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The Device List menu displays an overall view of (client) devices connected to your LAN. Information is gathered from different sources, such as
Wi-Fi clients, DHCP leases, ARP tables, and more.
Interface: reports details of the interface on which the router sees the device. Starting in release 2021.3, this includes physical and logical interface name, and wireless SSID.
br
is a bridge (representing the LAN).eth
is an Ethernet physical interface. This name might be used directly, or it might be used vlan
is a virtual interface that will always be related to a physical interface. wl
is a wireless radio interface. You'll probably have several of these, SSID
is the WiFi network name where the wireless client connects to.
In FreshTomato/Linux, device names start at 0. The first Wi-Fi adapter might be named “wl0”. The second Ethernet adapter might be named “eth1”. Additional instances are created when virtual interfaces are created (secondary SSIDs).
Media: In this column, an icon represents the interface on which the device is connected and its connection status. Interface types include:
WAN interfaces are represented with black and white inverted.
A greyed out universal power symbol represents a device which is disconnected or off.
MAC Address: is the physical (hardware) address associated with the interface.
IP Address: displays the IP address linked to the MAC address.
Name: shows the DHCP Hostname aka Client Identifier. If a name is missing, it could be because your device is not directly connected to the router (e.g. via external switch or AP). You can work around this by adding your own dhcp-host reference in the dnsmasq Custom configuration.
For example:
dhcp-host=70:EE:50:37:E8:46,myhostname
Please note this field is also affected by the “Generate a name for DHCP clients which do not otherwise have one” parameter in the DHCP/DNS menu.
RSSI: indicates Relative Signal Strength. This applies only to Wi-Fi clients connected to this router. RSSI is measured in negative numbers, where 0 is the best possible value. Thus, -53 is a stronger signal than -74. If possible, keep your wireless devices away from metal, concrete, mirrors, and appliances with large motors or compressors (air conditioners, refrigerators, elevators). They all can consistently reduce signal strength/quality.
Quality: is similar to RSSI but considers other parameters, such as noise floor, and interference. This gives a more accurate assessment of the signal.
TX/RX Rate: is the current transmit/receive speeds between FreshTomato and the wireless client device. These numbers will go up and down based on the activity level of the client device. This is not the same as the link speed. It is normal for the speed to be low for idle clients.
Lease: display the time remaining before the DHCP lease expires. If you hover over the lease time, a new button appears which allows to delete the current DHCP lease from the database and de-authorize the device (if it's connected via WiFi). This can be useful when creating static IP reservations, to cause connected devices to refresh their previously automatically assigned IP to the new, manually reserved one:
Noise floor: indicates the amount of interference affecting each physical radio interface. Noise, like RSSI, is measured in negative numbers. The best possible value is -100dbm. Any interference will push up the (noise) value and decrease the Quality.
If you experience a strong RSSI and a strong Noise floor, the Wi-Fi is likely to be unusable. In such situations, the main issue is usually other routers or Access Points transmitting on the same channel. Use the Wireless Survey function to get more information.
On the 2.4GHz band, common sources of interference include Bluetooth devices, cordless phones, wireless headphones, low quality power supplies, microwave ovens, etcetera. On the 5GHz band, there are typically fewer sources of interference. One source of interference is DFS (Dynamic Frequency Selection) but for specific channels only. DFS is a Wi-Fi function that enables 5GHz Wi-Fi to use frequencies that are generally reserved for radar. Ironically, DFS was designed to reduce interference, not increase it. DFS interference varies, depending on the country/physical location of the equipment. Knowing this, if you suspect interference is due to DFS, please consult this page for additional details: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_WLAN_channels
Measure: On certain devices (Mainly MIPS-based) there's an extra button to trigger the measurement of Noise Floor (interference). For more information on noise floor, see the Wireless Survey page.
Network Discovery: Starting with release 2021.4, a network discovery function was introduced. It is disabled by default. If enabled, it will remain on for the length of the web interface session (depending on the cookie in use). Network Discovery can be set to use the Linux arping command or the traceroute command. Essentially, the function scans all the IP addresses in range to try to better populate the Device List table. Arping is the preferred setting, as it's faster and lighter on resources. However ,sometimes, such as with Apple devices, traceroute appears to perform network discovery better. Discovery will stop as soon as you leave the Device List page.
To the right of the Network Discovery mode is a non-configurable countdown timer which represents how often the script is run. The countdown is essentially the ARP cache aging time. Remember that modern Wi-Fi devices might stay connected to the router while in deep sleep mode. Network Discovery will likely detect those devices, but the Hostname information may not appear until they are awakened.
External links
List of WLAN channels