airControl isssues and wishes (realistic!)

[bobcopro]

Let me start with overall a Godsend of a product - being able to see signal strengths and units in one place has been desperately needed to find problem links (little time consuming to go through hundreds of units and checking signal strength.) Overall reliability on the red/green status somewhat dependable.

When first installed we were having a lot of issues. Giving Thomas access to my system (as well as having Skype running for questions) allowed him to spend HOURS finding the issues and resolving most of them, as well as identifying some issues in the beta. This was an impressive show of dedication on Thomas's and Ubiquiti's part in working their software out on real world systems. I have ahd some real issues with the 3.5-RC firmware and it was hard to separate this out from airControl issues. 3.5 has since been removed from all units.

I do have a couple of issues yet mentioned by others. Once it hits the magic timeout period it doesn't pick a unit back up, even though the info is showing and the WebUI comes right up. Sometimes just hitting the WebUI button wakes airControl back up and the light goes green, but usually I have to disconnect/reconnect (scan will not pick them back up either - usually.)

I realize this cannot be a "see all - do all" program - at least not in the realistic future, but there are a few things I'd really like to see - the first few i consider bugs or no-brainers.

1-Sort by actual IP address, not the computer logical 1.15 - 1.151 - 1.152 - 1.16 / it makes it really hard to find units at 5am!
2-Get rid of the system AP-Groups folders on the left with one for each SSID. What are they for? Nothing displayed in them. Let me create a folder and stick the associated clients in it and it would be useful (I tried - nothing goes in there.) Also let me adjust the size of that pane - I have long SSID's.
3-Save the damn username/password - I don't use different ones for hundreds of units!
4-Use the whole browser window - I need info, not a pretty gray outline taking up an 1" on either side.
5-Show frequency by both channel number on frequency, or give me the choice. I hate having to convert them.
6-When I change the number of rows in the log view I'd like it to stay that way in between sessions.

Really nice to have
1-Configurable notification (I don't want the thing to email every time it thinks it's lost a unit - not dependable enough for that yet) - perhaps thresholds (lost 6 units) or once it learns how to recover from losing one tell me if it loses it 3 times.) I'd settle for a beep initially! It would be nice to have a ping watchdog for airControl so it would let me know when it no longer "sees" the primary router or an IP address from the Internet.
2-It's nice to see how many clients are associated with a unit, but I'd really like to be able to see them as a sub-tree. First AP - then indented each AP or Station that's associated to it. I could do this manually with the folders if they worked, but it would be really nice to have it do it for me on the main display.
3-I'd really like to see the MAC address of all units associated with an AP in the device details view as well as the time it connected. It would allow me to search for where a customer is connected. The little picture of the units is cute, but I know what they look like - give me another column for information.
4-Schedule firmware upgrades or even reboots.

Bottom line - I like the information all in one place - but I need to sort it in a meaningful way whether it be by IP address or the unit's association (tree view.) This would be a great time saver for me when I'm trying to figure out if I've got an AP or bridge down or if my internet connection is missing. I'd also like to know where customers are connected and which units are getting the most connections (most money in my pocket.)

The mapping stuff and all would be nice, but I'm going for stuff I think should be doable initially.

[UBNT-Thomas]

Thanks for the feedback and making your system available to look into some of the issues.


I do have a couple of issues yet mentioned by others. Once it hits the magic timeout period it doesn't pick a unit back up, even though the info is showing and the WebUI comes right up. Sometimes just hitting the WebUI button wakes airControl back up and the light goes green, but usually I have to disconnect/reconnect (scan will not pick them back up either - usually.)


The major issue right now is that devices do not contact AirControl when they recover, instead AirControl is detecting them or not. More about that here: http://www.ubnt.com/forum/showthread.php?t=14267

As AirControl cannot connect to a device it will count failed attempts (see SSH connect failures in the log) and flag the device as "red" when the max attempt count (5) is reached. After that, it will attempt connections less frequently. The delay increases with the attempt count (exponential backoff), hence you would typically not see a device go back to "green" when it comes back online after being down for a long time. The remedy for this is having the device ping the server when it comes up, as discussed in above thread. This is something you can expect to see from us in the near future, it will require a firmware upgrade though.

In the interim, you would need to hit the scan button, AirControl will try to connect to all "red" devices then. If this does not work on your system then please send me email with a specific example so I can investigate it.


I realize this cannot be a "see all - do all" program - at least not in the realistic future, but there are a few things I'd really like to see - the first few i consider bugs or no-brainers.

1-Sort by actual IP address, not the computer logical 1.15 - 1.151 - 1.152 - 1.16 / it makes it really hard to find units at 5am!
2-Get rid of the system AP-Groups folders on the left with one for each SSID. What are they for? Nothing displayed in them. Let me create a folder and stick the associated clients in it and it would be useful (I tried - nothing goes in there.) Also let me adjust the size of that pane - I have long SSID's.

"AP-Groups" is there to provide a reasonable default grouping by network ID. Groups shown there should not be empty because these are actual ESSID values reported from your units.

ESSID grouping might not be perfect for everybody, the aim is to provide a grouping that useful for many. So far we have not gotten much feedback from other users on that one. We will provide what most folks ask for! Ability to create your own auto-grouping by any attribute is probably a bit further away, but you are free to create your own groups that will show under "Watch" (I see some on your system actually, and those are not empty!)

3-Save the damn username/password - I don't use different ones for hundreds of units!

Frequently asked for , we will add an option to remember the last entered values.

[bobcopro]

"AP-Groups" is there to provide a reasonable default grouping by network ID. Groups shown there should not be empty because these are actual ESSID values reported from your units.

ESSID grouping might not be perfect for everybody, the aim is to provide a grouping that useful for many. So far we have not gotten much feedback from other users on that one. We will provide what most folks ask for! Ability to create your own auto-grouping by any attribute is probably a bit further away, but you are free to create your own groups that will show under "Watch" (I see some on your system actually, and those are not empty!)

Frequently asked for , we will add an option to remember the last entered values.

OK - maybe I'm a little dense (most likely) I see nothing in any of the group folders. I would expect if I click on the folder I'd see things in the right pane for the units? I can just close the top folder for AP-Groups and make it go away (am I the only one who uses different SSID's for the units - how do you tell what AP a customer is having trouble connecting to if they all have the same name?), but when trying to create my own either with specific criteria or manually added, I don't see anything.

And don't think for a minute you can skip over the sorting by IP address request! Also, most importantly it's great to be able to export the log (I'm not sure why) but I'd really like to be able to export the info from the devices screen, or at least be able to cut and paste it with it retaining the formatted cells. First to be able to match the IP's showing to the list of what's supposed to be there from Excel or Filemaker and secondly to be able to compare signal strengths on units during different seasons (no leaves - leaves on trees, etc.)

Once again Thomas - thanks for the excellent work. You know, I'd pay for that IP sort!

[bobcopro]

OK - one more. I don't get this one

"The major issue right now is that devices do not contact AirControl when they recover, instead AirControl is detecting them or not. More about that here: http://www.ubnt.com/forum/showthread.php?t=14267"

as all my units have static IP's. They're not going anywhere - often when they turn red I see it happen, click on it and hit "WebUI" and the unit bounces right up, so I'm not sure why airControl is losing it in the first place and why the 5 tries don't recover it. It acts like once the SSH stops responding to airControl it never comes back.

Mind you there are a few that it legitimately loses contact with.

[UBNT-Thomas]

The piece that pertains to your scenario is that there is no guarantee that when a device comes back online or reassociates it will immediately be found by AirControl. This is when you need to hit the scan button, which should always work since the IP numbers don't change in your case.

Can you please have a look at your log and point me to cases where you think the device was available at the time AirControl attempted and failed to connect to it? Or note the last time it logged a failed connect attempt before you went to the web UI? Looking at the log it appears the are quite a few cases where connections are lost intermittently. Please send info through email or ping me on Skype.

[raytaylor]

2-It's nice to see how many clients are associated with a unit, but I'd really like to be able to see them as a sub-tree. First AP - then indented each AP or Station that's associated to it. I could do this manually with the folders if they worked, but it would be really nice to have it do it for me on the main display.

I have found that by clicking customize and adding the ESSID column to the node list, you can then create a new dynamic device group folder and use the ESSID as the 'must contain' rule.