[Kickaha]

Hey all, I'm looking for a way to ID which WAP may be which in a network, even if I haven't attached to it.

Here's the situation: at work, we have a non-homogenous WAP pool (various makes and models) all using the same SSID to create one large network. The problem is, *some* of these WAPs don't play nice with Macs. They do fine with Windows machines, but not Macs. (So of course this is a Mac problem, and IT refuses to look into it at all. ) This is bollocks, because it's completely location-dependent within the building - my office: OK, a coworker on another floor: no WiFi. I go to his office, I have no WiFi, he comes to mine, he has WiFi. A Windows user will have WiFi in both locations. We have a large auditorium with several WAPs overlapping - if Mac users are the first, oh, dozen people connecting in that room, it's rock solid. After that, it seems to shunt us off to another WAP that is a no-Mac zone, and you can't get on. Annoying.

A group of us are trying to convince IT that no, really, it's specific WAPs that are at issue here, so they can take a closer look at those in particular. So what we need is a way of providing them with a unique WAP identifier of some sort, even if we haven't been able to log onto a WAP. (Otherwise all we can give them is a list of known good ones, which is really not nearly as useful.)

Any ideas?

[ThunderPoit]

iStumbler. It will give you the MAC address of each WAP it can find.

[Wyatt]

+1 for iStumbler. It's definitely the easiest option for this in OS X.

[Kickaha]

Unfortunately it doesn't seem it will work, since iStumbler is aimed at finding open networks. The SSID in question is locked down with WPA2 Enterprise and is invisible.

From the iStumbler FAQ (http://www.istumbler.net/help/faq.html):
"Does iStumbler allow me to access networks protected by WEP?
No. A few have asked for this feature but I don't plan to implement it. You can use KisMac for that."

So I checked out KisMac, and it looks like it'll do the job to report the BSSIDs.