Hardware & Software Support; Supported Nics; Supported Microsoft Windows Versions; Network Instruments Custom Driver Installation - Network Instruments Observer User Manual Addendum

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Observer Software and Wireless LANs
An Addendum to the Network Instruments Observer User Manual
To use Observer in an 802.11b wireless environment, you must follow the instructions
for custom driver installation (see below) and Observer setup (see page 6 of this
manual).
Hardware & Software Support

Supported NICs

• Symbol Spectrum24 - 41x1 models
• Nortel 41x1 models
• Cisco Aironet 340-350 series models
• Intel 2011b models

Supported Microsoft Windows Versions

• 2000
• XP

Network Instruments Custom Driver Installation

For Observer to properly analyze 802.11b wireless packets, the driver must pass
through all of the packets, not just those packets addressed to that NIC (i.e., it must
put the card in 'promiscuous' mode). Observer must also have access to the 'raw'
802.11b wireless packets.
Because standard wireless drivers do not support either raw or promiscuous mode,
NI has written a custom driver so that you can use Observer as a wireless protocol
analyzer.
Before you install the driver, you must:
• Verify that the NIC is operating correctly with the manufacturer-supplied driver as
described in the manufacturer's installation instructions.
• Install Observer. Refer to the Observer User Manual for details. You must install
Observer so that you can update the NIC driver from the Observer directory.
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