winfo ~ Tue, 09 Mar 2010 00:57:11 +0000
winfo is a small utility to display information about an access point and the wireless connection to the access point. Currently it is a console application and reports the MAC address of the access point, link quality, network name (BSSID), the network type (managed or ad-hoc), and displays a list of non-hidden networks within range.
Download version 0.5 (universal binary)
This utility does not work properly in OS 10.6 (Snow Leopard).
winfo is designed around a reverse engineered API, AppleEightOhTwoEleven, that has not been updated since 2002. I haven't the time to figure out how to reverse engineer the API changes that are affecting winfo. Therefore, I do not see any fixes for winfo coming any time soon. However, you can add the following BASH script to your path to make using an Apple supplied tool a little easier:
#!/bin/bash
AIRPORT=/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Versions/Current/Resources/airport
${AIRPORT} $1
I saved the script as "~/bin/ap". Using this script I can get information about the AP I am currently connected to by doing ap -I. To get a list of APs around me, ap -s.
~ 8 March 2010