
It is recommended to use or create a wireshark profile specifically for analyzing wireless packet captures. The filtering of wireless packets is different as compared to wired filters on wireshark. The sections below investigate those frames with the help of packet capture given above. The management, control, and data frames.
#CONSTANT TCP RETRANSMISSION WIRESHARK MAC#
The display filter used was "wlan.addr = 00:21:6b:f7:3a:d2 and (wlan.fc.type = 0x00 or eapol)"Īs mentioned above in the 802.11 packet structure section, there are 3 types of frames used in 802.11 MAC layer communications happening over the air which manage and control the wireless link.

The packet capture is shown here in Wireshark. Here is an example of a complete client authentication process from the above packet capture.

Maximum signal strength, you are probably standing right next to the access point.īased on 802.11 specifications, the client authentication process consists of the following: Reliable signal strength– the edge of what Cisco considers to be adequate to support Voice over WLANĪnything down to this level can be considered excellent signal strength. This information is useful for determining the expected quality of the signalĬhances of connecting are very low at this level


Data rate: To understand why data transmissions don’t always make it from a transmitter to receiver, you must know what data rates are being used.If your intention is to get a capture focused on a specific AP, then lock your capture to that AP’s channel, and validate that the capture was on that channel Channel (frequency): As a wireless LAN may support anywhere from 3 to 25 different channels, it’s crucial to know exactly which channel(s) your capture was taken from.Some important physical layer values you need to be aware of are channel, data rate, and signal strength. It is important to get an understanding of the physical layer of the capture before diving into the capture to analyze the upper layers. Unlike wired packet analysis, the wireless physical layer is more complex.
