Mapping Tools

OSM Go

OpenStreetMaps with multiple 3D view renderers. Very helpful for looking up line of sight between two map points \o/

WiFi & Spectrum Analysis Tools

horst

Basically a command-line mesh-debugging tool :-) Recommended by Freifunk wiki.

"horst" is a small, lightweight IEEE802.11 wireless LAN analyzer with a text interface. Its basic function is similar to tcpdump, Wireshark or Kismet, but itâ€™s much smaller and shows different, aggregated information which is not easily available from other tools. It is mainly targeted at debugging wireless LANs with a focus on ad-hoc (IBSS) mode in larger mesh networks.

Installation Instructions

Download, untar, install with make

wget http://br1.einfach.org/horst_dl/horst-3.0.tar.gz
tar -zxvf horst-3.0.tar.gz
cd horst-3.0
make

ncurses

If you have an issue with your ncurses library:

make clean
make[1]: Entering directory `/home/wrought/downloads/horst-3.0'
rm -f *.o *~
rm -f horst
rm -f .build_*
make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/wrought/downloads/horst-3.0'
touch .build_debug0pcap0
cc -Wall -DDO_DEBUG=0 -g   -c -o main.o main.c
In file included from main.c:35:0:
display.h:23:20: fatal error: curses.h: No such file or directory
compilation terminated.
make: *** [main.o] Error 1

then install the dev library:

sudo apt-get install libncurses-dev

AirView Spectrum Analyzer

The Ubiquiti AirView Spectrum Analyzer running on a Bullet M5

This is a non-libre tool that comes with Ubiquiti's AirOS (that all of their routers run).

It can show both real time and averaged views of power levels (in dBm) plus a waterfall diagram view.

For the Ubiquiti Bullet M5, it operates at frequencies from 4.9 to 6.4 ghz.

It is a Java Web Start tool. Runs fine on Linux.

wavemon

Console-based signal strength indicator.

aptitude install wavemon

Other networking utilities

EtherApe - a graphical network monitor
WireShark - a network protocol analyzer
Tools for modeling user traffic

Mesh/Software tools

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