is bad
• We use Windows Zero Config, it gives us everything we need
• The latest wireless drivers is all you need to fix the problem
• The wireless network is responsible for clients deciding to roam
• PoE is just PoE – they are all the same
• They wouldn’t have let us configure AP to Channel 2 if it wasn’t alright
• APs are just wireless switches
• We’ve got great (-65dBm) RSSI everywhere, Voice over IP will run fine on our WLAN
• Those little bar measurements actually reflect reality
• Bigger is better with respect to antennas
• I have four bars, I have good signal, right?
• Its better to have our APs using all channels than ‘sharing’ only 1, 6, and 11
• The SSID is unsecure so I can use it right?
• AP Power settings from 1 through 10, from LOW to HI, right?
• -90dBm is stronger than -40dBm —  90 is bigger than 40!
• Mb or MB what’s the difference… They mean the same thing
• APs route packets on the network
• I turned on QoS so our voice will work on our WLAN
• All our APs are on one channel
• All our APs are on 1, 6, and 11 only
• We like to use channels 1, 4, 8, and 11 to get more throughput
• We’re in Europe, so we use 1, 7, and 13 to stay away from all the 1, 6, and 11 people
• By using Wireless Range Extenders we’ll share our throughput with more people
• But we have to buy all our equipment from the same vendor
• We can force our neighbors to go to different channels and turn down their power
• More power, more throughput
• We had a problem in this one location, so we added APs to fix it
• Getting RF coverage is hard to do

If you’ve said any of the above statements, or still believe any of them, I recommend going back to your studies. Setup small lab configurations and try it. I’m a firm believer in empirical evidence. Try these yourself until you can prove to your self the validity or non-validity of the statements.

I’m sure many of  you reading this, or listening to the podcast can think of other such silly statements you’ve heard, or even said yourself about Wireless LANs – please share them in the comments section below.

Thanks for listening.

If you have any feedback on the show – please drop an e-mail to feedback@WirelessLANProfessionals.com.

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Lately, I’ve had many inquiries from clients and students about how to best prepare to work in our Wireless LAN industry. Many of these have been one-on-one conversations, and I’ve felt myself repeating the same advice. So this week’s Wireless LAN Weekly Episode will be a new style. Just me offering some advice on working in our industry.

This is a new style and format, I encourage your feedback and comments.

After university, I went and worked for many years, then returned to another two years of business school working on a Masters in Business Administration (MBA) degree… I added some more to to back of the card.

Ten years of working with Wireless LANs leads now onto the index card for Wireless LAN Professionals.

These are not meant to be cryptic, it’s just I’ve found short little notes like this kind remind me of much larger concepts. By the way — these are in no particular order, other than the order these ideas popped in my mind.

Lets go over each of these items one at a time, and discuss the reasons for each short note.

Below are some links to sites that might be helpful in your path to becoming a Wireless LAN Professional.

I’ve also posted links on the Wireless LAN Professionals web site with Twitter, Blogs, White Papers, etc. that also have much more information for you on your journey.

If you have any feedback on the show – please drop an e-mail to feedback@WirelessLANProfessionals.com.

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This week we’ve brought back Dave Hutchieson – with his Scottish accent and technical expertise. To share with us details of how SSL works. This is fairly detailed subject – you’ll need the show notes graphics and links to help understand all the details.

Thanks do Dave for his time in researching this subject and sharing his expertise with the rest of us.

Warning! – This is going to get pretty detailed. You might want to listen multiple times.

http://www.windowsecurity.com/articles/Secure_Socket_Layer.html

Symmetric Keys, Public Keys, Private Keys, Certificates and Hashing

https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Introduction_to_Public-Key_Cryptography

http://www.linktionary.com/h/hash_function.html

General Information

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Andreessen

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Berners-Lee

SSL Specific

http://www.windowsecurity.com/articles/Secure_Socket_Layer.html

https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Introduction_to_SSL

http://www.yellowdocuments.com/11566822-understanding-digital-certificates

http://www.mozilla.org/projects/security/pki/nss/ssl/traces/

<hr />

Secure Sockets Layer or SSL

Part 1 Historical Background

In order to get the most from this audiocast, a basic knowledge of symmetric key encryption, public and private key mechanisms, digital certificates and hashing functions is assumed. If this is new material to anyone, or you feel you need a review, please refer to the tutorial weblink included in the show notes.

A ladder diagram showing the step by step processes involved in SSL is also provided in the show notes. It is suggested that this diagram be referred to whilst the audiocast is in progress.

Wireless Security is one of the most complex topics imagineable. One of the biggest problems is the number of acronyms and abbreviations that are in use. There are a number of security mechanisms in use such as  EAP-TLS, EAP-TTLS,EAP- PEAP, EAP-FAST etc etc. It would be nice if there was a common root that could be studied in order to get a foundation for how some of them work. One common type is EAP-TLS. EAP-TLS has it’s roots in TLS or Transport Layer Security. Transport Layer Security in turn, has it’s roots in SSL or Secure Sockets Layer.

I have found that if you have a good understanding of how SSL works, that can provide a stepping stone to understanding many of the more complex wireless security methods such as PEAP.

In this audiocast, we shall look at the SSL protocol in detail. SSL is not only used as a basis for several wireless security protocols but is also used in HTTPS [ Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure ] which is often used for managing access points in a secure manner.

There are support materials provided in the show notes section, and these have diagrams which may be viewed to accompany the audio portion.

SSL is a very complex protocol and due to time constraints, we will not be able to discuss all the details that are involved. However, it is hoped that by the end of the audiocast, and with the support of the show notes, that you should have a good foundation for further study.

In a future audiocast, we shall look at how TLS was developed from SSL and how EAP-TLS was developed from TLS.

Imagine that you are on holiday and are looking out at the countryside. You decide that there are a number of different places that you want to visit on the landscape. You use a paper map to navigate around the landscape.

In the early 80’s, an English scientist, Tim Berners-Lee developed the foundation of the world wide web. However, it was a young student called Marc Andreessen from the University  of Illinois who developed the first commercial browser. This browser allowed us to navigate  from place to place on the electronic landscape. Thus, his browser allowed you to navigate the electronic network landscape or netscape.

Thus, the term Netscape Navigator came into being.

It wasn’t long before the commercial aspects of the Internet began to be developed. Companies sprouted up all over the place trying to sell goods and services to people. There was a major problem, however, and that was the issue of security. If someone wanted to buy something, that would probably mean that they would have to provide their credit card number over an open line. A method of hiding that number from prying eyes had to be developed. The issue of confidentiality or privacy had to be covered. There was also the problem of having confidence that the company that you are going to buy something from was actually that company and not an imposter. The issue of authentication had to be covered.

It was from this background that the Secure Sockets Layer or SSL was developed.

Part 2 SSL Overview

SSL was designed to work on top of a secure transport layer protocol, such as TCP or Transmission Control Protocol.  We can get a clue about this from the use of the term “sockets” in the phrase SSL.

The designers wanted SSL to accomplish three main goals:

1. To provide privacy of information

2. To provide authentication [ although as we shall see later, this is not always mutual authentication ].

3. To provide a method of message integrity which would allow us to detect if a message had been tampered with on-route from the sender to the destination.

The SSL protocol has two layers which sit on top of a reliable transport protocol. In our discussion, we shall assume that protocol is TCP.

The uppermost layer comprises three sub-protocols:

1. The SSL Handshake Protocol

2. The SSL Change Cipher Spec Protocol

3. The SSL Alert Protocol.

The lowermost layer comprises the SSL Record Protocol

The SSL Record Protocol performs a number of functions. Firstly, it takes the application data and divides it into a number of fragments when necessary. The fragment size should be no more than 16,384 bytes in length.

The specification says that we can compress these fragments. This is rarely if ever carried out in practice due to compression usually having occurred further up the protocol stack.

A Message Authentication Code is then added to each fragment.

Each fragment is now encrypted and an SSL header is added.

The secure, integrity enabled fragments are now passed onto the transport layer.

We will see later how we obtain the keys used for the actual encryption process.

Part 3 SSL In Detail

We shall now look at the three uppermost protocols, the Change Cipher Spec Protocol, the Alert Protocol and the Handshake Protocol.

The Change Cipher Spec Protocol

The Change Cipher Spec Protocol allows us to change from one encryption state to another in an organized manner. We shall see more of this later.

The Alert Protocol

The Alert Protocol allows warning messages to be passed between the two parties. For example, if an incorrect Message Authentication Code is received, an alert protocol message would be sent from one party to the other.

The Handshake Protocol

The handshake protocol is the meat of the entire system, and is the most crucial component for TLS and EAP-TLS.

Imagine that you are a police officer and your lieutenant tells you that you have to go over to the United Nations to talk to a UN security officer about a very important matter. The officer will be waiting for you at the entrance. Upon arrival, you walk up to him and say “Hello”. He looks at you with puzzled eyes. You realize that your boss has not told you what language he speaks. You say “Guten Tag”. No reponse. You say “Bonjour” no response. You finally say “Buenos Dias”. His eyes light up and he says “Ah, Buenos Dias, como esta usted ?” You shake hands. You show each other your ID badges and start talking.

In social situations, we don’t usually just walk up to someone and start talking. We usually say hello and shake hands. Sometimes we need to establish a common language.

So it is with SSL. Instead of just starting to communicate, hellos need to be said and handshakes need to take place.

There are four main phases to SSL:

1. Negotiation

2. Authentication

3. Key Exchange

4. Ongoing communications

Let’s look at each phase now.

Negotiation

During the negotiation phase, the client and server introduce each other, and decide which encryption, authentication and compression protocols will be used. It should be noted that even though the capability for compression exists in the SSL specification, it is rarely, if ever used.

Authentication

In the authentication phase, the server proves itself to the client via a digital certificate. The server may also ask the client to prove itself via a digital certificate. It should be noted that in the case of Internet shopping, this is rarely, if ever done.

Key Exchange

In the key exchange phase, a key is exchanged which will be used in creating a master key for encrypted communications. There are several methods by which this can be done, including the Diffie-Hellman method, which I shall discuss in a future audiocast. For now, we shall only discuss what is called the RSA method.

Firstly, the client randomly generates a key called the pre-master secret key [ or PMSK ] by means of a method that will be covered when we discuss SSL in detail a little later on.

Firstly, the client encrypts the PMSK with it’s own private key. This allows the server [ who has a copy of the client’s public key ] to authenticate that the PMSK did indeed come from the client.

The whole assembly [ that is the PMSK encrypted with the client’s private key ] is now encrypted with the server’s public key [ which came via the server’s certificate ] and sent to the server. The server decrypts the package with it’s own private key. This now leaves the original PMSK  which has been encrypted with the client’s private key.

The server decrypts this package with the client’s public key and hence authenticates the original PMSK.

This original key is not the final key in the process, but is used along with some other items to create the final symmetric key, also known as the master key. From the master key, session keys can be derived.

Ongoing Communications

Now that both sides have the symmetric or master key, they can exchange messages in an encrypted manner. Digital signatures can also be provided to help ensure authentication and message integrity.

Now we are now ready to discuss the detailed step by step operation of the SSL handshake protocol.

Step 1. Client Hello

This message begins the entire process.

The Client_Hello message is sent from the Client to the Server. There are four  main things that are included in the message:

1. A random number called ClientHello.Random. This random number will be used to create a key later on in the process. The random number consists of a 32 bit timestamp along with 28 bytes created by a random number generator.

2. A list of cyphersuites and compression methods that the client supports.

3. The highest version of SSL that the client supports

4. A session identifier that indicates whether the client wishes to establish a new connection on the current session or establish a new connection on a new session

The session identifier is useful for “going back” to previous webpages for example.

So what is a cyphersuite ? A cyphersuite consists of a listing of encryption methods, certificates and integrity checking methods. The client cannot just simply say “I am going to use this value of encryption, this certificate and this integrity checking method”. It has to check with the server to see if the server is actually capable of using any of the methods.

Step 2. Server Hello

The Server Hello message is sent from the server to the client. There are four  main things that the message contains:

1. A random number called ServerHello.Random. This number will also be used to create a key later on in the process.

2. The cyphersuite that the server wishes to use, chosen from the list supplied by the client

3. The lowest common value of the version given by the client and the highest that the server supports. For example, if the client suggested 2.0 and the server supports up to 3.0, the 2.0 version would be used.

4.  A session ID number. This number uniquely identifies the current session and helps with security.

The Cipher Suite is made up two main parts:

A. The Key Exchange Method. That is, how the keys will be exchanged. For example, this could be the RSA method, Diffie-Hellman method, etc.

B. The CipherSpec itself, which has fields which tell us the algorithm being used [ for example RC4, DES etc ],

the MAC Algorithm [ for example MD 5 or SHA-1 ]

the Cipher Type [ for example stream cipher or block cipher ]

the HashSize [ for example up to 16 bytes for MD5 and up to 20 bytes for SHA-1 ]

Up to this point, unique random numbers have been exchanged, an encryption method has been agreed to, and a unique session identifying number called the “session ID” has been generated.

Step 3. Server Cerificate

At this point, the server sends the client it’s digital certificate. This point is very important, as not only will the client use a key  provided in the certificate to encrypt messages back to the server, but the certificate provides proof that the server is what it says it is, and not an impostor.

The client will have previously been provided with a public key from the certification authority. This authority could be a reputable organization such as Verisign for example.

At this stage, we have to carefully distinguish between the two public keys mentioned:

The first public key has been provided by the certificate authority, that is, an independent certifier, who basically says: “If you can validate the certificate that you have just received from your server using the public key that I provided to you, you can be certain that the server is who he says he is”

Once the certificate has been verified, the client extracts the server’s public key from the certificate. This key is very important. Any messages encrypted with this key can only be decrypted by the server using it’s own private key.

Step 4 Server Key Exchange

A server-key-exchange message may be sent in this step. Only some  systems require this. In our example of using regular RSA, we do not require this step.

Step 5 Client Certificate Request

In this step, the server may request a certificate from the client via a certificate_request_message. This message has two areas of interest. Firstly a certificate type parameter. The certificate type would cover RSA or Diffie-Hellman for example.

The second item concerns certificate authorities. This would give a list of the distinguished names of certificate authorities whom the server deems to be “reliable”.

Step 6 Server Hello Done

At this point, the Server Hello Done Message is sent from the server to the client. This is the end of the first phase of the proctocol exchange.

To summarize:

Hello messages have been sent from the client and server.

An encryption method and other security parameters have been agreed to.

The client has it’s own random number and that of the server.

The server has it’s own random number and that of the client.

A certificate has been sent from the server to the client, and possibly one from the client to the server.

The public key of the server has been extracted from the server’s certificate, ready for use in the second phase.

A point to note: there are no formal first and second phases in the TLS specification. I have simply broken up the process into two parts in order to, hopefully, make the process easier to undertstand. In a future audiocast, I’ll be covering another EAP method which does have two officially defined phases.

Step 7 Client Certificate

In this step, if the server has requested  a certificate, then the client will send one.

In the classic case of SSL being used in HTTPS for internet transactions with say an on-line clothing company, the customer or client would not normally have to provide any formal identification with the exception of say a credit card number. This is obviously somewhat a problem , as it means that fraud could and in fact does occur.

Step 8 Client Key Exchange

In common with many other security protocols, a true master secret key is not sent between the two parties. Instead, a key called the pre-master secret is created and sent from the client to the server. This pre-master secret will then be used at both ends of the link to create a master secret key.

A random number is generated at the client and this number is referred to as the pre-master secret key or PMSK

Firstly, the client encrypts the PMSK with it’s own private key. This private key is known only to the client.

This allows the server [ who has a copy of the client’s public key ] to authenticate that the PMSK did indeed come from the client.

The whole assembly [ that is the PMSK encrypted with the client’s private key ] is now encrypted with the server’s public key [ which came via the server’s certificate ] and sent to the server via a client_key_exchange message.

The server decrypts the package with it’s own private key.

The server’s private key should be known only to the server. This now leaves the original PMSK  which has been encrypted with the client’s private key.

The server decrypts this package with the client’s public key and hence authenticates the original PMSK.

At this stage, both sides have the pre-master secret key. In the next part, the actual or master secret key will be calculated at both ends of the link.

The master secret is calculated using a complex hash function involving the pre-master secret, the ClientHello.Random and the ServerHello.Random variables or nonces that were described earlier. The master key is 48 bytes in length. From the master key, a number of other keys are derived. These keys are used for encrypting data sent by the server, for MAC operations performed by the server, for encrypting data sent by the client and for MAC operations performed by the client. Initialization Vector values are produced for the situation in which block ciphers in CBC mode are used.

Step 9 Client Certificate Verification

A  certificate_verify message is sent if the client previously provided a certificate to the server. This message is only used with certificates that have signing capabilities.

Step 10 Change Cipher Spec

It should be noted that the Change Cipher Spec protocol is a separate protocol from the handshake protocol. It has been included here due to it’s critical  function within the handshake protocol itself.

SSL keeps a record of two states called the current state and the pending state. We can think of these two states as “Conditions that are happening now” and “Conditions that will happen later”.

When SSL is first initialized, both states are zero. Once the master key is established, that key is used for a pending state. Both sides end up with a pending encryption process waiting in the wings so to speak.

The pending Cipherspec is copied into the current Cipherspec. We just need some form of agreement between both ends as to when to begin implementing the encryption.  This occurs in the next step.

Step 11 Finished

The finished message is used to tell the other end that the key exchange and authentication procedures were successful. This message is encrypted with one of the newly produced keys, and authenticated as well.

Once the server receives the encrypted finished message from the client, it is able to send it’s own change_cipher_spec and finished messages in steps 12 and 13 of the process.

Finally we are able to encrypt any data that needs  to be sent from either party.

That was quite a lot of material, but the core of the whole process [ as for many other security protocols ] consists of :

Negotiation,  Authentication,  Key Exchange and  Ongoing Communications

In the show notes section, I have included an interesting trace of a client to server communication process

I hope that this audiocast was useful, and thank you for listening.

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This week it’s all Keith Parsons by himself. First from the Interop Show floor with his reactions and sounds of the floor. Next is an interview with Ryan Woodings directly on the show floor about a new update to their Chanalyzer product, and finally a recording of the session Keith presented along with Lisa Phifer, Bob O’Hara and Joe Epstein about migrating to .11n.

This episode isn’t from the pristine studio, but recorded live on-site. We hope you enjoy this new format.

First of all, here is the small lightweight kit I used for my time at Interop. (Yes I had my laptops with me, but I left them in the hotel room and only used this small set to see if it would work)

Small messenger style bag, mic, digital recorder, iPad, Sprint Overdrive, small notebook. I’ll post a longer blog just on this kit, but overall I was very happy with the results. Much, much easier to carry, and still accomplished everything I needed.

I’ve been going to the Interop trade show since 1993, back when it was still called Networld+Interop. This year was so much smaller than past years. Many Wi-Fi vendors opted out of the show, stating it was too expensive for the leads it generated. Back in 1993-1995 my job was to produce the CNEPA Hands-On Technology Labs. One of the venues for our training sessions was at Interop. We had 20-30 20×20 hard-wall rooms for our hands-on training sessions… I think compared with that experience, the entire trade show floor was maybe 10 times larger than our labs took back in the hey-day.

That being said. There was the old ‘energy’ and enthusiasm of those there hawking their wares. It was loud, boisterous, and high-energy as usual. The highlight is, as always, the tour and demonstrations of the Interop NOC and labs! I just love to see how they put everything together and make it ‘Inter-operate’ as it should.

One big downside was the ‘overkill’ of Wi-Fi on the trade show floor. Even with my Sprint Overdrive very close… there was just to high of a background noise floor to get really great connections. (Go Copper, Go Fiber!)

I also had a chance to interview Ryan Woodings of Metageek about their new Chanalyzer Pro – and received a personal demo of some of it’s new features.

Then on Thursday I was involved in a panel discussion concerning migration to 802.11n.

Here are some of the graphics from my slide presentation to go along with the audio recording in the podcast.

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We are glad to have the Laura Chappell on this week’s episode, sharing her knowledge and expertise on all things packet analysis with our audience. Laura has just released her latest book, Wireshark Network Analysis: The Official Wireshark Certified Network Analyst Study Guide. She shares with us some tips and tricks on how to best use this free tool to make our networks work better.

Next up is Todd Lammle, an author who has trained thousands of us to pass the Cisco CCNA exam with his many books and training programs. He speaks with us about the Cisco CCNA Wireless exam and his latest book that helps prep for this vendor-specific wireless exam.

Laura has been around packet analysis… well, forever… you can find her at one of the following sites, or on twitter http://twitter.com/laurachappell.

She has lots of sample chapters, and other webinars and online training available. Her latest project is working on the new Wireshark Certification program. If you are into networking at all, please follow and learn from one of the industry’s best packet-analysis gurus. Laura makes learning network analysis actually kind of fun. Her energy and enthusiasm for the topic is infectious.

Todd’s new book isn’t quite out yet. But look for it at your regular book resellers coming soon. If you have ever wanted to pass your Cisco CCNA exams, you’ll be wanting to get a hold of one of Todd’s CCNA books. He’s taught and prepared thousands of folks to be CCNAs. He has a writing style all his own, open, fun, and just a bit irreverent.

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Wade Williamson joins us from AirMagnet/Fluke Networks, walking about Wireless Intrusion Detection and Prevention Systems. As Director of Product Management at AirMagnet, Wade will share answers to questions garnered from a recent Network World Q&A on WIDS.

For the second half of the show, we’ve brought in Jeff Keenan, a reseller dedicated to the Wireless space who answers some of the most popular FAQs he has seen from his clients.

AirMagnet Enterprise WIDS/WIPS

24X7 Wireless Intrusion Prevention/Detection System

Jeff comes to us from East Hampton, CT – who started Keenan Systems

Here’s a thread from Keenan Systems Forums on Wireless in a Hospitality Environment.

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Kevin Sandlin from the CWNP program starts out the show with a couple of announcements about the CWNP program for 2010. Specifically talking about the return of the CWAP certification, the new CWDP certification, and how these will effect the future of the capstone CWNE program.

For the second half of the show, we’ve brought back Jennifer Huber – to talk with us about some of the issues and pitfalls in designing and implementing a Real Time Location Tracking system.

Here’s a link to the actual announcement of the new CWDP program, the return of the CWAP, and the changes to the CWNE requirements.

New logos for the various programs as well.

CWTS - CWNA - CWSP - CWDP - CWAP - CWNE Logos

CWAP® – Certified Wireless Analysis Professional
The CWAP certification is a professional level wireless LAN certification for the CWNP Program. The CWAP certification will advance your career by ensuring you have the skills to successfully analyze, troubleshoot, and optimize any enterprise Wi-Fi network, no matter which brand of Wi-Fi gear your organization deploys.

CWDP – Certified Wireless Design Professional
The CWDPTM certification is a professional level wireless LAN certification for the CWNP Program. The CWDP certification will advance your career by ensuring you have the skills to successfully design enterprise Wi-Fi networks for a variety of different applications, deployments, and environments, no matter which brand of Wi-Fi gear your organization deploys.

CWNE® – Certified Wireless Network Expert
The CWNE (Certified Wireless Network Expert®) credential is the final step in the CWNP Program. By successfully completing the CWNE requirements, you will have demonstrated that you have the most advanced skills available in today’s enterprise Wi-Fi market.
The CWNE certification assures that you have mastered all relevant skills to administer, install, configure, troubleshoot, and design wireless network systems. Protocol analysis, intrusion detection and prevention, performance and QoS analysis, spectrum analysis and management, and advanced design are some of the areas of expertise you will need to know.

Thanks to Kevin for sharing this information about the updates to this Vendor-Neutral Wireless LAN Certification Program.

Here are some of the links and notes from our discussion.

Jennifer did the math to find the percentages of additional APs required for a given type deployment.

Voice is from 22% ~ 26% more APs than Data only deployments
Location is from 25% ~ 43% more APs than Voice deployments

The low percentages are for standard office environments, the middle ground is educational facilities, and the high end is health care environments.

I didn’t factor for warehouse/manufacturing environments.

The Cisco LBS accuracy is stated as being within 10 meters 90 percent of the time

Wi-Fi Location-Based Services 4.1 Design Guide

Recommendation for re-calibration semi-annually in an active logistics shipping & receiving area

Minimum signal level thresholds

Access point placement

Tips for successful (client) calibrations

“First and foremost, it should be clearly understood that 802.11b asset tags that transmit tag messages using Layer 2 multicasts (and do not attempt to associate to any WLANs) will not cause the initiation of any 802.11g protection modes under any circumstances. This includes asset tags operating in strict compliance with version 1 of the Cisco Compatible Extensions”

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The post WLW 013 – CWNP Program / RFID WLAN Designs appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

Here are the ‘basics’ that every Wireless LAN Professional needs to understand intrinsically. This should be fairly second nature to you.

So if you see a network with lots and lots of Management frames, and hardly any Data or Control frames, you can deduce you have an ‘Idle’ network.  Learning to recognize these ‘ratios’ will help in your troubleshooting efforts.

802.11 Quick Review

If you have any small tables or ‘tricks’ on how use troubleshoot your wireless networks, please send them along to feedback@wlanpros.com

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First a discussion with Max Lopez of the University of Colorado about issues with running a Wireless Network in a University environment. Max comes with lots of experience, not only at the University, but years in working with a variety of corporations.

The second segment is with Derek Sisterhen, lead financial coach with Lukas Coaching, as well as host of a weekly show called Past Due Radio. He’ll share with us some ways to get out of the financial ruts we might find ourselves in.

http://www.linkedin.com/in/maxlopez

For further details about their wireless network on campus, there is their web site.

Also, you might want to check out his weekly podcast/radio show over at Past Due Radio.

derek@lukascoaching.com
Twitter @DJSisterhen
facebook.com/djsisterhen

http://www.pastdueradio.com

http://www.lukascoaching.com

919-342-0801 ext. 302
Skype ID is DJSisterhen
Past Due Radio studio in their office in Raleigh, NC

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First about the iPad’s internal wireless setup. (photos come from iFixit.com) The system is using a  Broadcom BCM4329XKUBG 802.11n WiFi + Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR and FM w/2 antenna leads – this small chip allows for multiple RF functions in one package. It is connected to an antenna mounted on the back of the iPad underneath the Apple logo (made of plastic, so easier to get RF signals through)

iPad Wi-Fi Components

Quantitative Wi-Fi Analysis

Let’s now look at some results from the small experiment. All three devices connected to a dual-band Access Point, at the same distance away from both the AP and the ‘sniffing’ NIC running AirMagnet WiFi Analyzer.

MacBookPro, iPhone, and iPad Connected to AP

iPhone Probe Request

First the iPhone – it has an 802.11 b/g radio, supporting 2.4GHz only with 20MHz wide channels.

Here is a sample of one of the Probe Requests from the iPhone 3GS. Note there is no ‘HT’ information, as you’d expect from a Legacy device. Also note RSSI – Received Signal Strength Indicator. This shows 2.4GHz signals are normally stronger than their 5GHz cousins. (In this case over -20dBm different)

Next is the iPad – this new device has a dual-band, 802.11n NIC as noted above.

Here is the iPad’s Probe Request – note the added information about the iPad’s HT capabilities. Also note the lack of direct 40MHz support. I’m not sure if this is caused by the iPad itself, or just this current connection to the Access Point. You can also see only One Spatial Stream is supported.

iPad Probe Request

iPad Probe Request HT Info

And finally the MacBookPro as the ‘baseline’ device. This is a standard laptop, with built-in 802.11n supporting either 2.4GHz or 5GHz channels in 20/40 MHz configurations. For the test, I connected it to the 5GHz 802.11n SSID.

MacBookPro Probe Request

MacBookPro Probe Request HT Info

Bluetooth RF Analysis

I also did a bit of Spectrum Analysis using an AirMagnet Spectrum Expert system with the devices held about 12″ away from the receiving antenna.

iPhone Bluetooth Discovery Mode

iPhone Bluetooth Discovery Mode Swept Spectogram

They look to both use the same Bluetooth chip manufacturer (note the ‘gap’ in Discovery Mode coverage on the left side of the screens) Different Bluetooth chips exhibit different Discovery Mode ‘gaps’ depending on chip manufacturer.

iPad Bluetooth Discovery Mode

iPad Bluetooth Discovery Mode Swept Spectogram

The iPhone’s Bluetooth is substantially stronger than the iPad. I don’t know ‘why’ this is, just noting the -25dB differential between them. Perhaps it’s caused by the differences in cases, or power settings.

Please leave comments and your ideas concerning this small experiment. I look forward to your feedback.

The post Apple iPad Wi-Fi Detailed Analysis appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

We’ve brought back David Hutchieson to share some knowledge about the use of Maps and Compasses with respect to Wireless LANs. Dave gives a great set of analogies to make this topic easy to understand.

Then we follow that with a segment with Cliff Ravenscraft, aka PodcastAnswerMan, who also hosts a podcast on Social Media, where we’ll talk about how you need to have your own personal brand, and how you can benefit from a Social Media strategy.

Magnetic North

One of many theories about how the earth’s magnetic field was formed

View Multimedia Version – The Solar System – How to Make a Planet

Magnetic Declination
Magnetic Declination Part 2

True North

Grid North

Finding North Using The Sun and a Stick

Using a Compass

http://video.google.com/videosearch?sourceid=navclient&rlz=1T4ADBS_enUS249US249&q=using%20a%20compass&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wv#

Using a Map:

http://www.ghosttowns.com/topotmaps.html

http://jc-schools.net/write/socst/readingmaps.ppt

http://mapzone.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/mapzone/PagesHomeworkHelp/docs/easypeasy.pdf [ meant for kids.... contains some good graphics though ]

http://magazine.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/magazine/tscontent/editorial/mapfacts/leaflets/map_reading_made_easy.pdf

http://www.linz.govt.nz/topography/publications-faqs/topo50-map-guide.pdf

http://www.uvm.edu/~goldbar/FM3_25.26.pdf [ very detailed military manual ]

The following give some interesting insights into the daily lives of some of the pioneers mentioned in the audiocast:

John Napier

James Watt

Lord Kelvin

Alexander Graham Bell

James Clerk Maxwell

Watson-Watt

Scottish Inventions and Discoveries

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This week’s podcast includes a great segment with Chris O’Donnell of Vocera on things to think about when designing Wireless LANs for Voice Deployment. Chris’ experience as a CWNE who has focused on voice WLANs brings some great ideas to this important topic.

Followed by Andy Traub, a business technology coach and consultant, speaks with us about Online Tools that help make your business life better. As co-host of the Business Tech Weekly Podcast, Andy has some helps and tips on using these tools that help him, and can also help you as well.

In addition to the ideas and topics covered in a previous blog post on “Designing for Voice is a Big Deal!” – Chris and Keith discuss some additional ideas on how to design for Voice over Wireless as noted below.

• Be aware of SSID/WLAN counts -  as each SSID needs to advertise its beacons on each interval. Imagine 8-16 SSID’s beaconing and probing and trying to also pass time sensitive VoIP traffic.
  Many “high performance” networks today are designed with low 802.11 basic rates enabled. Sending beacons at 1mbps is not conducive to good capacity design and imagine the above scenario when transmitting each beacon at 1mbps. WVoIP traffic will be in a traffic jam and this also creates even more co-channel interference in the environment. I have seen channel utilization at 40%+ with just 802.11 management traffic alone (no data).
• Be sure to properly mount AP’s and antennas. We would think this is fundamental but many designers today are still unaware of the implications of improper RF design and it’s affects on retries/errors and connection reliability of a WVoIP system due to multipath and compromised antenna diversity. This would also include using “carpeted office non-challenging RF AP’s” in a very complex and challenging RF environment just to save money.
• Keeping in mind that some WLAN applications using Multicast for delivery of packets (broadcast and PTT applications), imagine when you have that same lower 802.11 basic rate (e.g. 1mbps) and sending all multicast at that rate.  That would surely cause voice quality issues and interruption to the WLAN due to the slow downstream flood of frames.  This is important as Multicast is normally sent at the lowest “basic” data rate specified in the AP/Controller.
• Authentication timeouts on 802.1x systems. Setting your authentication timeouts to a short interval (say 15 min) will cause FULL 802.1x roams even in the presence of fast secure roaming key caching mechanisms such as Cisco’s CCKM and PKC/OKC. Recommend setting timeouts to a full user shift to minimize interruptions to the network during work hours.
• RTLS designs can also have a negative impact on WVoIP networks due to required AP location (more perimeter) and inducing more co-channel interference. Just because you needed to add 5-10% AP’s for accurate location tracking, does not mean you need them to service the network. RF monitor mode AP’s work great at RTLS with also preserving the physicians creed of “do no harm”. AP’s installed mainly on the perimeter of the building can cause excessive roaming points in hallways (due to cell edges) and this is where users are very mobile and in conversation with WVoIP products.

Tech Tools That Make Business Life Better
- Andy Traub

1) Google mail

a) Conversational email
b) Automatic labeling
c) Multiple in boxes
d) Archive – don’t delete e) Calendar/chat/documents

2) Google Documents / Dropbox

a) Web based – accessible from anywhere
b) Share w/ collaborators
c) Automatic backup / syncing
d) Different file types

3) Firefox browser

a) Shortcuts for my shortcuts
b) Add-ons – weather, accessing google voice, add html signature to my google mail
c) Permatabs – never close
d) Favicon – Shrink my tab to just the favicon
e) IE tab add-on
f) Screen grab – copy entire page, selection of a page or just the viewable portion
g) Sync bookmarks between browsers – xmarks

4) Google Voice Phone

a) Phone # linking to my real phone lines
b) Customized widgets on different pages that direct visitors to different voice mail messages or
phone lines
c) Archived call records incorporated with my other Google contacts

5) Posterous

Update multiple blogs / sm networks with one post via an email message or using a bookmarklet in my browser by clipping portions of a web page then posting it to my sites.

6) Logmein.com

Remote desktop access

7) Adobe Connect Now

On-line collaboration/meetings for free with individuals for screen and file sharing

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The post WLW 010 – Designing for Voice / Tech Tools appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

We’re glad to have Jennifer Huber with us to talk about her path to achieving CCIE Wireless, including her first pass at the Lab. She shares with us some of her study techniques, and ideas on how to better prepare for this most difficult lab exam.

Then we have Ed Schlichtenmyer back to talk with us about some of the things you can do to improve your professional and personal reputation.

Enjoy!

Jennifer’s Blog

George Stefanick’s Site

CCIE Wireless Study Blog

CCIE Wireless Advanced Lab Boot Camp

FastLane’s CCIE Wireless Lab Bootcamp

Course Fox’s CCIE Wireless Lab Boot Camp

CCIE Wireless Pursuit Blog

Ed Schlictenmyer’s “Four Steps to Enhancing Reputation”

1. Integrity
2. Commitment
3. Communicating with People
4. Managing Projects

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Today’s episode features Ben Miller, of Global Knowledge, talking to us about ‘Sniffing’ Wireless networks. Ben has a blog dedicated to this. He bring some insights on the various types of Wireless Sniffers available and why we should be adept at these to help in our Wireless LAN Troubleshooting.

He is followed by a return of Elaine Rogers of Seefin Coaching talking to us about the proper use and skills needed have proper E-mail Etiquette. Something we all need a little reminder to do in our hurried lives.

Enjoy!

E-mail Etiquette Show Notes

We use e-mail to communicate with our boss, colleagues, clients, or prospective employers, family and friends.

At times e-mail is the only communication we have with certain people.

What is Email Etiquette?

It’s a loose term that refers to the customary code of polite behavior in society or among members of a particular profession or group.

Like every other form of communication, one must use proper etiquette when dealing with other human beings. There are, of course, rules of etiquette which pertain to email, and I am going to discuss a few here later in the podcast.

Why do we need Email Etiquette?

Professionalism: an organisation will portray a professional image by using proper language

Efficiency: emails that get to the point are much more effective than badly worded emails

Protection from liability (or at least lower costs in liability): employee awareness of email risks can protect an organisation from costly law suits

GENERAL:

1. UPPERCASE LETTERS – too many will seem like you are shouting – which is rude. We can use uppercase to emphasise one word, We can also use italics and emboldening for emphasis
2. Treat an e-mail as privately as you would a postcard – anyone could see it and it cannot be erased as easily as burning a snail mail letter if intercepted
3. Always check spelling and punctuation – texting type wording might be ok for friends, but it’s more effort to read them. Never use inappropriate acronyms [TTYL – talk to you later, IMHO – in my honest opinion, lol] or shortened words when e-mailing in a professional capacity
4. Never send spam – it is unsolicited
5. Emoticons have become popular and highly accepted forms of showing emotion or feeling in the non-emotive world of written e-mails. Keep it at an acceptable level – not too much waving, pumping lovehearts, laughing
6. Leave out ?????? and !!!!!!! – again overuse of these portray aggression
7. Someone upset you? – count to ten (100 if you have anger management challenges) before you reply – don’t respond immediately – sleep on it before losing a customer or upsetting your boss
8. Keep your message short and to the point – try and cut out waffle
9. Create an Out – of – Office reply – you are responding that you cannot deal with their email immediately but will on your return (ensure you do deal with their mail on your return)
10. Subject Line – pertinent and blunt – don’t use an old Subject to talk about something else – change it so when the receiver is sorting their inbox – people can see related mails grouped together
11. Don’t get involved with chain e-mails – they are a form of spamming
12. Use Reply-All button appropriately. Nothing worse than being in a list of 20 people and everyone is replying to all when not necessary
13. Be careful of overusing the “high priority” or “important” flagging system – the term “Crying Wolf” comes to mind here
14. Be careful with formatting – may not convert well in older programs or plain text messages

STRICTLY BUSINESS:

1. Be concise and to the point
2. Answer all questions asked, and attempt to pre-empt questions to reduce return mails
3. Use templates to make your life easier – make sure to personalise them
4. Use short paragraphs and blank lines to structure your mail – harder to read on screen than on paper. Make sure your email has an Intro, Body and Closing
5. Never reply back and discuss a different subject without changing the Subject Line
6. Do not discuss confidential information by e-mail
7. Use CC to copy only – no action is required by anyone who is mentioned in the CC line
8. Use the Bcc line to send e-mails to multiple parties whilst protecting individual addresses
9. Leave out read and delivery receipts – it portrays that you do not trust the receiver. Ultimately they can ignore it and you are still unaware if they received it or not

Final Words

Every company should have an E-mail policy that an Employee or Manager can refer to if problems arise or questions need to be answered.

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The post WLW 008 – Wireless Sniffing / E-mail Etiquette appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

This is from the WiFi Edge blog by Steve Williams.

Please go and check out the entire post.

I just wanted to put this here to bring up the point of why I personally don’t do Linux any more. This was also a great reminder of all the steps that I *know* have to take place, yet I’m totally fine with the Mac OS X or Windows versions where I just have to point, click, and be connected.

Here are the commands to have a Linux client connect to a WPA Wireless Network:

• wpa_passphrase APN yoursecretkey

• Copy your wpa_passphrase output to /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf

• ifconfig wlan1 up

• iwlist wlan1 scanning | grep -i essidiwconfig wlan1 essid APN

• wpa_supplicant -iwlan1 -c /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf

• dhclient wlan1

• ifconfig wlan1

At this point, you should be connected to your AP. Whew!

The post Steve’s Great Post on Linux Clients and WiFi appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

I was going to post a review of the various iPhone app WiFi Scanners… instead I’ll do this one on Macintosh WiFi Scanners.

WiFi Scanner

First is a new totally free application from Zaib and friends over at WLANbook.com blog. Zaib has done a great job on his blog, offering useful and timely information on Wireless LANs as well as some pretty cool downloads to help you with your Wireless LAN. The latest tool from WLANBook is called Wifi Scanner.

This tool is pretty small, launches quickly, and give you the basic information on what WiFi services are within range of your Macintosh. It has a simple, clean interface, giving you the basic information you might need.

Additionally, WiFi Scanner gives you detailed information on your current connection and about your own Wireless Interface card.

WiFi Scanner uses the actual dBm in its’ signal strength – showing RSSI, Noise and SNR. As well as MAC address and an optional Vendor OUI lookup.

A really cool extra feature in WiFi Scanner 1.1 is the ability to click on one of the rows in Scan view and open a new window that allows mapping of the AP in Google Maps and/or Google Earth.

Thanks for offering this to the community for free!

iStumbler

Next up is the donationware iStumbler. This tool has a ‘donation’ suggested price of $20.

This tool also includes not just the WiFi information around you, but also Bluetooth and Bonjour services nearby. You can easily modify and adapt the interface to best suite the information you’d like on the WiFi services around your Macintosh.

This interface is more ‘fixed’ in your choices of columns, but you can move them around, and sort by any column. Included is a ‘visual’ signal strength meter – an easy-t0-read view of RSSI. (for those who like pretty bars in addition to the hard numbers in percent of signal strength.)

iStumbler also has the ability to graph not only the signal strength over time of the AP you are connected to, but also any of the APs you’ve been seeing within range. A nice extra feature to be sure.

You might think of this as a free option, but it is actually shareware. If you choose this as your option, be sure to give back to the developer to support further shareware offerings.

AirRadar

The final application in this review is Koingo Software’s AirRadar. Currently part of many utilities bundles, but also sells as a stand-alone piece of software for $19.95 (for individual use – other options available)

This WiFi scanner also has an easy-to-configure interface. With many options of column data available to choose from. Including:

• Ad-hoc status
• Beacon Interval
• CF Pollable Flag
• CF Poll Request Flag
• Channel
• Channel Agility Flag
• Encrypted Status
• Encryption Type (WEP, WPA, WPA2, None)
• Encryption Cipher (AES, TKIP)
• First Seen
• Last Seen
• MAC Address (BSSID)
• Managed Flag
• Miss Count
• Name
• Noise Level
• Reserved Flag
• PBCC Flag
• Signal Strength
• Average, Min, and Max Signal Strength
• Short Preamble Flag

Way more that you probably need, but this information is available and can be shown in sortable columns if you’d like.

Like iStumbler, AirRadar also can graph the signal strength over time, but also noise over time, of any of the APs you can see.

This is a professionally produced and sold application – it will cost you at least $20 – but is the most flexible of the three alternatives.

Conclusions

I personally keep all three installed on my machine. For the cost – it’s easy to have all available. I have to admit, I’ve had AirRadar in my dock and use it frequently — but after doing this review I’m leaning a bit towards adding iStumbler back to the dock for it’s additional capaiblities with Bluetooth and Bonjour.

I’m still torn between the WiFi Scanner’s reporting in real actual dBm and the other two showing RSSI in a percentage. I think they have been targeted at different audiences. Not everyone who needs a WiFi scanner understands the nuances of negative dBm.

WiFi Scanner is a great free alternative, fast, easy, uses dBm, and the price is right.

The post WiFi Scanners for Mac OS X appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

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This is a special ‘double-tech’ episode without any of the ‘soft-skills’ we normally add in the second half of the show. Today we have back Devin Akin of Aerohive talking to us about Quality of Service with respect to Wireless LANs. This is an in-depth discussion of how QoS works in our networks. We’ve tried to add lots of graphics and support to the show notes. Enjoy the ride!

Some terms used in today’s discussion on Quality of Service over Wi-Fi:
L2 = Layer 2, Data Link Layer, MAC sublayer, Ethernet frames, 802.11 frames
L3 = Layer 3, IP Layer, packets*
802.11e = An amendment to the 802.11 standard that introduced L2 QoS
WMM = Wireless Multimedia, a term coined and owned by the Wi-Fi Alliance, which is an implementation of 802.11e QoS
802.1p = An old-school, QoS term that indicates 802.1Q priority markings in an Ethernet header, when header expansion is used
Access = An access connection (or port) is one that does not use or support 802.1Q** Ethernet frame header expansion
Trunk = An trunk connection (or port) is one that does use and support 802.1Q** Ethernet frame header expansion
DSCP = Differentiated Services Code Point, DiffServ, L3 QoS markings

QoS with Controller and Thin APs Upstream from WLAN to LAN

QoS with Controller and Thin APs Downstream from LAN to WLAN

QoS with Controller and Thin APs No End-to-End QoS

End-to-End QoS

Fast to Slow Network Transition

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This episode is targeted to coincide with the launch of the latest edition of Sybex’s CWSP Study Guide – it started shipping this month! We are lucky enough to get David Coleman, one of the Authors of this new book to share some thoughts about Wireless Security with us.

In the soft-skills section we are glad to have a business and success coach, Justin Lukasavige to speak on setting goals to help meet your success needs.

David has been the author of both the CWNA and the CWSP study guides… including this latest incarnation of the CWSP book. He talks about some of the issues surrounding Wireless Network security. He spoke with us from his offices at his company, AirSpy from their offices in Atlanta. You can follow David via twitter @mistermultipath

Justin ended his successful career as an airline pilot, to help others through private coaching to help meet folks goals… and speaks to us on how to use some of these goal-setting techniques to also help our listeners to reach the success they are looking for. You can find his new Podcast and website at CoachRadio.tv. Or via twiiter @pastdue.

Thanks to both David and Justin for sharing their expertise with us this week.

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The post WLW 006 – Wireless Security / Setting Goals appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

This weeks episode starts with a segment with Ryan Woodings, Chief Geek of the developers of the Spectrum Analysis tool from Metageek talking on ‘Visualizing RF‘. The final segment comes to us via David Hutchieson, an world-traveling experienced technician talking to us about the ‘Reliability of Electronics‘ and some of the ways we can help protect against failures.

Coming to us from his small office in Boise Idaho, Ryan runs a small company producing a variety of spectrum analysis products. Metageek makes the WiSpy series of USB-based Spectrum Analyzers.

In this presentation, Ryan talks about some of the methods and ideas behind using the raw data from the cards–to turn it into usable information to help you better understand the Physical Layer information in RF environment.

Their website is http://www.metageek.net/ – and while you are there checking out the WiSpy products, also download their free inSSIDer software to help you inspect and troubleshoot your Wireless Network.

You can find Ryan on twitter at @ryanwoodings – or via e-mail at ryan at metageek dot net.

David Hutchieson can be reached at dhutchieson@yahoo.com or on the CWNP forums as Dave1234

Thanks to both Ryan and David for sharing their expertise with us this week.

We’d love to have you subscribe to our RSS feed – just click the button in the upper right corner of the web page. Until next week, thanks for listening!

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The post 005 WLW – Visualizing RF / Reliability in Electronics appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

Years ago, I was teaching a class in Seattle, and we had the need for a flashlight… one of the students whipped out his SureFire Executive Defender… I was very impressed. Never one to have a Leatherman or Maglight strapped to my belt… I did think for a moment how it would come in very handy at times.

Since I fly a lot, I can’t quite get a Leatherman through TSA scrutiny… but I *can* always have a flashlight with me.

Ever since that day in Seattle, I’ve carried a Surefire Executive Defender with me. Not your cheapest flashlight… but it is *amazingly bright* – so much so I have to carry a ‘diffuser’ to tone down the amount of light.

These lights do such a good job that I got them as gifts for my family the next Christmas.

Thinking of always having the proper tools nearby…

Always have pen and paper with you

I was taught by my father – and hopefully I’ll pass it on to all my children – to always carry a pen with you! It is a sign of maturity and preparedness!

Also, within the last couple of years I’ve also started to carry 3×5 cards in my pocket. These have also been invaluable at times. Someplace to write little notes, take information down, jot down a phone number or address.

Even in the age of iPhones – an index card in your pocket can be a great thing.

Always have a Pen and Paper with you!

The post “The value of a good flashlight can’t be overstated. That is all.” appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

We’re back again for the fourth week – this time starting off with a technical discussion around High-Capacity Wi-Fi with Jon Freeman from Xirrus, and then the Soft-Skills segment with an old friend of mine, Ed Schlichtenmyer on how to Delivery Better Service.

Jon Freeman is an Area Vice President and Technologist with Xirrus. His presentation refers to the following graphics in discussing how we can better design and use Wi-Fi in high capacity situations.

Jon can be reached the following ways:
e-mail – jon DOT freeman AT xirrus DOT com
Twitter – http://twitter.com/@Wi_FiMAN
LinkedIn – http://www.linkedin.com/in/jondfreeman
(personal – just request to link by having listened to this interview)
Website – www.xirrus.com
Xirrus_Product Brief_Array Architecture

Cellular vs Wi-Fi Array Architecture

Delivering Better Service

Our second segment is from Ed Schlichtenmyer a consultant with Impact Weather. Ed brings to the table years of being one of the best professionals in our craft. I’m proud to call Ed my friend, and glad he can share some of his insights concerning our IT professionals can better interact with their clients to provide higher quality service.

If you have any feedback on the show – please drop an e-mail to feedback@WirelessLANProfessionals.com.

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The first three episodes are now available either from the Website or on Apple’s iTunes.

Even though it is called a ‘Podcast’ you don’t necessarily need an iPod to listen. The files are standard MP3 – and can be listened to on an iPod, Zune, portable MP3 player, or just on your computer. In fact you can listen in directly from the web site as well.

The goal of the podcast is to educate, inform, entertain, and inspire folks who work day-in, day-out with Wireless Networks.

We bring you weekly information from a wide variety of contributors. The host is Keith R. Parsons, and each week he has at least two others helping with either tech or soft-skills related content pertinent to Wireless LAN Professionals.

Come join in the community of your peers!

The post Wireless LAN Weekly Podcast Launched appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

Jumping right into it – this is the third episode of the Wireless LAN Weekly Podcast.

This week we have again two featured segments. The first is an Introduction to WiMAX by Rick Murphy, You can find Rick in Boulder, Colorado working at Wireless Training Solutions.

The second segment on soft skills is from a Elaine Rogers, a business and communications coach with Seefin Coaching out of Ireland sharing with us some tips on Communications Skills.

Thanks to both Rick and Elaine for their work on this week’s episode.

Below are some of the supporting documents and graphics from the WiMAX presentation. If you’d like further information on the subject, you can contact Rick Murphy directly at rmurphy@wirelesstrainingsolutions.com.

"Just the facts, ma'am"

What Is WiMAX?

IEEE 802.16e

Why is WiMAX important to a Wi-Fi Engineer?

How is WiMAX similar to Wi-Fi?

How is WiMAX different from Wi-Fi?

Where can I get more information on WiMAX?

If you have any feedback on the show – please drop an e-mail to feedback@WirelessLANProfessionals.com.

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The post 003 WLW – Intro to WiMAX / Communication Skills appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

Welcome to the second episode of Wireless LAN Weekly.

This week’s first segment comes to us from Marcus Burton, Director of Product Development with the CWNP Program. Marcus has stepped up and is filling the technical side of CWNP.

His topic comes from his great white paper on the same subject. “802.11 Client Arbitration” – this is a topic we all need to be reminded of. It encompasses many of the aspects on the how/why/when issues concerning the client side of our wireless network.  Listen well to his presentation, but also download his white paper. Then check out all the other documents from Marcus on the http://www.cwnp.com website.

Thanks to Marcus for sharing his expertise from his home office in Grand Rapids, Michigan. You can reach Marcus with specific questions at marcus.burton@cwnp.com.

This week’s second topic is another technical one. This segment comes from Adam Conway, Vice President of Product Managment at Aerohive. He’ll be discussing the merits and issues concerning Management, Control and Data planes with respect to both historically wired systems (routers & switches) but also to how these thee aspects can work with Wireless Access Points.

He starts with some of the issues we had in the past – describing the interaction between networking devices. Then on to a little history of how Access Points evolved over the last decade or so. And finally on to how we can use protocols to help manage and control our data flows over wireless media.

Thanks also to Adam for taking time to speak with us from his office in Santa Clara, California – and also check out the Aerohive website at http://www.Aerohive.com.

We’d love to hear your reactions to the Wireless LAN Weekly Podcast. Any ideas, suggestions, or comments are all gladly accepted.

Until next week – continue your personal efforts to better our craft of managing Wireless Networks.

If you have any feedback on the show – please drop an e-mail to feedback@WirelessLANProfessionals.com.

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The post 002 WLW – 802.11 Client Arbitration / Mgmt, Ctrl, Data Planes appeared first on Wireless LAN Professionals.

Thank you for listening in to the first episode of the Wireless LAN Weekly Podcast. This weekly audio podcast is designed to education, inform, entertain and inspire Wireless LAN Professionals. Those folks dedicated to the craft of designing, installing, maintaining, security, troubleshooting and managing wireless networks.

The first technical segment is from Evert Bopp – the CEO of AirAppz – a wireless hotspot provider in Ireland.  Coming to us from Coolbawn, North Tipperary, Ireland, Evert’s topic is ‘The Past, Present and Future of Wireless Hotspots”.

You can follow Evert on Twitter at @EvertB – or visit his website at http://www.airappz.com. He also has an entertaining blog at http://evertb.wordpress.com.

Evert is also leading up a group to help the people of Haiti through wireless networking technologies. Follow along at http://haiti-connect.org .

Our second topic this week comes from Devin Akin – AKA ‘The Devinator’ – we are used to hearing from Devin from his years of being CTO of the CWNP program. He normally talking on highly technical subjects – but in this soft skills segment Devin speaks with us on the topic “It’s all about the people”.

Devin is now working at Aerohive – and has a blog there called The Hive Mind and can be found at http://blog.aerohive.com/blog/.

Thanks to our two main speakers , as well as the ‘bit parts’ to help liven up the Podcast.

Thanks also to all you who have invested your time in listening to this Podcast. Without you this effort would be wasted. If you enjoyed the content of the show, please tell your friends. If you think we could improve, please leave with voicemail or e-mail feedback.

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Wireless LAN Weekly

A weekly audio podcast designed to educate, inform, entertain, and inspire Wireless LAN Professionals.  Those folks dedicated to the craft of designing, installing, configuring, maintaining, securing, troubleshooting and managing Wireless Networks.

This show format includes normally two roughly 20 minute technical or soft skills segments, peppered with small short entertaining bits, Rants, Pet Peeves, Interesting Facts, Elevator Speeches, and the like.

We opted for an audio Podcast format for this show – so more people could subscribe and easily download and list on their portable media players while commuting, working out, or just hanging around.

We encourage you to listen, enjoy, and post a review in iTunes!

If you have any feedback on the show – please drop an e-mail to feedback@WirelessLANProfessionals.com.

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