CODEWITHSUNDEEP
perlmacosnetwork-programming
Brock Woolf
Brock Woolf

Reputation: 47302

How do I get the speed of an Apple Airport from Perl?

I would like to be able to get the speed of the wireless interface under Mac OS X. I have a perl script that gets the other information for the wireless card but I still need to get the connection speed.

For the moment I have statically set the airport speed with: $airport_rate = "54"; (see code below).

What command could I use to get the speed of the built in airport card or what am I missing in my code below. Thanks

EDIT: This code now works. Thanks. Sample output for the script:

ETHERNET IP    : 192.168.2.7
AIRPORT  IP    : 192.168.2.4
AIRPORT STATUS : CONNECTED
        SSID   : Forcefield
        RATE   : 54 Mb/s

#!/usr/bin/perl                                                                                                         
# a little script to get your network status                                                                            

$en0_info = `ifconfig en0 | grep "inet" | grep -v 127.0.0.1`;
$en1_info = `ifconfig en1 | grep "inet" | grep -v 127.0.0.1`;
$airport_info = `/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Versions/Current/Resources/airport -I`;

if($en0_info)
{
    $en0_info =~ /inet (.*) netmask/s;
    $output .= "ETHERNET IP    : $1\n";
}
else
{ $output .= "ETHERNET IP    : INACTIVE\n"; }

if($en1_info)
{
    $en1_info =~ /inet (.*) netmask/s;
    $en1_info = $1;
    $airport_info =~ /lastTxRate: (\d\d\d)/s;
    $airport_rate = $1;
    $airport_info =~ /BSSID(.*?)SSID: (.*?)\n/s;
    $airport_SSID = $2;
    $output .= "AIRPORT  IP    : $en1_info\n";
    $output .= "AIRPORT STATUS : CONNECTED\n";
    $output .= "        SSID   : $airport_SSID\n";
    $output .= "        RATE   : $airport_rate Mb/s\n";
}
else
{
    $output .= "AIRPORT STATUS : INACTIVE\n";
}

print "$output";

Upvotes: 2

Views: 454

Answers (1)

Penfold
Penfold

Reputation: 2568

I was surprised to discover this is non-trivial. However, a quick application of Yahoo! Search found a pointer to the 'airport' command line script, which looks like it'll give you the answers you want. See http://osxdaily.com/2007/01/18/airport-the-little-known-command-line-wireless-utility/

In a nutshell, /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Versions/Current/Resources/airport -I will give you what you seek. And it doesn't appear to require root privs, either.

Upvotes: 6

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