Access point monitoring with Netdata

The ap collector visualizes data related to access points.

Example Netdata charts

How it works

It does the following:

1. Runs iw dev searching for interfaces that have type AP.

   From the same output it collects the SSIDs each AP supports by looking for lines ssid NAME.

   Example:

# iw dev

phy#0

Interface wlan0

ifindex 3

wdev 0x1

addr 7c:dd:90:77:34:2a

ssid TSAOUSIS

type AP

channel 7 (2442 MHz), width: 20 MHz, center1: 2442 MHz

2. For each interface found, it runs iw INTERFACE station dump.

   From the output is collects:

   • rx/tx bytes
   • rx/tx packets
   • tx retries
   • tx failed
   • signal strength
   • rx/tx bitrate
   • expected throughput

   Example:

# iw wlan0 station dump

Station 40:b8:37:5a:ed:5e (on wlan0)

inactive time: 910 ms

rx bytes: 15588897

rx packets: 127772

tx bytes: 52257763

tx packets: 95802

tx retries: 2162

tx failed: 28

signal: -43 dBm

signal avg: -43 dBm

tx bitrate: 65.0 MBit/s MCS 7

rx bitrate: 1.0 MBit/s

expected throughput: 32.125Mbps

authorized: yes

authenticated: yes

preamble: long

WMM/WME: yes

MFP: no

TDLS peer: no

3. For each interface found, it creates 6 charts:

   • Number of Connected clients
   • Bandwidth for all clients
   • Packets for all clients
   • Transmit Issues for all clients
   • Average Signal among all clients
   • Average Bitrate (including average expected throughput) among all clients

Configuration

Edit the charts.d/ap.conf configuration file using edit-config from the Netdata config directory, which is typically at /etc/netdata.

cd /etc/netdata # Replace this path with your Netdata config directory, if different

sudo ./edit-config charts.d/ap.conf

You can only set ap_update_every=NUMBER to change the data collection frequency.

Auto-detection

The plugin is able to auto-detect if you are running access points on your linux box.