Thread: How do you find lost wifi devices ?

I have to locate 6 cisco 1200 series wifi units at a site where they are hidden by panels. (The original installers left NO, repeat NO documentation..... Grrrr....)

Removing the panels is not an option due to the complexity and scale of the site, until I can positively pinpoint the devices.

Netstumbler gives me an approximation, but not close enough.

They are all on line and passing traffic (though I can´t find their IP addresses).

Does anyone have any tips for finding the damn things ? I need to be able to pinpoint them to within 3 or 4 feet at most.

Thanks folks, as always your help is appreciated.

Can you tone out their cables?

G´day, Alex.

I know which cable they are on from the rack, but the other ends and the devices themselves are hidden behind panels. I get a good signal in the rooms they are in, but not enough variation on net stumbler to locate them. Removing wall, ceiling and floor panels isn´t practical, or acceptible to the client at this stage. I do know the length of the cable, as my tester reports, but that´s all.

Is that what you meant ?

Well, is it not possible (if the wire is magnetic) to trace via the magnetic propeties of the wire?

Tried chasing the mains power feed instead (Assuming they're not PoE!)

I can´t trace any cables as they are hidden too.

For the purposes of the excercise, imagine yourself standing in an empty room, with a wireless device that could be in any position behind any of the walls, or above in the ceiling. It might even be under the floor.

There are no physical indications, no cables, no power, nothing that can give any clues. Just blank walls, and a signal that doesn´t vary significantly when read with netstumbler.

That´s what I´m faced with... six of them in six different rooms...

Get an antenna, and put a lead coat on it so it only picks up in a small area :P

Thermal Image Camera?

What about a fibre optic sight of some sort that will allow you to look up above the ceiling without pushing the whole tile up?

Oh and by tone out I mean using a tone generator/detector you can connect to one end of the cable and detect where the other end is in the wall/ on the other side of the ceiling tile...

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Is there a plan somewhere detailing the location of power sockets? If all else fails you can at least open the panels directly by the sockets. Would cut down the number of panels you need to open.

Originally Posted by jamster

Made me think of this:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/04...covered_after/



Anyway, although i'm by no means an expert, I recall you may be able to triangulate the radio signal. http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?s...&tid=193&tid=4

I've lost machines in my house before now, got one at the moment that i can ping bt have no idea where it is!
Mind you, considering I'll be ethernet enabling my alarm system when i upgrade it in the new year, it's probably just a smoke detector or something silly like that!

Originally Posted by CrystalVPS

Get an antenna, and put a lead coat on it so it only picks up in a small area :P

That's a good one! Stick it in a pringles tube a'la directional antenna and wrap some more foil around the outside. Then use something like NetStumbler's S/N trace to localise it