Sessions

The Sessions page shows information on client stations associated with access points in the cluster. Each client is identified by its MAC address, along with the AP (location) to which it is currently connected.

Note: When accessing the Cluster - Sessions page, a maximum of 20 clients are reported per radio. To see all the associated clients, directly access the Client Associations page of the interested AP.

To view a particular statistic for client sessions, select an item from the Display drop-down list and click Go. You can view information about idle time, data rate, signal strength and so on; all of which are described in detail in the table below.

A session in this context is the period of time in which a user on a client device (station) with a unique MAC address maintains a connection with the wireless network. The session begins when the client logs on to the network, and the session ends when the client either logs off intentionally or loses the connection for some other reason.

Note: A session is not the same as an association, which describes a client connection to a particular access point. A client network connection can shift from one clustered AP to another within the context of the same session. A client station can roam between APs and maintain the session.

Details about the session information shown is described in the following table.

Field	Description
AP Location	Indicates the physical location of the access point. The location can be a maximum of 64 characters in length. All alphanumeric characters except double quote (") are valid. Null or empty space is not allowed.
Cluster Name	Enter the name of the cluster for the AP to join. The name can be a maximum of 64 characters in length. All alphanumeric characters except double quote (") are valid. Null or empty space is not allowed. The cluster name is not sent to other APs in the cluster. You must configure the same cluster name on each AP that is a member of the cluster. The cluster name must be unique for each cluster you configure on the network.
User MAC	Indicates the MAC address of the wireless client device. A MAC address is a hardware address that uniquely identifies each node of a network.
Idle	Indicates the amount of time this station has remained inactive. A station is considered to be idle when it is not receiving or transmitting data. Note: Idle time is expressed in milliseconds and is not an accurate representation of the client uptime.
Rate	The speed at which this access point is transferring data to the specified client. The data transmission rate is measured in megabits per second (Mbps). This value should fall within the range of the advertised rate set for the mode in use on the access point. For example, 6 to 54 Mbps for 802.11a.
Signal	Indicates the strength of the radio frequency (RF) signal the client receives from the access point. The measure used for this is a value known as Received Signal Strength Indication (RSSI), and will be a value between 0 and 100. RSSI is determined by a mechanism implemented on the network interface card (NIC) of the client station.
Receive Total	Indicates number of total packets received by the client during the current session.
Transmit Total	Indicates number of total packets transmitted to the client during this session.
Error Rate	Indicates the percentage of time frames are dropped during transmission on this access point.

Sorting Session Information

To sort the information shown in the tables by a particular indicator, click the column label by which you want to order things. For example, if you want to see the table rows ordered by signal strength, click the Signal column label. The entries will be sorted by signal strength.