How to Monitor the WiFi Link

This procedure shows how to monitor the status of a WiFi link through standard networking tools, and change link properties through the linkprop subcommand.

1. Assume the Primary Administrator role, or become superuser.

   The Primary Administrator role includes the Primary Administrator profile. To create the role and assign the role to a user, see Chapter 2, Working With the Solaris Management Console (Tasks), in System Administration Guide: Basic Administration.

2. Connect to the WiFi network, as described in How to Connect to a WiFi Network.

3. View the properties of the link.

   Use the following syntax:

   # dladm show-linkprop interface

   For example, you would use the following syntax to show the status of the connection established over the ath0 link:

   # dladm show-linkprop ath0 PROPERTY VALUE DEFAULT POSSIBLE channel 5 -- -- powermode off off off,fast,max radio ? on on,off speed 36 -- 1,2,5.5,6,9,11,12,18,24,36,48,54

4. Set a fixed speed for the link.

   ---

   Caution –

   The Solaris OS automatically chooses the optimal speed for the WiFi connection. Modifying the initial speed of the link might cause reduced performance or prevent the establishment of certain WiFi connections.

   ---

   You can modify the link speed to one of the possible values for speed that is listed in the show-linkprop output.

   # dladm set-linkprop -p speed=value link

5. Check the packet flow over the link.

   # netstat -I ath0 -i 5 input ath0 output input (Total) output packets errs packets errs colls packets errs packets errs colls 317 0 106 0 0 2905 0 571 0 0 14 0 0 0 0 20 0 0 0 0 7 0 0 0 0 16 0 1 0 0 5 0 0 0 0 9 0 0 0 0 304 0 10 0 0 631 0 316 0 0 338 0 9 0 0 722 0 381 0 0 294 0 7 0 0 670 0 371 0 0 306 0 5 0 0 649 0 338 0 0 289 0 5 0 0 597 0 301 0 0

Example 3–2 Set the Speed of a Link

This example shows how to set the speed of a link after you have connected to a WiFi network

# dladm show-linkprop -p speed ath0
PROPERTY        VALUE           DEFAULT         POSSIBLE
speed           24               --              1,2,5,6,9,11,12,18,24,36,48,54
# dladm set-linkprop -p speed=36 ath0

# dladm show-linkprop -p speed ath0
PROPERTY        VALUE           DEFAULT         POSSIBLE
speed           36               --              1,2,5,6,9,11,12,18,24,36,48,54