discussion Logging / watching Wifi: weird behavior

[CMetaphor]

You all know I'm not a networking guy...
(I STILL havent cut out the "middle box", months later... dont ask)

But Ive got a (hopefully) easier Q this time: I'm slightly suspicious that one of my neighbors - intentionally or not - has a powerful wifi setup that hops onto the channels I use from time to time. This makes almost all my wifi devices stop connecting until I reset my wifi access point. Resetting the AP (without changing any settings) does bring everything back to normal though, so the neighbor theory is just that, a theory.

Im running fixed channels (not automatically assigned ones) because I went out of my way to pick channels that are used the least in my area. The least cross-talk / sharing of channels possible.

Regardless, I havent been able to nail down this issue, and its pretty annoying and sometimes frustrating when I want to check on my home when Im out, but can't because this issue has happened again.

So Im wondering: are there any logging tools (built into PFsense OR a Windows -based program) that could constantly watch my wifi, other nearby wifi signals and keep clear (read: understandable for my dumb a$$) logs to give me a clue what is actually happening? Would be interesting to see if my theory about someome else's AP jumping onto my channels (probably set to auto switch) is true, or if its some other issue such a tool might help in other ways.

Yep. Wall of text. The classic. Sorry as always.

 

[Shadowarez]

well for me my ROG Rapture Router was going bad didnt know till i tested ports on it individually found some that were basicly only giving enough power to light leds, i have seen a few tools wifi explorer but havent used it i myself have to book some time off to call my isp so i can get into the modem and turn off its built in wifi its been bugging me its on by default and there is no clear login details so i can disable it.

 

[Izerous]

Fixed channels isn't the way to go as people do channel jump. Better to use an auto scan approach and be a channel jumper yourself if everyone else is doing it.

 

[JD]

I don't think some noise/interference would "kill" your WiFi network entirely. It would have to be excessively high power/purposefully noisy, which would be against regulations. More likely your access point firmware has a memory leak or something since a reboot fixes it temporarily until it happens again.

If the AP has syslog or SNMP support, that might work for logging. Should be able to dial it up to verbose/debug. I don't think it will be easily readable though.

Most WiFi spectrum analysers are pretty expensive though. I guess there's some Windows apps that claim to be, you could try those out and see if any allow continuous monitoring.