Skip to main content

Access point monitoring with Netdata

The ap collector visualizes data related to access points.

Example Netdata charts

image

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
  1. 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
  1. 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.

Was this page helpful?

Need further help?

Search for an answer in our community forum.

Contribute