Although most people use PDAs as electronic schedulers and notebooks, you can also use them as portable technical support tools. With the right utilities and accessories, you can use your PDA to analyze your wireless or wired network--and recoup some of your investment as well. PDAs aren’t cheap, but the more you can do with one, the easier it’ll be to justify the cost. I’ll describe how to choose and use a Compaq iPAQ as a network support tool. I’ll also recommend some tools and accessories that will help you do the job.
Author’s equipment
For the purposes of this Daily Drill Down, I’ll be using Compaq’s iPAQ PocketPC 3850, but that’s not to say that other PocketPC or Palm OS-based PDAs can’t do the job. Likewise, I won’t be offering an exhaustive list of every hardware/software combination you can use to turn your iPAQ into a portable network testing tool. There are so many different options that I can’t possibly cover them all, so I’ve listed some of my favorites to get you started.
Selecting the right iPAQ
As you can tell by looking at HP’s Web site, there are several iPAQ models to choose from. The model you select should have at least 64 MB of RAM. There are two distinct classes of iPAQ currently available: those using the strongARM processor, and the 3900 series using the new PXA250 400-MHz Intel processor. Several vendors that I spoke to are just now getting this newer model in the labs for testing, so keep in mind that some of the programs I’ll be discussing may not run on the newer processor.
Once you’ve selected an iPAQ, you’ll need to purchase some accessories. The accessories you’ll need will depend on how you’ll use your iPAQ.
At a minimum, you’ll need to purchase the Single PC Card Sleeve. The street price for this is around US$125. This will let you use either PC Card-type network cards or a Compact Flash card with a CF-to-PC Card adapter. You can buy a dual PC card sleeve for the iPAQ, but at US$199 it’s a little pricier than the single PC Card sleeve.
Although it’s not a requirement for any of the programs I’ll be discussing here, I suggest that you consider getting at least a 32-MB memory card for your iPAQ, and preferably a 64-MB card. This will let you quickly back up the iPAQ to a memory card, enabling a fast recovery if you need to do a hardware reset. Having a quick backup certainly beats having to reinstall and reconfigure all of your applications. I learned this lesson the hard way when I applied one of the ROM updates for my 3850. It reinitialized the memory in the machine during installation, and I lost everything on it.
Working with wireless networks
After you’ve selected your iPAQ, you’re ready to go to work. One job that a handheld computer is great for is tracking down wireless access points. MiniStumbler, little brother to the NetStumbler utility that runs on laptops and PCs, is a good tool for finding access points, the channels that are in use, and--more importantly--whether or not Wired Equivalent Policy (WEP) is in use.
NetStumbler and MiniStumbler
You can find out more about NetStumbler by reading the Daily Drill Down “Stumble across rogue wireless access points.”
Sometimes you’ll have questions that MiniStumbler can’t answer. In that case, you’ll need to move up to a protocol analyzer. There are several good products to choose from. When you’re considering analyzers that look at WIFI networks, bear in mind that you’ll be looking down at the physical layer, so you won’t need to capture packets based on a particular IP address or port number.
The two best candidates I’ve had a chance to use are AirMagnet from AirMagnet, Inc., and Sniffer PDA from the folks at Network Associates. Both are good choices to have in your wireless bag of tools. One feature that I like about Sniffer PDA is that it saves to a file format that can be used by the Sniffer Wireless product that runs on a laptop. I’ll cover both of these products in upcoming Daily Drill Downs.
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