Wifi site survey would be an improvement

[pachi]

Inspired by this thread and my own experience.  I realise what I am about to propose is not a high priority but useful anyway.

Suppose my WAN connection is a wifi connection as client to an access point in another building.

To configure and connect this wifi connection I have to do it "blindly". I go to the WAN interface configuration page and fill in the relevant fields like SSID and WPA key and then hit "save", wait a bit and see if I can ping or otherwise connect. If I cannot connect then I go back and review everything and try again (and again and again).

I realise this ought to do for a connection which will be more or less permanent but it would be much nicer if we could have an applet which would scan the site for wireless networks and give a list of available wifi networks and their strength and then let us click on the one we want to connect to and then confirm the connection has been established. This is how most client or bridge devices work and I think this would be a very convenient feature for pfSense to have although, again, I realise it is not urgent when considered in the grand scheme of things.

[jimp]

Status > Wireless shows available access points within range.

We don't yet have a "connect" button on that page, though, I don't think.

[pachi]

@jimp:

Status > Wireless shows available access points within range.

We don't yet have a "connect" button on that page, though, I don't think.

Thanks! That is exactly what I had in mind. I am surprised I missed it because I have spent some hours already messing around with pfSense and looking around the menus.  It is great to know that the wifi adapter does indeed "see" the wireless network I am trying to connect to.