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How to track moving clients

Any ideas how I could track wireless clients moving around from one AP to another? I'd like to know a time stamp when they change AP, and secondly a quality of connection they have (it could be a simple ping, RSSI or however I'd know does the connection cuts in and out. The point is that I need to know, is connection cuting out usually in some distinct AP, or is it cutting when roaming between AP's. Users (they are forklifts) are marking cutting points to map, so it's possible to see the problem areas, but if I can't know what they are doing when connection cuts out and how long is the cut out, the area information is quite useless.

In NPM it's possible to see 1. client RSSI, 2. which AP client is connected and 3. ping graphs in time line. So I basically have all the information I need! I'd just need to combine them all together in report (or some other format that is useful). What do you think, is that possible? I examined NPM Report Writer, but I couldn't find any way to do that. Any ideas? (or any other way to do this? maybe some other useful tools for that?)

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Nandish

On the report writer,you were right.Thats the best tool to pick up now.When you build a new report,you have bunch of templates or a options to select.Look for "Advanced SQL option",this will allow you to build reports based on custom SQL query.

I have an example which shows clients RSSI,Clients IP address and to which AP it is connected to.

select x.AP_name as AP,y.client_ipaddress as clientipaddress,y.client_signalstrength as RSSI from NPM_NV_WL_APS X join NPM_NV_WL_CLIENTS Y on x.NPMNodeid=y.NPMNodeid where x.AP_name<>'NULL'

This should probably get you started and build more useful query according to your needs.In the above query I have used two tables and picked data accordingly.You can do the same and pick data according to your needs.

Ismo

I'm not familiar with SQL at all, but it seems to be doable. I just don't know the sql field names. Where I could find them? There must be fex. "time"-column somewhere.

I'm looking to get something that would look like this:

TIME                               CLIENT NAME              AP             RSSI
27.10.2011 15.30.00      MobilePC1                  AP33         -64
27.10.2011 15.30.10      MobilePC1                  AP33         -64
27.10.2011 15.30.20      MobilePC1                  AP33         -64
27.10.2011 15.30.30      MobilePC1                  AP33         -49
27.10.2011 15.30.40      MobilePC1                  AP33         -49
27.10.2011 15.30.50      MobilePC1                  AP33         -46
27.10.2011 15.31.00      MobilePC1                  AP33         -46
27.10.2011 15.31.10      MobilePC1                  AP33         -37
27.10.2011 15.31.20      MobilePC1                  AP33         -37
27.10.2011 15.31.30      MobilePC1                  AP33         -37
27.10.2011 15.31.40      MobilePC1                  AP5           -37
27.10.2011 15.31.50      MobilePC1                  AP5           -80
27.10.2011 15.32.00      MobilePC1                  AP5           -80
27.10.2011 15.32.10      MobilePC1                  AP5           -25
27.10.2011 15.32.20      MobilePC1                  AP5           -25
27.10.2011 15.32.30      MobilePC1                  AP5           -25
27.10.2011 15.32.40      MobilePC1                  AP5           -25
27.10.2011 15.32.50      MobilePC1                  AP5           -25
27.10.2011 15.33.00      MobilePC1                  AP5           -999
27.10.2011 15.33.10      MobilePC1                  AP5           -64
27.10.2011 15.33.20      MobilePC1                  AP5           -64
27.10.2011 15.33.30      MobilePC1                  AP5           -64
27.10.2011 15.33.40      MobilePC1                  AP5           -64
27.10.2011 15.33.50      MobilePC1                  AP5           -64
27.10.2011 15.34.00      MobilePC1                  AP5           -64
27.10.2011 15.34.10      MobilePC1                  AP12         -64
27.10.2011 15.34.20      MobilePC1                  AP12         -64
27.10.2011 15.34.30      MobilePC1                  AP12         -64
27.10.2011 15.34.40      MobilePC1                  AP12         -64
27.10.2011 15.34.50      MobilePC1                  AP12         -64
27.10.2011 15.35.00      MobilePC1                  AP12         -64
27.10.2011 15.35.10      MobilePC1                  AP12         -64
27.10.2011 15.35.20      MobilePC1                  AP12         -70
27.10.2011 15.35.30      MobilePC1                  AP12         -70
27.10.2011 15.35.40      MobilePC1                  AP12         -70
27.10.2011 15.35.50      MobilePC1                  AP12         -70
27.10.2011 15.36.00      MobilePC1                  AP12         -70
27.10.2011 15.36.10      MobilePC1                  AP12         -90
27.10.2011 15.36.20      MobilePC1                  AP12         -90
27.10.2011 15.36.30      MobilePC1                  AP12         -90
27.10.2011 15.36.40      MobilePC1                  AP12         -90
27.10.2011 15.36.50      MobilePC1                  AP12         -999
27.10.2011 15.37.00      MobilePC1                  AP33         -64
27.10.2011 15.37.10      MobilePC1                  AP33         -64
27.10.2011 15.37.20      MobilePC1                  AP33         -64
27.10.2011 15.37.30      MobilePC1                  AP33         -64
...
27.10.2011 20.05.30      MobilePC1                  AP33         -64
27.10.2011 20.05.40      MobilePC1                  AP33         -64
27.10.2011 20.05.50      MobilePC1                  AP33         -64
27.10.2011 20.06.00      MobilePC1                  AP33         -64
27.10.2011 20.06.10      MobilePC1                  AP33         -64
27.10.2011 20.06.20      MobilePC1                  AP33         -64
27.10.2011 20.06.30      MobilePC1                  AP33         -64
...

And same type of report from other clients. And report could also include ping value. Those clients are pinged with shortest possoble frequency.

Nandish

Goto Orion report writer tool,select "Advanced SQL".In General Tab, give a report title.In SQL tab,copy and paste the sql query found below.And then on the same tab,towards right you should see "Preview".Select and see if this is the data,which you are looking for.if your preview is fine,then just select "Design" from the top menu bar of Orion Report Writer tool.Then no changes on field formatting and report grouping tab.Just select "Execute SQL Query".You should be good to go.

select y.lastupdate as TIME,y.client_ipaddress as ClientIPaddress,y.client_name as CLientName,x.AP_name as AP,y.client_signalstrength as RSSI from NPM_NV_WL_APS X join NPM_NV_WL_CLIENTS Y on x.NPMNodeid=y.NPMNodeid where x.AP_name<>'NULL'

Ismo

Query works ok, but it doesn't give a result I wanted to see. As told, I don't understand anything about making sql queries, so I just have to try to change some parametres and test does that work. Usually my changes end up for error. But I understand SW is not sql educator, so maybe I'll just try to make it work by myself.

Just to be said, I'd like to:
- follow one client per report, in shortest possible frequency (10 seconds?)
- time period: last 24 hours per report (that's about 8600 rows... so maybe lower frequency will be enough...?).
- And I'd like to see which AP client is connected to, and also RSSI and availability (ping result) per each single measurement (=row).

How cut outs shows in report? For example when RSSI goes below enough, network doesn't work anymore, so how the report shows that?