$ cat /proc/net/wireless
Inter-|sta| Quality | Discarded packets
face |tus|link level noise| nwid crypt misc
eth2: f0 15. 24. 4. 181 0 0
For each device, the following information is given :
- Status : Its current state. This is a device dependent information.
- Quality - link : general quality of the reception.
- Quality - level : signal strength at the receiver.
- Quality - noise : silence level (no packet) at the receiver.
- Discarded - nwid : number of discarded packets due to invalid network id.
- Discarded - crypt : number of packet unable to decrypt.
- Discarded - misc : unused (for now).
These informations allow the user to have a better feedback about his system. A high value of Discarded - nwid packet might indicate a nwid configuration problem or an adjacent network. The Quality - level might help him to track shadow areas.
The basic difference between Quality - link and Quality - level is that the first indicate how good the reception is (for example the percentage of correctly received packets) and the second how strong the signal is. The Quality - level is some directly measurable data that is likely to have the same signification across devices.
When the Quality values have been updated since the last read of the entry, a dot will follow that value (typically, it mean that a new measure has been made).