INSTALLATION GUIDE

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Riverbed Technology.

AirPcap Installation Guide

Part Number: 712-00080-01 Rev. A

Document Revision: May 2011

Riverbed Technology

199 Fremont Street

San Francisco, CA 94105

Tel: +1 415 247 8800

Fax: +1 415 247 8801

www.riverbed.com

CONTENTS

Introduction ............................................... 3

Requirements ............................................ 3

What is in the Box ..................................... 3

What is on the CD ..................................... 3

Driver Installation ...................................... 4

Wireshark Installation ............................... 6

Additional Tools Installation .................... 7

Developers Resources Installation ............ 7

FIGURES

Fig. 1: The CD Setup Page – Install

Driver. ..........................................................4

Fig. 2: Found New Hardware Wizard ....... 5

Fig. 3: The CD Setup Page – Wireshark

Installation ..................................................6

Introduction

Welcome to the Riverbed AirPcap wireless capture system. This Installation

Guide applies to the all of the adapters in the AirPcap Product Family including

the Classic, Tx, and Nx.

Requirements

• The minimum requirements to install and run the AirPcap Software are:

• Pentium 3 processor

• 256 Mbyte RAM

• USB 2.0 interface

• One of the following operating systems: Microsoft® Windows 2000,

Windows XP (32/64), Windows 2003 Server (32/64), Windows Vista (32/64),

Windows 7 (32/64).

What is in the Box

• One adapter from the AirPcap Product Family

• This Installation Guide

• The AirPcap Software Distribution CD

• Two (AirPcap Nx) Pigtails: 45 cm MC to SMA cables

• Two (AirPcap Nx) 2.4GHz band 5dBi antennas

What is on the CD

The AirPcap Software Distribution CD contains:

• The AirPcap driver, needed to use the adapter

• This Installation Guide

• The AirPcap Family of Wireless Capture Adapters User’s Guide

• The Wireshark® Network Analyzer

• A folder with additional programs

• Resources for developers interested in directly accessing the AirPcap adapter

from their applications

Driver Installation

Important: Do NOT insert your adapter before installing the software.

Please follow the steps below and this guide will inform you

when it is appropriate to insert the adapter.

To install the software, follow these steps:

1. Power on your PC.

2. If you have a previous version of the AirPcap Software Distribution already

installed in your system, uninstall it by clicking on:

Start » Control Panel » Add or Remove Programs » AirPcap Software

3. Insert the AirPcap Software Distribution CD into your CD drive.

4. The CD setup page should appear automatically. If it does not, please select

your CD-Rom Drive manually to open the setup page.

5. Click on “Install Driver” to initiate the installation.

Figure 1: The CD Setup Page – Install Driver.

6. Follow the installation instructions. The installer tries to detect if WinPcap

is already installed in the machine, and if the installed WinPcap version

supports AirPcap wireless capture. If not, you will need to upgrade WinPcap

during the installation.

7. Upon completing the software installation, reboot the system if requested.

Important: Now plug your adapter into an appropriate port on your

machine.

Depending on the operating system version, when you plug the adapter in for

the ﬁrst time, Windows may show the “Found New Hardware Wizard” (Figure 2).

Any time this happens, answer these questions (if they appear) in the following

way:

Can Windows connect to Windows Update to search for software?

» Select “No, not this time”

What do you want the wizard to do?

» Select “Install the software automatically”

Figure 2: Found New Hardware Wizard

Wireshark Network Analyzer Installation

Wireshark, previously known as Ethereal, is the

world’s most used network analyzer. It is used by

network professionals for troubleshooting, analysis, software and protocol

development, and education. Your AirPcap Wireless adapter has been

integrated into Wireshark. Once you have installed Wireshark you can

immediately start capturing and analyzing 802.11 trafﬁc.

To install Wireshark, follow these steps:

1. If you have a previous version of Wireshark already installed in your system,

uninstall it by clicking on:

Start » Control Panel » Add or Remove Programs » Wireshark

2. Insert the AirPcap Software Distribution CD into your CD drive.

3. The CD setup page should appear automatically. If it does not, please select

your CD-Rom Drive manually to open the setup page.

4. Click on “Install the Wireshark Analyzer” to initiate the installation.

5. Follow the installation instructions.

Figure 3: The CD Setup Page – Wireshark Installation

Additional Tools Installation

Additional AirPcap-compatible programs can be found in the installation CD,

by clicking on the “browse CD” button from the CD setup page, and then

opening the programs folder.

Developers Resources Installation

Riverbed provides a developer’s pack with everything you need for using an

AirPcap adapter in your application for capturing 802.11 packets:

• Include and lib ﬁles

• Online API documentation

• A ready-to-compile set of example programs that shows how to conﬁgure

the adapter and capture packets

The AirPcap Developer’s pack can be found in the “developers” folder of the

AirPcap Software Distribution CD. To use it, just copy the folder to your hard

disk, and click on “StartHere.html”.

The developer’s folder also contains a copy of the WinPcap developer’s pack, in

the “WinPcap_Devpack” subfolder. The AirPcap adapters are 100% compatible

with WinPcap, and this makes it straightforward to add 802.11 support to your

existing WinPcap-based application.

If you are interested in adding support for the AirPcap adapters in your

program, you can contact Riverbed support.