1wavemon(1) User Manuals wavemon(1)
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6 wavemon - a wireless network monitor
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9 wavemon [-h] [-i ifname ] [-g] [-v]
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12 wavemon is a ncurses-based monitoring application for wireless network
13 devices. It plots levels in real-time as well as showing wireless and
14 network related device information.
15 The wavemon interface splits into different "screens". Each screen
17 presents information in a specific manner. For example, the "info"
18 screen shows current levels as bargraphs, whereas the "level" screen
19 represents the same levels as a moving histogram.
20 On startup, you'll see (depending on configuration) one of the differ‐
22 ent monitor screens. At the bottom, you'll find a menu-bar listing the
23 screens and their activating keys. Each screen is activated by either
24 the corresponding function key (F1..10), its numeric shortcut (1..0),
25 or the underlined shortcut letter of the screen name. The following
26 screens can be selected:
27 Info (F1 or 'i')
29 This is the most comprehensive screen. It displays a condensed
30 overview of wireless-specific parameters and network statistics,
31 as well as bar graphs. The layout is arranged into several sub-
32 sections.
33 The Interface section at the top shows information about the
35 monitoring interface, including interface name, type, ESSID, and
36 available encryption formats.
37 Below, in the Levels section, you can see up to four bargraphs
39 showing (1) relative signal quality and (2) signal level in dBm.
40 If the wireless driver also supports noise level information,
41 additionally (3) noise level in dBm and (4) Signal-Noise-Ratio
42 (SNR) in dB are shown. The colour of the signal level bargraph
43 changes from red to yellow and green at fixed levels. If thresh‐
44 olds have been set, two arrows on the signal level graph will
45 show the positions of the current thresholds.
46 The Statistics section displays packet and byte counters and a
48 few other packet-related statistics.
49 The subsequent Info subsection lists the current operational
51 mode and configuration of the wireless interface. What parame‐
52 ters are actually shown depends on the capabilities and selected
53 mode of your network device.
54 Lastly, the Network section shows network-level parameters. The
56 MAC-address is resolved from ethers(5). The IPv4 address is
57 shown in CIDR notation (RFC 4632 address/prefix_len format).
58 Since often those two values also determine the broadcast ad‐
59 dress (last 32 - prefix_len bits set to 1), that address is
60 shown only if it does not derive from the interface address and
61 prefix length. Likewise, the interface MTU is shown only if it
62 differs from the default Ethernet MTU of 1500 bytes.
63 Level histogram (F2 or 'l')
65 This is a full-screen histogram plot showing the evolution of
66 the signal level over time. The screen is partitioned into a
67 grid, with dBm levels shown in green at the right hand side.
68 Scan window (F3 or 's')
70 A periodically updated network scan, showing access points and
71 other wireless clients. It is sorted depending on sort_order and
72 sort_ascending, see wavemonrc(5). Each entry starts with the
73 ESSID, followed by the colour-coded MAC address and the sig‐
74 nal/channel information. A green/red MAC address indicates an
75 (un-)encrypted access point, the colour changes to yellow for
76 non-access points (in this case the mode is shown at the end of
77 the line). The uncoloured information following the MAC address
78 lists relative and absolute signal strengths, channel, fre‐
79 quency, and station-specific information. The station-specific
80 information includes the station type (ESS for Access Point,
81 IBSS for Ad-Hoc network), station count and channel utilisation.
82 A status line at the bottom informs about the current sort order
84 and a few statistics, such as most (least) crowded channels
85 (least crowded channels are listed when sorting by descending
86 channel).
87 The sort_order can also directly be changed via these keyboard
89 shortcuts: ascending, descending; by essid, signal, channel (C
90 also with signal), mac address, or by open access (O also with
91 signal).
92 Please note that sorting order changes at the time new data
94 comes in, not when the setting is activated.
95 You can filter the bands via these keyboard shortcuts: 2 (2.4GHz
97 only), 5 (5GHz only), and b (both bands). Hidden ESSIDs can be
98 excluded from display via the h shortcut.
99 Preferences (F7 or 'p')
102 This screen allows you to change all program options such as in‐
103 terface and level scale parameters, and to save the new settings
104 to the configuration file. Select a parameter with <up> and
105 <down>, then change the value with <left> and <right>. Please
106 refer to wavemonrc(5) for an in-depth description of applicable
107 settings.
108 Help (F8 or 'h')
110 This page might show an online-help.
111 About (F9 or 'a')
113 Release information and contact URLs.
114 Quit (F10 or 'q')
116 Exit wavemon.
117
119 -i interface
120 override autodetection and use the specified interface.
121 -g check screen geometry: a minimum size is required for proper
123 display; this flag adds a check to ensure it is sufficiently
124 large. Enable this if window does not display properly.
125 -h print help and exit.
127 -v print version information and exit.
129
131 • wavemon will exit with 'no supported wireless interfaces found'
132 if no usable wireless interfaces were detected. Check if your
133 wireless interface is otherwise usable, using e.g. iw(8). If
134 your interface is not listed, causes can be a missing (or not
135 loaded) kernel module; or missing firmware, which some cards
136 need to operate.
137 • Some operations, such as displaying encryption information or
140 performing scans, require CAP_NET_ADMIN privileges (see capabil‐
141 ities(7)). For non-root users, these can be enabled by in‐
142 stalling wavemon setuid-root.
143 • Running wavemon inside screen(1) may cause garbled output on
146 certain locales. This can be fixed calling screen like this:
147 $ LC_ALL=C screen
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150 $HOME/.wavemonrc
151 The local per-user configuration file.
152
154 Written by Jan Morgenstern <jan@jm-music.de>.
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157 Open an issue on https://github.com/uoaerg/wavemon/issues.
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160 wavemonrc(5), ethers(5), capabilities(7), iw(8), locale(1)
161Linux March 2021 wavemon(1)