Capturing wifi traffic for fault diagnosis / usb pcap ?

[Axe244]

I have a wifi issue in a remote office.

I notice now that when I install Wireshark on Windows it gives me an option to install USB Pcap. With the usb pcap can I capture wifi air traffic promiscuously, if I use any USB wifi adapter? I thinking of rushing out to source a 802.11abgnac USB adapter for this purpose. I don't have a Windows laptop with an adequate on-board wifi adapter that I can capture traffic with.

Apple Mac will allow me to capture traffic but I don't have any spare.

I need to capture all traffic on the air as I suspect external interference is causing clients to have issues which is then causing roaming. After roaming, the issue comes back again causing a roam back to the original AP. These are assumptions based on the experiences and need to capture traffic to prove it.

 

[Boristheengine]

Not your typical electrician's questions buy here you go: USB Pcap is about capturing and inspecting USB bus traffic rather than anything to do with WiFi. The normal packet capture facilities in wireshark will work just as well with many USB WiFi adapters as those connected via other buses.

To capture all of the WiFi frames you need an adapter supporting "monitor mode". This wi enable you to see the frames as sent over the air. If the interference is something other wifi traffic (like a.microwave oven or cordless phone) however this won't help as a normal WiFi adapter won't show that. For that you'll need a wireless spectrum analyser (such as a wispy) and related software. This tends to cost a few hundred Bob more than your typical usb WiFi adapter.