Access Points

Plugin: go.d.plugin Module: ap

Overview

This collector monitors various wireless access point metrics like connected clients, bandwidth, packets, transmit issues, signal strength, and bitrate for each device and its associated SSID.

This tool uses the iw command-line utility to discover nearby access points. It starts by running iw dev, which provides information about all wireless interfaces. Then, for each interface identified as an access point (type AP), the iw INTERFACE station dump command is executed to gather relevant metrics.

This collector is only supported on the following platforms:

• Linux

This collector only supports collecting metrics from a single instance of this integration.

Default Behavior

Auto-Detection

The plugin is able to auto-detect any access points on your Linux machine.

Limits

The default configuration for this integration does not impose any limits on data collection.

Performance Impact

The default configuration for this integration is not expected to impose a significant performance impact on the system.

Setup

You can configure the ap collector in two ways:

Method	Best for	How to
UI	Fast setup without editing files	Go to Nodes → Configure this node → Collectors → Jobs, search for ap, then click + to add a job.
File	If you prefer configuring via file, or need to automate deployments (e.g., with Ansible)	Edit go.d/ap.conf and add a job.

important

UI configuration requires paid Netdata Cloud plan.

Prerequisites

iw utility.

Make sure the iw utility is installed.

Configuration

Options

The following options can be defined globally: update_every.

Config options

Option	Description	Default	Required
update_every	Data collection frequency.	10	no
binary_path	Path to the iw binary. If an absolute path is provided, the collector will use it directly; otherwise, it will search for the binary in directories specified in the PATH environment variable.	/usr/sbin/iw	yes
timeout	Timeout for executing the binary, specified in seconds.	2	no

via UI

Configure the ap collector from the Netdata web interface:

1. Go to Nodes.
2. Select the node where you want the ap data-collection job to run and click the ⚙ (Configure this node). That node will run the data collection.
3. The Collectors → Jobs view opens by default.
4. In the Search box, type ap (or scroll the list) to locate the ap collector.
5. Click the + next to the ap collector to add a new job.
6. Fill in the job fields, then click Test to verify the configuration and Submit to save.
   • Test runs the job with the provided settings and shows whether data can be collected.
   • If it fails, an error message appears with details (for example, connection refused, timeout, or command execution errors), so you can adjust and retest.

via File

The configuration file name for this integration is go.d/ap.conf.

The file format is YAML. Generally, the structure is:

update_every: 1
autodetection_retry: 0
jobs:
  - name: some_name1
  - name: some_name2

You can edit the configuration file using the edit-config script from the Netdata config directory.

cd /etc/netdata 2>/dev/null || cd /opt/netdata/etc/netdata
sudo ./edit-config go.d/ap.conf

Examples

Custom binary path

The executable is not in the directories specified in the PATH environment variable.

jobs:
  - name: custom_iw
    binary_path: /usr/local/sbin/iw

Alerts

There are no alerts configured by default for this integration.

Metrics

Metrics grouped by scope.

The scope defines the instance that the metric belongs to. An instance is uniquely identified by a set of labels.

Per wireless device

These metrics refer to the entire monitored application.

Labels:

Label	Description
device	Wireless interface name
ssid	SSID

Metrics:

Metric	Description	Dimensions	Unit
ap.clients	Connected clients	clients	clients
ap.net	Bandwidth	received, sent	kilobits/s
ap.packets	Packets	received, sent	packets/s
ap.issues	Transmit Issues	retries, failures	issues/s
ap.signal	Average Signal	average signal	dBm
ap.bitrate	Bitrate	receive, transmit	Mbps

Troubleshooting

Diagnostics

Debug Mode

Important: Debug mode is not supported for data collection jobs created via the UI using the Dyncfg feature.

To troubleshoot issues with the ap collector, run the go.d.plugin with the debug option enabled. The output should give you clues as to why the collector isn't working.

• Navigate to the plugins.d directory, usually at /usr/libexec/netdata/plugins.d/. If that's not the case on your system, open netdata.conf and look for the plugins setting under [directories].

  cd /usr/libexec/netdata/plugins.d/

• Switch to the netdata user.

  sudo -u netdata -s

• Run the go.d.plugin to debug the collector:

  ./go.d.plugin -d -m ap

  To debug a specific job:

  ./go.d.plugin -d -m ap -j jobName

Getting Logs

If you're encountering problems with the ap collector, follow these steps to retrieve logs and identify potential issues:

• Run the command specific to your system (systemd, non-systemd, or Docker container).
• Examine the output for any warnings or error messages that might indicate issues. These messages should provide clues about the root cause of the problem.

System with systemd

Use the following command to view logs generated since the last Netdata service restart:

journalctl _SYSTEMD_INVOCATION_ID="$(systemctl show --value --property=InvocationID netdata)" --namespace=netdata --grep ap

System without systemd

Locate the collector log file, typically at /var/log/netdata/collector.log, and use grep to filter for collector's name:

grep ap /var/log/netdata/collector.log

Note: This method shows logs from all restarts. Focus on the latest entries for troubleshooting current issues.

Docker Container

If your Netdata runs in a Docker container named "netdata" (replace if different), use this command:

docker logs netdata 2>&1 | grep ap