802.11 WLAN Hands-On Analysis: Unleashing the Network Monitor...

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 292 pages
• Published by: AuthorHouse December 20, 2005
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 1425907350
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-1425907358
• Book Dimensions: 10.8 x 8.1 x 0.7 inches
• Weighs: 1.3 pounds

From the Author
Ive consulted and lectured in more than a dozen countries and Ive developed a sense of how hard-headed, technical pragmatists prefer to learn. Technology blunders forward in an odd, erratic gait and we follow frantically grasping at odds-and-ends in never ending pursuit. Most support professionals are fire fighters, focused on extinguishing daily production blazes, leaving little time, energy and enthusiasm to gird ones loins and tackle the new stuff. The best case learning scenario is that you and I hang out for a long weekend in a well appointed WLAN lab stocked with a variety of access points, client stations, a rack of Cisco routers, VLAN switches, RADIUS and certificate servers and a multi-tree Server 2003 forest. The worst case learning scenario is that you purchase one of the dozens of painfully mediocre WLAN trade books that drone on like terrible 70s disco music in bleak, unimaginative two-tone. Ripped verbatim from IEEE 802.11 white papers with little interpretation or enhancement, they have the nutritional equivalent of fast food. You should demand more. I respect your time, attention and effort. Every detail of this book has been carefully crafted. Ive sifted through dozens of reference manuals, white papers and technical presentations; done hundreds of network captures and analyzed WLAN packets in variety of production environments

About The Author
Byron W. Putman is an author, lecturer and consultant with a specialty in Windows Server 2003 Active Directory and GPO design, and a passion for WLAN security, troubleshooting and frame-level analysis. He holds professional certifications from Microsoft, Cisco, CompTIA and Planet3 Wireless. Byron has written several college text books on digital and microprocessor design, networking and communications, and has also created nearly a dozen professional networking and security seminars.

Reader Reviews
As a CCSI (Cisco Certified Systems Instructor) at a world-wide technical seminars organization I'm always on the lookout for new, challenging in-depth books. I've worked with the author on several network consulting and seminar development projects. Having a minimal WLAN & Wi-Fi technical background I picked up the beta version 802.11 WLAN Hands-On Analysis with a bit of trepidation. [...]Chapters 1 and 2 focus on the detailed physical and media access control issues of wireless networks. I found the explanation and flowcharts on CSMA/CA especially fascinating as they revealed why performance analysis and optimization of WLAN is so critical. Chapter 3 is a mind blower! How many frames do you think it takes for an 802.11g wireless node to exchange just one ping request and response with an 802.11b node in the same network? I will never again share files and printers from wireless computers because the performance issues are immense. Chapter 4 tackles what is mistakenly considered as a rather mundane process, how a wireless station finds the access point. The capture file analysis and two mini-case studies on phantom protection and SSID broadcasting were truly insightful. The field and bit-level analysis is amazing. LinkFerret is simple to use and its features are readily accessible. The capture files and filters make the analysis text and screen shots really hit home. Chapter 5 reveals the mysteries of Authentication and Association. Once again, the hands-on mini-case studies were insightful and relevant - especially the information about disassociation and deauthentication. One of the best aspects of the book is analyzing captures that show a working system and then transitioning to capture analysis of a broken system. I'm a troubleshooter at heart and that approach is what every WLAN administrator and technical support person needs.I was disappointed that the author didn't include a section on advanced authentication using 802.1x port-based control and RADIUS, but I understand that he's currently working on a follow-up text dedicated to 802.11i security analysis. Chapter 6 addresses 802.11 fragmentation, RTS/CTS medium reservation and MTU. Using a capture, simple math and a little logic, the author proves that the IEEE definition of 802.11 maximum frame size has little to do with how the specification is implemented in production networks. This dovetails nicely with the performance and optimization theme of the chapter. I don't know of any other book that addresses the issues of why support of fragmentation and RTS/CTS medium reservation seems to have been dropped in most 802.11g products and why one would ever configure the RTS threshold on an access point. These are nuts and bolts issues that aren't addressed anywhere else. Finally, Chapter 7 addresses the bottom line of how much TCP-based data can be pushed through various 802.11b and 802.11g connections and how invoking CTS-to-Self protection has a disastrous affect on throughput. The last section is on 802.11 power save mode. Although I initially considered this to be esoteric, it soon becomes obvious while analyzing the captures that understanding how the access points buffer broadcast, multicast and unicast data is an extremely important issue, not just for optimization but also to help understand why the frames received in a wireless network capture may be duplicated or out of order. Without this last section I can imagine many situations where the PS-mode frames would confuse the analysis and add an insurmountable layer of complexity. Lastly I'd like to mention the end of chapter summaries and reviews, they are compressed and comprehensive; a great resource for renewing concepts that have slipped away and preparing for wireless certification. All-in-all the author delivers what he says, a text and hands-on WLAN troubleshooting and optimization seminar all rolled into a 300 page book. With the included network monitor and distribution files all you add is a Windows-based computer and about 35 to forty hours of intensely focused work. I read the beta version of the book and liked it so much that Byron asked me to write the book's forward. This is one of the clearest, most concise and ultimately practical technical books that I've ever had the pleasure to read.