Netgate Discussion Forum
    • Categories
    • Recent
    • Tags
    • Popular
    • Users
    • Search
    • Register
    • Login

    Monitor wireless access points?

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved General pfSense Questions
    15 Posts 5 Posters 2.4k Views
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as topic
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with topic management privileges can see it.
    • A
      almabes
      last edited by

      At customer sites I use Open Mesh access points.  The cloud based mothership does the monitoring, reporting, and emailing for you…and it's included with the APs for free.

      But if you've already done the wireless deployment, that doesn't help.

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • johnpozJ
        johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
        last edited by

        What AP did you setup.. Unifi for example has controller you run that can email you if any AP go down, etc.

        An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
        If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
        Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
        SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.8, 24.11

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • H
          HCJ
          last edited by

          hi, these are budget linksys/cisco wap200 ones have around 50 installed.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • johnpozJ
            johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
            last edited by

            Oh man..  Ouch..

            Vs monitoring those I would just put together a plan to put in a real system..  Those are only G…

            Did you get them off ebay or something for a song.. Why would anyone deploy 50 of those??

            If you really need to do it on your pfsense install, I would prob look to installing something like smokeping.. Pretty sure you could prob get that running.

            An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
            If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
            Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
            SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.8, 24.11

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • D
              doktornotor Banned
              last edited by

              @johnpoz:

              Those are only G… 
              Did you get them off ebay or something for a song.. Why would anyone deploy 50 of those??

              "Only G" would be kinda fine… except that the firmware is totally unusable crap. 50 of those? You must be mighty mad.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • johnpozJ
                johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
                last edited by

                Only G would be ok if they were bought long time ago, the wap200 are EOL anyway are they not?  Phone support looks like it ended in Nov 2013..  Time to change them for something somewhat current ;)

                If he had them installed when they were current, why just now asking about monitoring them?

                An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
                If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
                Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
                SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.8, 24.11

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • H
                  HCJ
                  last edited by

                  they work fine in place, they are already out and live. Been over a period of time. Just want something to monitor if they go down.

                  I'll take a look at smokeping.

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • johnpozJ
                    johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
                    last edited by

                    there was bounty to have smokeping as a package

                    https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=67448.0

                    But doesn't look like it ever got any traction.

                    An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
                    If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
                    Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
                    SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.8, 24.11

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • DerelictD
                      Derelict LAYER 8 Netgate
                      last edited by

                      Run a nagios VM.  pfSense is a firewall not a network monitoring and alerting appliance.

                      Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA
                      A comprehensive network diagram is worth 10,000 words and 15 conference calls.
                      DO NOT set a source address/port in a port forward or firewall rule unless you KNOW you need it!
                      Do Not Chat For Help! NO_WAN_EGRESS(TM)

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • H
                        HCJ
                        last edited by

                        I fully agree, but I'm not looking at it running every 5 minutes, once a day is enough for our needs. My idea behind it is that since it's pinging the gateway, I was hoping just to tap into that, but thats not an option. I may look at a php script and do it that way as I see a php package exists.

                        Its minimum overhead for pfsense to do a ping of 50 ip#s once a day.

                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • H
                          HCJ
                          last edited by

                          @johnpoz:

                          there was bounty to have smokeping as a package

                          https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=67448.0

                          But doesn't look like it ever got any traction.

                          I found this article : http://www.routerperformance.net/howtos/how-to-install-smokeping-on-pfsense-2-2/

                          looks straight forward

                          How to install Smokeping on pfSense 2.2

                          Since there’s no available package for Smokeping available in pfSense, you have to install it via CLI/FreeBSD package system.
                          Here’s the way to go:

                          pkg install smokeping

                          The package management tool is not yet installed on your system.
                          Do you want to fetch and install it now? [y/N]: y

                          pkg install apache24

                          Add following to /etc/rc.conf.local:
                          smokeping_enable=”YES”
                          apache24_enable=”YES”

                          Then:

                          cd /usr/local/etc/rc.d/

                          mv apache24 apache24.sh

                          mv smokeping smokeping.sh

                          In /usr/local/etc/apache24/httpd.conf add/edit:
                          Listen 8080

                          <directory “="" usr="" local="" smokeping="" htdocs”="">Options Indexes FollowSymLinks ExecCGI
                          AllowOverride None
                          Require all granted</directory>
                          ScriptAlias /smokeping.fcgi /usr/local/smokeping/htdocs/smokeping.fcgi
                          Alias /smokeimg/ /usr/local/smokeping/htdocs/img/
                          Alias /img/ /usr/local/smokeping/htdocs/img/

                          AddHandler cgi-script .cgi .fcgi

                          LoadModule cgi_module libexec/apache24/mod_cgi.so

                          Finally install Postfix Forwarder via WebGUI.

                          Via CLI again:

                          ln -s /usr/local/sbin/sendmail /usr/sbin/sendmail

                          chmod 600 /usr/local/etc/smokeping/smokeping_secrets

                          Now there’s Apache and Smokeping installed and accessible via:

                          http://<ip>:8080/smokeping.fcgi

                          You have to add more hosts on the CLI .. have fun!</ip>

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • johnpozJ
                            johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
                            last edited by

                            yup looks exactly what you were after - let us know how it works out.

                            An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
                            If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
                            Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
                            SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.8, 24.11

                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • First post
                              Last post
                            Copyright 2025 Rubicon Communications LLC (Netgate). All rights reserved.