When you change the type of external antenna used by an AP in Ekahau, the name of the AP model is not updated to reflect that new external antenna name: So this simple script aims to update the name of the AP models in order for them to reflect the name of the external antenna actually used. After executing the script, you should see something like this: The Code Note: we might update it in the future. So make sure to also check the GitHub repository to see the latest version available: https://github.com/francoisverges/semfio-ekahau Usage Simply create a copy of your project file (.es ..read more

Ekahau released a new version (v10.2) last month. The best feature out of this new version (for me at least) is the ability to create personalized tags for AP objects. Each tag can have a key and a value. ​Here is an example: Description My good friend Haydn Andrews had the idea to create a script that would auto populate the value of some tags based on the AP properties. This could be used for a lot of AP related properties if you think about it: Installation details Special bracket needed Antenna related information (internet, external, model...) PoE budget information Service loop requir ..read more

I have been using the python library called pySerial and wanted to share how I made it work on my end. ​ I have used it to establish a console connection to a Cisco AP in order to perform send the initial set of configurations within a python script and automate the process. I will only talk about using it on macOS as this is what I use. See: Configure a Cisco IOS-XE AP for an APoS Site Survey using Python. Console Connection In order for pySerial to work properly, you need to first establish your console connection with the network equipment you are configuring. In my case, I connected it to ..read more

I wanted to play around and see how I could automate the process of preparing a Cisco AP for an APoS site survey. So I decided to try it out on a Catalyst 9120 running IOS-XE. In this article, I will explain how to use the script. You can find the script on my GitHub: https://github.com/francoisverges/semfio-cisco/tree/master/Setup-APoS-EWC You can find the documentation of the script here: https://github.com/francoisverges/semfio-cisco/wiki/How-to-use-%22Setup-APoS-EWC%22 ​In order to make this work within a python script, we need to leverage a python library called pyserial which ..read more

Modern internet browsers (such as Chrome, Safari, Firefox) are equipped with advanced developer tools. We can actually leverage some of these tools to take a look at which API calls are made behind the scene when you view or modify settings of your favourite Wi-Fi network cloud plarform. To illustrate this feature, we will make a simple change on our Mist dashboard while trying to see which API calls are made in the background. We will explain how to do it in Safari and Google Chrome. If you want to see how it work in a video, here is how it works on Safari: Safari First you need to enable ..read more

In a first video, I explain everything you need to create your first API call to the Mist system dashboard. In order to make this API call, I use an application called Postman. Postman allows you to build your API calls in a very easy way. This is useful to test the API calls, make sure they work and analyze the results we get from the Mist dashboard. Then, in a second video, I explain how to include the same API call within a Python script. I then go on and go over a script used to modify the name of an access point using an API PUT call. ​Here is the script used to send ..read more

In this article, we will talk about the important of assessing the Wi-Fi in a warehouse and talk about specificities brought by these type of environments. What make the environment challenging? The main challenge of a warehouse is the fact that the environment can be moving a lot. Here is a list of changes I have seen happening in warehouses:Change is the type of goods stocked in the racks (one day it is cloth, the next day it's car break pads) Change in the rack layout (new racks might be introduced to store more goods) Dynamic creation of zone of attenuation (especially in the loadi ..read more

When I perform Wi-Fi validation or Wi-Fi assessments, I like to take pictures of the access points and document it later. I also save these pictures and provide them to the customer. Lately, with the use of the Ekahau survey application on iPad, I have been attaching these pictures to an AP object on my Ekahau project files using the iPad application. The task of saving these pictures manually can be very time consuming. So I decided to practise my Python skills and create a script that would do it for me. Description The script opens an Ekahau project, look for an access point object tha ..read more

SemFio Networks, alongside Anixter and LHSC, organized the first Wi-Fi Meetup in London ON. The main topic of this first meetup was Wi-Fi 6. The event was very nice and attracted network Engineers supporting large wireless infrastructure in London. We even had a couple of guys coming from the GTA. We will be organizing a second meetup in a couple of months and we have already gathered topics we want to talk about! ​Here is the presentation I did gave at this event: ​Here is a picture we captured at the end of the event: Thank you everyone for co ..read more

In 802.11ax communications, the trigger frame is used for multiple purposes. One of them is to allocate ressources for a specific multi-user OFDMA transmission. In this article, we are going to take a deeper look at some of the interesting fields we will find in this trigger frame. For more details, you can look at section "9.3.1.22 Trigger frame format" of the 802.11ax-D4 IEEE draft. ​ The Frame Format ​Here is the format of the frame: The trigger frame is a broadcast frame and you can use this filter to fidn it in Wireshark: wlan.fc == 0x2400. It has the following characteristics ..read more