SSID BSSID RSSI CHANNEL HT CC SECURITY (auth/unicast/group) While you’re playing, you may as well create a symlink (a shortcut) to the utility so you don’t have to type that long path name all the time: sudo ln -s /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/amework/Versions/Current/Resources/airport /usr/bin/airportĪmong the easiest things you can do is print a list of the Wi-Fi networks within range of your computer, but unlike the Airport menubar item, this report shows you a bunch of extra, precise data, such as which encryption protocol (if any) is being used on the network: $ airport en1 scan The tool let’s you do a number of interesting things, so it’s worth playing around with.

At a Terminal command prompt, type: /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/amework/Versions/Current/Resources/airport Invoking the utility without arguments prints a useful (if incomplete) usage message. The utility is part of the Apple80211 Private Framework used to power your Mac’s Airport menubar icon. Unfortunately, it’s so squirreled away that most people don’t seem to know about it. Mac OS X ships with a command-line tool called airport that can do all sorts of nifty things with Wi-Fi networks. What many don’t know is that Mac OS X comes with a built-in command-line tool to do all sorts of nifty things with Wi-Fi networks, from packet capture (traffic sniffing) to scanning nearby networks’ signal to noise ratios. Many Mac OS X users lament the lack of sophisticated network analysis tools, often prevalent and seemingly prolific on Linux systems.

Wireless network sniffer mac