Default Capture

By default, AirMagnet WiFi Analyzer PRO only has a 64 MB capture capacity in Live Capture mode. When this limit is reached, older data will be overwritten and discarded. You will only have the most recent 64 MB of captured traffic in the capture buffer, which can then be saved to a file in one of the following formats:

• .amc - Can be played back by WiFi Analyzer
• .cap - for use in Sniffer, Wireshark, WinPcap, etc.
• .ecp - for use in Ethereal

The following describes how to capture more data to disk.  NOTE: WiFi Analyzer can be used in single adapter mode or multi-adapter mode.

- Single adapter mode: scans the specified channels as selected in Configuration > Scan.  The default setting is 250ms which means each configured channel will be scanned for 250ms.  With this setting, 4 channels will be scanned per second.  

- Multi-adapter mode: forces each supported wireless network adapter to only scan one selected channel.  This means that packets for the selected channels will be captured without interruption. See KB AM WiFi Analyzer: Capturing Files with Multiple Adapters for more information.  

Capture to Disk

With the Capture-to-Disk feature, the application can effectively use the hard drive (or any other high-capacity storage device) of the PC on which it is running as the capture buffer during live capture. In this case, the default minimum capture capacity, which is also the file size, is 512 MB; the maximum file size can be set to 2 GB. Capture data is saved to a .amm file which can then be played back in WiFi Analyzer.
 

• From the toolbar, click File > Configure (or click the Gear icon)
• In Configuration, select the Profile tab
• Check the Capture to Disk check box, click Yes to the pop-up to reset
• Select a File Size, click Yes
  • 512 MB
  • 1024 MB
  • 1536 MB
  • 2048 MB
• Select a Byte Slice Size, click Yes
  • 128 bytes
  • 256 bytes
  • 512 bytes
  • 1028 bytes
  • whole
• Choose the location to save files
• Click OK to exit

Wait until the application reset has completed.

Note: Once the reset is completed, the application will send all data it captures to the PC's hard drive until the set (Packet Capture) File Size is reached. At that point, the application stops processing data and the following message pops up:

"You have reached your selected file size limit. Click “Yes” to save the data to a file. Click “No” to delete this captured data and start a new capture. "
 

To save the data, click Yes and proceed to save the data; or click No to discard the data and start a new capture.

Capturing Multiple Files

In Configuration, you can also set to capture multiple files:

• Check the box Use Multiple Capture Files
• Choose how many files to capture
  • Be mindful of your disk capacity; if you choose 10 files with a File Size set to 2048 MB, then you will capture ~20 GB of trace files.
  • The max number of files is 100
• Choose to enable non-stop wraparound capture if you prefer