Windows: WiFi Explorer Pro
That's right, WiFi Explorer Pro for Windows!
Last updated
That's right, WiFi Explorer Pro for Windows!
Last updated
In this lab, we will use WiFi Explorer Pro for Windows, configure it to use the WLAN Pi M4 as an external sensor. This allows us to leverage the 6 GHz capabilities of the WLAN Pi, which may be missing from your current computer.
The WLAN Pi, as an external sensor, also provides opportunities to perform scanning of networks that may be in remote locations. Using a VPN connection between the laptop and WLAN Pi makes it possible to use the scanning capabilities to assist with remote troubleshooting tasks.
To complete this lab, you'll need the following items:
A Windows laptop with administrative privileges to install software
A WLAN Pi M4
Let's start by installing WiFi Explorer Pro for Windows:
Download WiFi Explorer Pro from the Intuitibits website.
Launch the installer and follow the instructions.\
If you didn't uncheck "Launch when ready", the app will open and a 7-day free trial will start immediately.
The main window of the app now opens. Let's left-click the Signal column once to ensure WiFi Explorer displays the access points with the strongest Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) at the top of the scan results.\
Once WiFi Explorer Pro is installed, please take a few moments to ensure the application launches correctly and familiarise yourself with the user interface. If you've used Wi-Fi scanning apps before, we are confident you will feel at home within WiFi Explorer Pro for Windows.
By default, Wi-Fi Explorer Pro uses the internal adapter of your laptop to scan for networks when first launched. Within a few seconds, you should see a summary of Wi-Fi networks detected by the laptop adapter as it scans all Wi-Fi channels. Although this is excellent information, we want to investigate how to use the WLAN Pi as an external sensor in this lab.
To use the WLAN Pi as a remote sensor, there must be IP connectivity between the laptop and the WLAN Pi.
We'll connect using the lab's wireless and wired network connections in this lab. Your laptop will be connected to the lab wireless network, and your WLAN Pi M4 will be connected to one of the lab PoE switch ports.
Once both devices have their network connection, you can use the IP address shown on the front panel of your WLAN Pi as the target sensor address.
Once you're happy with finding your way around the user interface, please review the instructions below to set up your WLAN Pi M4 as a remote sensor for WiFi Explorer Pro. This will allow you to scan the 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz and 6 GHz (🤓) bands using the wireless adapter of the WLAN Pi.
Please ensure you note the channels being used by our lab networks while completing this lab. This information will be useful later in our wireless frame capture lab.
Open the Manage Remote Sensors dialog by clicking the dropdown v arrow and click Manage Remote Sensors...\
Under the Sensors tab, click the + button.\
Enter IP address of eth0 interface of your WLAN Pi. Display and buttons are your friend. The big white IP address on the home screen of your WLAN Pi should be the right address. You can always verify by opening the on-screen Menu > Network > Interfaces.
Assign a new name of your choice to the new sensor. This is useful when you have multiple remote sensors deployed.\
Before we go, let's click the '3 dots in a circle' icon and Run Diagnostics.
In the authentication prompt, enter username wlanpi and the new WLAN Pi password you created in the Getting Started section.\
A few seconds later, the diagnostics results should appear on the screen. WiFi Explorer Pro connects via SSH to the WLAN Pi and checks if all packages are installed, if the Wi-Fi adapter is ready, etc. Note a new feature: WiFi Explorer Pro now uses a new scanning tool on Remote Sensors called scandump. Thanks to this, it no longer switches the Wi-Fi adapter to Monitor mode. Instead, it uses 802.11 netlink API. It is faster and also allows adapters that don't support Monitor mode to perform scanning. WLAN Pi ships with scandump preinstalled. Without scandump, WiFi Explorer has to switch the Wi-Fi adapter to Monitor mode and cycle between channels to scan them. Support for Monitor mode is mandatory for that.\
WiFi Explorer Pro is now ready to scan using WLAN Pi's Wi-Fi adapter, even remotely via VPN.
Select the remote sensor from the dropdown menu.
Remote (yes, we appreciate that the M4 technically sits in front of you at the moment) scan results will now start appearing in your app.
Let's add a new column Channel Utilization to the current view. Right-click anywhere in any existing column name (for example, near Annotations), and select Channel Utilization. \
The new column appears and we see QBSS information as broadcasted by the APs in their beacons. Note that you might need to also enable this feature on your controller or AP.\
We now select the 6 GHz filter in the top bar. There we go; there is an AP using 6 GHz primary channel 37.\
What 6 GHz channel is your 6 GHz AP using? Is it a Preferred Scanning Channel (PSC)? You can use WLAN Pi Terminal tool called wifichannel for that:
wifichannel <channel>
wifichannel 37
WiFi Explorer Pro also highlights PSC channels in red/orange. So you could tell that channel 37 is one of those channels by looking at the bottom part of the spectrum view.
Congratulations, you've completed the Wi-Fi scanning lab for Windows.
