WiFiMon Hardware Probes (WHP) are used for performance measurements in a WiFi network from dedicated small form factor devices which are installed in fixed points. WiFiMon tested its operation and recommends the use of Raspberry Pi’s v3 Model B+ or v4.
WHP configuration
WiFiMon Hardware Probe will work in the following configuration:
- A Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ or a newer model
- A micro SD card with at least 16GB
- WiFiMon Raspberry Pi operating system image. Size ~ 3.6 GB
WiFiMon Raspberry Pi image given above is a custom version of Raspbian Stretch with desktop, with the default Raspberry Pi credentials (user: pi, password: raspberry).
We advise the user to secure Raspberry Pi by changing the default password (more details are given below in Step 3).
Setting up the WHP
Step 1: Write the image to the micro SD card
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Follow the simple steps below:
- Insert the microSD in the Raspberry Pi
- Plug the USB keyboard into one of the USB ports (or USB wireless adapter for keyboard and mouse)
- Plug the USB mouse into one of the USB ports
- Connect the monitor cable to the Pi's HDMI port
- Plug the power supply into a socket and connect it to the micro USB power port
You should see a red light on the Raspberry Pi and raspberries on the monitor. The WiFiMon Hardware Probe will boot up into a graphical desktop.
Step 3: Configure the RPi
Secure your Raspberry Pi by changing the default password. Optionally, you may enable SSH to access the command line of a Raspberry Pi remotely or setup remote desktop. Next, you have to connect to the wireless network you want to measure.
The WiFiMon Hardware Probe (WHP) regularly performs performance tests against towards the WiFiMon Test Server (WTS) in an automated manner, thus simulating end users from a fixed location in the monitored WiFi network. To that end, WHPs leverage on a crontab script. Within the crontab script, the tests that will be executed (NetTest/speedtest/boomerang) should be definedWHP uses crontab to schedule the tests. To do that, open the terminal (as user "pi") and enter the command: crontab -e. You will see have to pick the text editor. Then scroll to the bottom of the file and add the following code block. :
| Code Block | ||
|---|---|---|
| ||
19,39,59 * * * * export DISPLAY=:0 && firefox --new-window https://www.google.com >/dev/null 2>&1 |
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00,05,10,15,20,25,30,35,40,45,50,55 * * * * export DISPLAY=:0 && firefox --new-tab URL_TO_nettest.html >/dev/null 2>&1 |
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01,06,11,16,21,26,31,36,41,46,51,56 * * * * export DISPLAY=:0 && firefox --new-tab URL_TO_speedworker.html >/dev/null 2>&1 |
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02,07,12,17,22,27,32,37,42,47,52,57 * * * * export DISPLAY=:0 && firefox --new-tab URL_TO_boomerang.html >/dev/null 2>&1 |
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03,08,13,18,23,28,33,38,43,48,53,58 /home/pi/wireless.py >> ~/cron.log 2>&1 |
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18,38,58 * * * * scripts/kill-firefox.sh >/dev/null 2>&1 |
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10 0 * * 0 scripts/pi-reboot.sh >/dev/null 2>&1 |
You are required to modify the parts of the crontab that are denoted with red color. Lines 2-4 require the URLs of the websites in which the NetTest, speedtest and boomerang JS scripts are injected. Details related to the configuration of the WiFiMon testtools are included in the WiFiMon Test Server (WTS)installation documentation. Following the assumptions/notations of the WTS guide, example URLs for NetTest, speedtest and boomerang respectively are (i) https://WTS_FQDN/wifimon/measurements/nettest.html, (ii) https://WTS_FQDN/wifimon/measurements/speedworker.html and (iii) https://WTS_FQDN/wifimon/measurements/boomerang.html.
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