Wireless > Access Point Packet Captures

Who can use this feature?

• Partner
• Company/Network Admins with write access
• Meter Support

Access Point Packet Capture Capabilities

Access point packet captures can:

• Capture traffic on the access point’s wired interface.
• Capture traffic on the access point's Wi-Fi interface to see traffic in the air.

This can be useful when troubleshooting any client connectivity issue on Wi-Fi connected devices. Using packet captures, you can view traffic flow to help understand where any communication breakdown may be occurring.

How to take a Packet Capture

After logging into the Meter Dashboard, navigate to Hardware > Access Point > Actions menu (...) > ‘Run a packet capture’.

This will open the Packet capture window:

Access Points - Select which APs to run a capture on. Several APs can take captures concurrently.

Interface - Select which interface you’d like to capture on (All wireless, 2.4 GHz only, 5 GHz only, or wired interface.

Maximum Duration (seconds) - How long the capture will run for.

File size limit (megabytes) - The maximum allowed file size for the capture.

Tcpdump filter - tcpdump filters can be applied to filter out certain traffic. In the example above, a filter for ports 67 and 68 is applied to view only DHCP traffic.

The Packet capture will stop once it hits the maximum file size or duration (whichever happens first). Once complete, the PCAP file can be downloaded.

PCAP files can be viewed using a program like Wireshark.

Re-downloading captures

Captures are stored for 24 hours after they are completed. They can be downloaded by clicking on the Jobs menu > clicking on the capture event > Download.

If you have any questions about packet captures or need further assistance, feel free to contact Meter Support at support@meter.com or submit a ticket at meter.com/support.