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Recent twts in reply to #vmlx2dq

Chris’ Wiki: Monitoring if our wireless network is actually working in locations

Oh dear. Wifi monitoring is really hard. We have the same problem. We tried to do what he proposes (setting up Raspberry Pis as “wifi probes”, setting up entire laptops, you name it, …), but we hardly gained any insights.

The nasty thing about wifi is that it’s not enough to know whether a device is connected or not. Yes, sure, if all your wifi probes in one area suddenly disconnect, then you have a problem. But how do you test for roaming? How do you test for client behaviour, like “wifi chip $a behaves ever so slightly different than chip $b”? How many probes do you deploy, one per room? That adds up quickly.

At the end of the day, many of our users are dissatisfied with our wifi – and we admins can’t reproduce their problems, because we don’t use the exact same configuration that they do. 😢

(We recently switched to offering Ethernet by default again. That’s much more convenient these days, because many laptops have USB-C: Users connect one cable and get everything – power, monitor, Ethernet, USB hub. Not all workplaces have such a setup, though.)

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