Practical Packet Analysis

Wireless-Specific Filters

We discussed the benefits of capture filters in Chapter 4. In a wired infrastructure it is a lot easier to filter the traffic you want to capture, since each device has its own dedicated cable. In a wireless network, however, all traffic generated by wireless clients coexists on shared channels, which means that a capture of any one channel may contain traffic from dozens of clients. This section is devoted to some packet filters that can be used to help you find the traffic you want.

Filtering Traffic for a Specific BSS Id

Each WAP in a network has a unique identifying name called its Basic Service Set Identifier (BSS Id). This name is sent in every wireless management and data frame the access point transmits. (See " ...