Using Calix GigaSpire as an Over-the-Air Sniffer

I happen to work for a company that makes Wi-Fi RGs. “What’s an RG?” you might ask. The short answer is that it’s similar to a consumer Wi-Fi router, plus extra “carrier grade” capabilities (and a carrier grade certification*). For the longer answer, refer to my post entitled APs, Routers, and RGs.

* BBF hasn’t released their 802.11be certification as of this writing

“Who is Calix?” you might ask (you have a lot of questions!). It’s one of those billion dollar companies that serve a particular industry, and if you’re not part of that industry, you may have never heard of it. In Calix’s case, our customers are exclusively ISPs (aka “carriers,” hence the “carrier grade” thing above). We make hardware and software that goes into central offices, telecommunications cabinets, and subscriber homes and businesses. We also have our Calix Cloud platform to manage all of that. Our Wi-Fi RGs have three “GigaFamily” brands: GigaSpire, GigaPro, and GigaMesh. Besides that background, this post isn’t intended to be about the company, so we’ll move on.

Something that all Calix GigaFamily wireless systems have is the ability to act as an over-the-air wireless sniffer.

First, you have to log into the device with the support user that gives access to all areas of the web interface (the “admin” user doesn’t have access to the OTA sniffer). The username and password for the support user are outside the scope of this post. If you happen to be a Calix customer, you can find the info in the Calix Documentation Library ➔ Systems Products ➔ Premises ➔ Operation ➔ GigaFamily Operation ➔ EXOS Systems: Service Provider’s Guide, then on the first page of Chapter 4: EXOS Embedded Web Interface (EWI).

Since a picture is worth 1,000 words, perhaps a 2:27 video is worth 8.8 million (feel free to do the math).

Note that the GigaSpire only has the nose on it when it’s in sniffer mode (at which point a tongue in a cheek also comes out)…