Abstract:
A method and apparatus for detecting and diagnosing wireless network failures, provides for capturing, analyzing, and displaying detailed information relative to data packets and/or frames transmitted across a wireless network including an IEEE 802.11 LAN.

Description:
RELATED APPLICATIONS 
     This Application is related to Ser. No. 09/875,544, filed Jun. 6, 2001, for “Method and Apparatus For Filtering That Specifies The Types Of Frames To Be Captured And To Be Displayed For An IEEE 802.11 Wireless LAN;” and to Ser. No. 09/953,671, For: “Method and Apparatus For Capture, Analysis, and Display Of Packet Information Sent In An IEEE 802.11 Wireless Network,” the teachings of all of which are incorporated herein to the extent that hey do not conflict herewith. The related Applications, and the present Application have the same Assignee. 
    
    
     FIELD OF INVENTION 
     The present invention relates generally to computerized communication networks for permitting computers to communicate with each other in an organized manner, and more particularly to a network troubleshooting tool for detecting, diagnosing, and repairing network failures, which tool includes a method for capturing, analyzing and displaying detailed information about data packets or frames transmitted across a wireless communications network such as IEEE802.11 local area network (LAN). 
     INVENTION BACKGROUND 
     Over the years, the wireless communication field enjoyed tremendous growth and popularity. Wireless technology now reaches or is capable of reaching nearly every place on the face of the earth. Hundreds of millions of people exchange information every day using pagers, cellular phones, and other wireless communication devices. With the success of wireless telephony and messaging services, wireless technology has also made significant inroads into the area of personal and business computing. Without the constraints imposed by wired networks, network users can move about almost without restriction and access a communication network from nearly any location, enabling wireless transmission of a variety of information types including data, video, voice and the like through the network. 
     Many different forms data communication protocols have been developed for enabling computers to communicate with one another in an orderly manner. For example, several proprietary versions of wireless local area networks (LANs) were implemented for testing and development. One wireless network standard that was recently adopted by the wireless community is the IEEE802.11 LAN, which led to a surge in use of wireless LANs. The IEEE802.11 standard establishes specifications on the parameters of both the medium access control and the physical layers for enabling wireless connectivity between fixed, portable, and moving stations within a local area. The term “station” refers hereinafter to an active or passive device part of a computer network that is capable of communicating at least one data packet or frame within the computer network. Such stations include, but not limited to, personal computers, servers, routers, printers, personal digital assistants, scanners and data collectors, palmtop computers, handheld PCs, pen-based computers, and the like. 
     According to the IEEE802.11 standard, the physical layer that handles transmission of data between stations, may utilize either direct sequence spread spectrum, frequency hopping spread spectrum or infrared (IR) pulse position modulation. The medium access control layer (MAC) comprises a set of protocols that is responsible for maintaining order in the use of the shared medium. In accordance with the MAC protocol, when a station has a data packet or frame to be transmitted, it first listens to ensure no other station is transmitting. If the channel is clear, it then transmits the packet. Otherwise, it chooses a random “backoff factor” that determines the amount of time the station must wait until it is allowed to transmit the packet. During periods in which the channel is clear, the transmitting station decrements its backoff counter, and when the channel is busy it does not decrement its backoff counter. When the backoff counter reaches zero, then the station transmits the packet. Since the probability that two stations will choose the same backoff factor is small, collisions between packets are thus minimized. In certain environments, before a packet is to be transmitted, the transmitting station initially sends a short request-to-send (RTS) packet containing information on the length of the time required to transmit the packet. If the receiving station hears the RTS, it responds with a short clear-to-send (CTS) packet. After this exchange, the transmitting station sends its packet. When the packet is successfully received, as determined by a cyclic redundancy check (CRC), the receiving station transmits an acknowledgement (ACK) packet. 
     Like wired network counterparts, wireless networks may, during operation, encounter network difficulties or anomalies including, but not limited to, data traffic congestion at peak usage, point failures, and the like. Such network difficulties negatively impact network responsiveness and throughput. As a result, network users experience productivity loss, network processing delays and other disruptions. A measure of a network&#39;s performance is often referred to as the quality of service. Quality of service is typically measured by responsiveness, including the amount of time expended waiting for images, text, and other data to be transferred, and by throughput of data across a communications channel. Other aspects may be application-specific, for example, quality of playback, jitter, quality of the data transmitted over the communication channel, and the like. In order to troubleshoot, maintain, and optimize the performance of communication networks, the data traffic flowing through the communication channel is monitored, tested and analyzed to provide rapid detection, diagnosis and correction of network failure and system breakdown, through use of tolls developed for this purpose. Network Associates, Inc., of Santa Clara, Calif., has been in the forefront of technology for many years in developing and providing software for managing and troubleshooting computer networks. The software is known as “Sniffer® Software”. 
     In the course of testing and analyzing a network&#39;s quality of service, a network monitoring tool is typically used to access a passive station positioned at a point along a wired network connection or communication channel through which all of the data traffic of interest streams. By accessing the passive station with the network monitoring tool, all the data traffic passing through the corresponding network connection may be easily tracked and observed. Any irregularities in the data traffic flow may then be readily detected and analyzed to determine the source of a particular anomaly. This type of analysis is referred to as promiscuous mode analysis. Such wired network analysis techniques, however, would fail to monitor data traffic transmitted over wireless communication channels. In network systems where wireless and wired networks are connected, the monitoring tool accessing the passive station of the wired network portion would fail to perceive any of the data traffic transmitted along the wireless portion of the network. 
     For the foregoing reasons, there is a need to provide network analysis tools with a method for both extracting data packets or frames transmitted in a network such as between wireless stations, or between wireless stations and access points in a wireless LAN, and displaying the detail information contained in the data packets or frames for the user. The limitation of the processing power and available memory of the computers may make the real time detailed analysis of the frames virtually impossible. Therefore, the data packets or frames are captured in a buffer while the monitoring tool performs a real time analysis. The captured data packets or frames are later replayed for further detailed analysis and display. 
     SUMMARY OF INVENTION 
     The present invention is generally directed to a method for displaying and analyzing information contained in data packets or frames transmitted along a wireless communication channel. The method of the present invention provides the benefits of efficient network monitoring using a detailed offline analysis of the frames after they are captured in a buffer, thus greatly assisting the maintenance and troubleshooting of the network. 
     In particular, one aspect of the present invention is directed to a method of decoding information contained in an IEEE802.111 header of data packets or frames transmitted between stations in a wireless local area network, the method comprising steps of: 
     (a) establishing a direct wireless logical connection with the wireless communications network; 
     (b) receiving wirelessly, in real-time, data packets or frames transmitted in the wireless communication network; 
     (c) storing in a memory storage device, the data packets or frames captured; and 
     (d) decoding and displaying the information contained in the IEEE802.11 header of the data packets or frames stored in the capture buffer. 
     In another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a network monitoring apparatus for capturing and selectively filtering data frames transmitted between stations in a wireless communications network. The apparatus of the present invention comprises: 
     a wireless network interface device working in a promiscuous mode within a wireless 
     communications network, for capturing a plurality of frames transmitted through the network; 
     a user interface system comprising input and output devices for enabling a user to input and obtain information associated with plurality of captured frames; 
     a memory storage device for storing the plurality of captured frames from the wireless communications network; and 
     a processor device electronically connected to a network interface device, the user interface system, and memory storage device, the processor device being programmed to execute a routine comprising the steps of: 
     (a) establishing a direct wireless logical connection with the wireless communications network via the network interface device; 
     (b) receiving wirelessly, in real-time, frames transmitted in the wireless communications network via direct wireless logical connection; 
     (c) receiving one or more frame attribute parameters inputted by a user through the user interface system; 
     (d) storing in the memory storage device, the frames received from the wireless network via direct wireless logical connection; 
     (e) decoding in detail and displaying to the user, the information contained in the frames stored in the memory storage device. 
    
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
     Various embodiments of the present invention are described in detail with reference to the drawings, in which like items are identified by the same reference designation, wherein: 
     FIG. 1 shows a block schematic diagram of a computer network comprising a wireline network in communication with an IEEE802.11 wireless media Local Area Network (LAN); 
     FIG. 2A shows a layout of the general frame format of a MAC frame for the IEEE802.11 standard; 
     FIG. 2B shows a detailed layout of the frame format of a Frame Control Field of the MAC frame shown in FIG. 2A; 
     FIG. 2C shows a layout of a WEP encrypted frame format. 
     FIG. 3 shows a flowchart of a frame decoding routine for one embodiment of the present invention; 
     FIG. 4 shows a flowchart of a routine for determining the parameters used by the decoding routine of the present invention; 
     FIG. 5 shows a flowchart of a routine that determines the parameters necessary for assembling the fragmented frames associated with the decoding routine of the present invention; 
     FIG. 6 is a flowchart of a routine for determining the source and destination address of the frame associated with the decoding routine of the present invention; 
     FIG. 7 shows a flowchart of a routine for determining the summary line display of frames associated with the decoding routine of the present invention; 
     FIG. 8 shows the flowchart of a routine for formatting and displaying in detail the contents of frames associated with the decoding routine of the present invention; 
     FIG. 9 shows the flowchart of a routine for formatting and displaying in detail the contents of management frames associated with the decoding routine of the present invention; 
     FIG. 10 shows the flowchart of a routine for formatting and displaying in detail the contents of management subtype frames associated with the decoding routine of the present invention; 
     FIG. 11 shows the flowchart of a routine for formatting and displaying in detail the contents of Association Request frames associated with the decoding routine of the present invention; 
     FIG. 12 shows the flowchart of a routine for formatting and displaying in detail the contents of Reassociation Request frames associated with the decoding routine of the present invention; 
     FIG. 13 shows the flowchart of a routine for formatting and displaying in detail the contents of Association Response and Reassociation Response frames associated with the decoding routine of the present invention; 
     FIG. 14 shows the flowchart of a routine for formatting and displaying in detail the contents of Probe Request frames associated with the decoding routine of the present invention; 
     FIG. 15 shows the flowchart of a routine for formatting and displaying in detail the contents of Probe Response frames associated with the decoding routine of the present invention; 
     FIG. 16 shows the flowchart of a routine for formatting and displaying in detail the contents of Beacon frames associated with the decoding routine of the present invention; 
     FIG. 17 shows the flowchart of a routine for formatting and displaying in detail the contents of Disassociation frames associated with the decoding routine of the present invention; 
     FIG. 18 shows the flowchart of a routine for formatting and displaying in detail the contents of Authentication frames associated with the decoding routine of the present invention; 
     FIG. 19 shows the flowchart of a routine for formatting and displaying in detail the contents of Deauthentication frames associated with the decoding routine of the present invention; 
     FIG. 20 shows the flowchart of a routine for formatting and displaying in detail the contents of Control frames associated with the decoding routine of the present invention; 
     FIG. 21 shows the flowchart of a routine for formatting and displaying in detail the contents of Power Save Poll frames associated with the decoding routine of the present invention; 
     FIG. 22 shows the flowchart of a routine for formatting and displaying in detail the contents of Request To Send frames associated with the decoding routine of the present invention; 
     FIG. 23 shows the flowchart of a routine for formatting and displaying in detail the contents of Acknowledgement and Clear To Send frames associated with the decoding routine of the present invention; 
     FIG. 24 shows the flowchart of a routine for formatting and displaying in detail the contents of Contention Free End (CF-End) and Contention Free End Acknowledgement (CF-End+Ack) frames associated with the decoding routine of the present invention; 
     FIG. 25 shows the flowchart of a routine for formatting and displaying in detail the contents of Data frames associated with the decoding routine of the present invention; 
     FIG. 26 shows the flowchart of a routine for determining the parameters necessary for upper layers decoding routines; 
     FIG. 27 shows the flowchart of a routine for formatting and displaying in detail the physical layer information of the frames associated with the decoding routine of the present invention; 
     FIG. 28 shows the flowchart of a routine for formatting and displaying in detail the contents of a Frame Control Field associated with the decoding routine of the present invention; 
     FIG. 29 shows the flowchart of a routine for formatting and displaying in detail the contents of a Destination Address Field associated with the decoding routine of the present invention; 
     FIG. 30 shows the flowchart of a routine for formatting and displaying in detail the contents of a Source Address Field associated with the decoding routine of the present invention; 
     FIG. 31 shows the flowchart of a routine for formatting and displaying in detail the contents of a BSSID Field associated with the decoding routine of the present invention; 
     FIG. 32 shows the flowchart of a routine for formatting and displaying in detail the contents of a Receiver Address Field associated with the decoding routine of the present invention; 
     FIG. 33 shows the flowchart of a routine for formatting and displaying in detail the contents of a Transmitter Address Field associated with the decoding routine of the present invention; 
     FIG. 34 shows the flowchart of a routine for formatting and displaying in detail the contents of a Sequence Control Field associated with the decoding routine of the present invention; 
     FIG. 35 shows the flowchart of a routine for formatting and displaying in detail the contents of a Capability Information Element associated with the decoding routine of the present invention; 
     FIG. 36 shows the flowchart of a routine for formatting and displaying in detail the contents of an SSID Information Element associated with the decoding routine of the present invention; 
     FIG. 37 shows the flowchart of a routine for formatting and displaying in detail the contents of a Supported Rates Information Element associated with the decoding routine of the present invention; 
     FIG. 38 shows the flowchart of a routine for formatting and displaying in detail the contents of an Unknown Information Element associated with the decoding routine of the present invention; 
     FIG. 39 shows the flowchart of a routine for formatting and displaying in detail the contents of a DS Parameter Set Information Element associated with the decoding routine of the present invention; 
     FIG. 40 shows the flowchart of a routine for formatting and displaying in detail the contents of a CF Parameter Set Information Element associated with the decoding routine of the present invention; 
     FIG. 41 shows the flowchart of a routine for formatting and displaying in detail the contents of aft IBSS Parameter Set Information Element associated with the decoding routine of the present invention; 
     FIG. 42 shows the flowchart of a routine for formatting and displaying in detail the contents of a TIM Parameter Set Information Element associated with the decoding routine of the present invention; 
     FIG. 43 shows the flowchart of a routine for formatting and displaying in detail the contents of a Challenge Text Information Element associated with the decoding routine of the present invention; 
     FIG. 44A shows the layout for an Authentication Algorithm Number Fixed Field associated with the decoding routine of the present invention; 
     FIG. 44B shows the layout of a Authentication Transaction Sequence Number Fixed Field associated with the decoding routine of the present invention; 
     FIG. 44C shows the layout of a Beacon Interval Fixed Field associated with the decoding routine of the present invention; 
     FIG. 44D shows the layout of a Listen Interval Fixed Field associated with the decoding routine of the present invention; 
     FIG. 45A shows the layout of a Reason Code Fixed Field associated with the decoding routine of the present invention; 
     FIG. 45B shows the layout of an Association ID Fixed Field associated with the decoding routine of the present invention; 
     FIG. 45C shows a layout of a Status Code Fixed Field associated with the decoding routine of the present invention; 
     FIG. 45D shows a layout of a Current Access Point Address Fixed Field associated with the decoding routine of the present invention; 
     FIG. 46A shows a layout of a Timestamp Fixed Field associated with the decoding routine of the present invention; 
     FIG. 46B shows a layout of a Capability Information Fixed Field associated with the decoding routine of the present invention; 
     FIG. 46C shows a layout of an SSID Information Element Format associated with the decoding routine of the present invention; 
     FIG. 47A shows a layout of a Supported Rates Information Element Format associated with the decoding routine of the present invention; 
     FIG. 47B shows a layout of a DS Parameter Set Information Element Format associated with the decoding routine of the present invention; 
     FIG. 47C shows a layout of a CF Parameter Set Information Element Format associated with the decoding routine of the present invention; 
     FIG. 48A shows a layout of a TIM Information Element Format associated with the decoding routine of the present invention; 
     FIG. 48B shows a layout of an IBSS Information Element Format associated with the decoding routine of the present invention; 
     FIG. 48C shows a layout of a Challenge Text Information Element Format associated with the decoding routine of the present invention; 
     FIG. 48D shows a layout of an Unknown Information Element Format associated with the decoding routine of the present invention; 
     FIGS. 49 through 73, respectively, show screen displays for use in one embodiment of the invention. 
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION 
     The present invention is generally directed to a method and apparatus for capturing data packets and frames transmitted through a corresponding wireless communication channel and decoding and displaying to the user, the information contained in such frames. The present invention significantly improves one&#39;s understanding of the type of data traffic on the wireless network by way of a detailed analysis and decoding of the contents of the wireless header in the frames. A recently introduced “Sniffer® Wireless” product of Network Associates, Inc., of Santa Clara, Calif., incorporates various embodiments of the present invention. 
     The present invention is used in network analysis tools for wireless Local Area Network (LAN) systems conforming to the IEEE802.11 standard, but is not meant to be so limited. A wireless LAN system includes a plurality of devices or stations, such as workstations, printers, storage devices, servers, and the like connected to one another by wireless communications channels. The wireless LAN is configured so as to enable a message, usually a data packet or frame to be directed from a source to a destination. In this regard, each station of interest is provided with a network address that is unique to that particular station in the computer network. Typically, each station will have a single network address that is used by the system in order to locate that particular station. In this manner, any information or data that is to be transmitted or relayed to a specific station is accomplished by the use of the network addressing system. Although an IEEE802.11-based wireless LAN system is described in connection with the present invention, one of ordinary skill in the art will understand that the present invention may be applied in other types of communication networks. 
     With reference to FIG. 1, one configuration of a wireline and wireless LAN-based communication network  10  is shown. The network  10  comprises a plurality of wireless stations  12 , and a wireless local bridge or access point  14  connected to a wireline network  16  of a plurality of wired stations  18 . Each of the wireless stations  12  include a wireless network interface device  11  for interfacing with other wireless stations  12  and with the access point  14  to form a wireless network  13 . Such a wireless network interface device, for example, is a Cisco Aironet Series  340  or Series  350  Wireless LAN Adapter, Cisco Systems, San Jose, Calif., or is a Symbol Technologies Spectrum  24  High Rate Adapter LA-4121-1020US. The wireless network interface device  11  transmits digital signals from the wireless stations  12  to the wireless medium to enable efficient signal transfer between a sending station and a receiving station, typically in the form of RF signals. The access point  14  enables communication between the wireless network stations  12  and the wired network stations  18 , thereby expanding the associated LAN&#39;s capability. Note that although only one access point  14  is shown, in certain applications, a plurality of acccess points may be used. Information, control signals and other forms of digital data can be transmitted between stations  12  and  18  in the form of discrete data frames via network  10 . The data frames, as one skilled in the art will recognize, are provided in a specific format commonly used in the transmission of data through the network  10 . 
     A wireless network monitoring tool  80  of the present invention, as shown for example in FIG. 1, includes a wireless network interface device  11  connected to a wireless LAN network interface card (NIC)  81  for creating a connection with the LAN  10  so as to determine the topology of the LAN  10  and to monitor other network functions and data frame transmissions. The monitoring tool  80  further includes a processing unit or CPU  82  to receive information regarding the operation of the network  10 . A memory  83  and a storage device  84  are connected to the processor  82  to provide temporary and permanent storage, respectively, of information required by the processor  82 . A display unit  85  is connected to the processor  82  so as to display, generally in graphical form, information about the network  10  including its topology, data traffic stream, and functions and services. Through input devices  86  such as a keyboard, a mouse and the like, connected to the processor  82 , and through a graphical user interface, a user can perform various analysis of the network  10  and monitor data transmissions. The display unit  85 , the input devices  86 , and the graphical user interface are collectively referred to as a user interface system. The monitoring tool  80  can be considered just another station in the wireless network, similar to the workstations, printers, storage devices, servers, and so forth, but it runs in a promiscuous mode, which will enable it to receive and analyze the packets sent to other stations as well. 
     The graphical user interface is preferably executed on a processor capable of supporting at least one of Windows NT 4.0, Windows 98SE, or Windows 2000 Professional. Any one of a number of commercial or proprietary processors may be used. Generally, the processor  82  of a Sniffer® Wireless, for example, requires a minimum of 128 MB (Megabytes) of RAM, 256 MB (Megabytes) of Swap Space, and 4 MB (Megabytes) of available disk drive space. However, these requirements are meant to be limiting, and can vary with the type of processor used. The present invention can be built using available components or modules. 
     For the purposes of this invention, a frame represents a discrete logical unit of data transmitted through a communications network or channel from a sender station to a receiving station. The data is commonly a fragment of a much larger set of data, such as a file of text or image information. As the larger file is prepared for transmission, it is fragmented into smaller data units. Each fragment of data is packaged into a frame format, which comprises a header, payload, and trailer. The header prepends the payload and includes a set of framing bits, which are used for purposes of frame delineation and synchronization of the receiving station with the speed of transmission across the transmission link. Also included in the header are routing control information, and address information. Following the header is the payload, which contains the data unit being transmitted. Appending the payload is the trailer, which comprises data bits used for error detection and correction, and a final set of framing bits, or ending flag for purposes of frame delineation. The frame format of a frame is specific to the data communications protocol (i.e., IPX, IP, LLC, SNAP, etc.) being utilized in the network. The present invention is described in correspondence with the frame format used in IEEE802.11 LANs, although it will be understood that the present invention may also be modified for use in connection with other types of frame formats and data communications protocols. 
     The IEEE802.11 wireless LAN system includes a MAC (Medium Access Control) layer embodying a set of protocols which are responsible for maintaining order in the use of a shared medium. There are three types of frames that are transmitted at the MAC layer. The following list summarizes the frame types and subtypes and their main function or service in connection with the 802.11 MAC layer protocols: 
     1) IEEE802.11. Management Frames: The purpose of 802.11 management frames is to establish and maintain communications between stations and access points. Thus, management frames provide such services as association and authentication. 
     a) Association Request frame: A station will send this frame to an access point if it wants to associate with that access point. If the access point grants permission for association, the station will be associated with the access point. 
     b) Association Response frame: After receiving an Association Request frame, an access point sends an Association Response frame to indicate the result of an association request. 
     c) Reassociation Request frame: A station will send this frame to an access point if it wants to reassociate with that access point. 
     d) Reassociation Response frame: The access point sends the Reassociation Response frame to indicate the result of a reassociation request. 
     e) Probe Request frame: A station sends a probe response frame to obtain information from another station or access point. 
     f) Probe Response frame: If a station or access point receives a Probe Request frame, it will respond to the sending station with a Probe Request frame containing specific parameters about itself. 
     g) Beacon frame: In an infrastructure network, an access point periodically sends a Beacon frame that contains a timestamp and configuration information about the access point. 
     h) ATIM frame: A station which has frames buffered for other stations sends an ATIM (Announcement Traffic Indication Message) frame to each of these stations during an ATIM window immediately following, the transmission of a Beacon frame. 
     i) Disassociation frame: If a station or an access point wants to disassociate, it will send this frame. 
     j) Authentication frame: A station sends an Authentication frame to a station or an access point for which it requests secure communication. 
     k) Deauthentication frame: A station sends a Deauthentication frame to a station or access point for which it requests to end a secure communication. 
     2) IEEE802.11 Control Frames: After establishing association and authentication between stations and access points, control frames provide the functionality to assist in the delivery of data frames. 
     a) Request to Send (RTS): A station sends an RTS frame to a receiving station to negotiate the sending of a data frame that will follow. 
     b) Clear to Send (CTS): The station that is the receiver of the RTS frame sends a CTS frame to acknowledge the right for the sending station to send the data frames. 
     c) Acknowledgment (ACK): When a station receives an error-free frame, the station can send an ACK frame to the sending station to acknowledge that it successfully received the frame. 
     d) Power-Save Poll (PS Poll): If a station receives a PS Poll frame, it updates its network allocation vector (NAV), which is an indication of time periods that a station will not initiate a transmission. 
     e) Contention-Free End (CF End): The CF End frame designates the end of a contention free period. 
     f) CF End+CF-ACK: This frame acknowledges the Contention-Free End announcement of a CF End frame. 
     3) IEEE802.11 Data Frames: The main purpose of data frames is to carry information to the destination station for handoff to its applicable LLC (Logical Link Control) layer. 
     With reference to FIG. 2A, the frame format of a MAC frame  20  is shown. The frame  20  comprises generally a MAC header  22 , a payload or frame body  24 , and a trailer or frame check sequence  26 . The MAC header  22  may further include at least one of the following information fields: a frame control field  28  for carrying control information being sent from station to station, a duration/ID field  30  for carrying information about the time duration the channel will be reserved or the association id, Address 1-4 fields  32 ,  34 ,  36 , and  38 , respectively, which convey the Basic Service Set Identification (BSSID), source address, destination address, sending station address, and receiving station address, respectively, and a sequence control field  40  which indicates the sequence and fragment numbers of the frame  20 . The frame body  24  includes a variable length payload and carries information that pertains to the specific frame being sent. The data frame may contain a data unit. The control frames don&#39;t have a frame body  24 . The MAC management frames may include specific parameters in the frame body  24  that pertain to a particular service or network functions the frame is implementing. The frame check sequence  26  contains information that is used to validate successful reception of frame  20 . The frame format of the MAC frame  20 , shown in FIGS. 2A and 2B, is true for all frames transmitted by a sending station to a receiving station, regardless of frame type. However, some of the fields may be omitted from control and management frames as explained in the IEEE802.11 standard. 
     As shown in FIG. 2B, the frame control field  28  which carries the critical control information may be further broken down into a protocol version subfield  42 , a frame-type subfield  44 , a frame-subtype subfield  46 , a “To DS” and “From DS” subfields  48  and  50 , respectively, a “More Frag” subfield  52 , a Retry subfield  54 , a Power Management subfield  56 , a “More Data” subfield  58 , a “WEP (wired equivalent privacy)” subfield  60 , and an “Order” subfield  62 . The protocol version subfield  42  indicates the version number of the data communication protocol creating the frame  20 . The Type subfield  44  contains information that defines whether the frame  20  is a management, control, or data frame as indicated by the bits in Table 1 below. The Subtype subfield  46  contains information that defines the service or function of the frame  20  also shown in Table 1 below. 
     
       
         
               
             
               
               
               
               
             
           
               
                 TABLE 1 
               
             
             
               
                   
               
               
                 Valid type and subtype combinations 
               
             
          
           
               
                 Type 
                   
                 Subtype 
                   
               
               
                 value 
                 Type 
                 value 
                   
               
               
                 b3 b2 
                 description 
                 b7 b6 b5 b4 
                 Subtype description 
               
               
                   
               
               
                 00 
                 Management 
                 0000 
                 Association request 
               
               
                 00 
                 Management 
                 0001 
                 Association response 
               
               
                 00 
                 Management 
                 0010 
                 Reassociation request 
               
               
                 00 
                 Management 
                 0011 
                 Reassociation response 
               
               
                 00 
                 Management 
                 0100 
                 Probe request 
               
               
                 00 
                 Management 
                 0101 
                 Probe response 
               
               
                 00 
                 Management 
                 0110-0111 
                 Reserved 
               
               
                 00 
                 Management 
                 1000 
                 Beacon 
               
               
                 00 
                 Management 
                 1001 
                 Announcement traffic indication 
               
               
                   
                   
                   
                 message (ATIM) 
               
               
                 00 
                 Management 
                 1010 
                 Disassociation 
               
               
                 00 
                 Management 
                 1011 
                 Authentication 
               
               
                 00 
                 Management 
                 1100 
                 Deauthentication 
               
               
                 00 
                 Management 
                 1101-0111 
                 Reserved 
               
               
                 01 
                 Control 
                 0000-1001 
                 Reserved 
               
               
                 01 
                 Control 
                 1010 
                 Power Save (PS)-Poll 
               
               
                 01 
                 Control 
                 1011 
                 Request To Send (RTS) 
               
               
                 01 
                 Control 
                 1100 
                 Clear To Send (CTS) 
               
               
                 01 
                 Control 
                 1101 
                 Acknowledgement (ACK) 
               
               
                 01 
                 Control 
                 1110 
                 Contention-Free (CF)-End 
               
               
                 01 
                 Control 
                 1111 
                 CF-End + CF-Ack 
               
               
                 10 
                 Data 
                 0000 
                 Data 
               
               
                 10 
                 Data 
                 0001 
                 Data + CF-Ack 
               
               
                 10 
                 Data 
                 0010 
                 Data + CF-Poll 
               
               
                 10 
                 Data 
                 0011 
                 Data + CF-Ack + CF-Poll 
               
               
                 10 
                 Data 
                 0100 
                 Null function (no data) 
               
               
                 10 
                 Data 
                 0101 
                 CF-Ack (no data) 
               
               
                 10 
                 Data 
                 0110 
                 CF-Poll (no data) 
               
               
                 10 
                 Data 
                 0111 
                 Cf-Ack + CF-Poll (no data) 
               
               
                 10 
                 Data 
                 1000-1111 
                 Reserved 
               
               
                 11 
                 Reserved 
                 0000-1111 
                 Reserved 
               
               
                   
               
             
          
         
       
     
     The “To DS” subfield  48  and the “From DS” subfield  50  defines whether the frame is destined to a distribution system or leaving a distribution system, respectively. The term “distribution system” refers to a system used to interconnect a set of basic service sets (BSS) and intergrated LANs to create an extended service set (ESS). The “To DS” subfield  48  and the “From DS” subfield  50  are set to zero for all management and control frames, because these frame are valid only within a basic service set (BSS). Depending on the bit sequence set in the “To DS” and “From DS” subfields  48  and  50  of a data frame, the contents of the Address 1-4 fields  32 ,  34 ,  36 , and  38  will have a specific meaning. Table 2 lists the possible values of the address field depending on the bit sequence set for the “To DS (Distribution System)” and “From DS” subfields, as shown below. 
     
       
         
               
             
               
               
               
               
               
               
             
           
               
                 TABLE 2 
               
             
             
               
                   
               
               
                 Address field contents for data frames 
               
             
          
           
               
                 To DS 
                 From DS 
                 Address 1 
                 Address 2 
                 Address 3 
                 Address 4 
               
               
                   
               
               
                 0 
                 0 
                 DA 
                 SA 
                 BSSID 
                 N/A 
               
               
                 0 
                 1 
                 DA 
                 BSSID 
                 SA 
                 N/A 
               
               
                 1 
                 0 
                 BSSID 
                 SA 
                 DA 
                 N/A 
               
               
                 1 
                 1 
                 RA 
                 TA 
                 DA 
                 SA 
               
               
                   
               
             
          
         
       
     
     A station uses the contents of the “Address 1” field  32  to perform the address matching of target receiving stations. In cases where the “Address 1” field  32  contains a broadcast address (0xFFFFFFFFFFFF) or group address (multicast address), the BSSID is also validated to ensure that the broadcast or multicast originated in the same BSS (basic service set). 
     The receiving station uses the contents of the “Address 2” field  34  of the current frame to direct the acknowledgement (if acknowledgement is necessary). The DA (destination address) is the destination of the data residing in the “Frame Body” field  24  of frame  20 . The SA (source address) is the address of the MAC entity that initiated the data that is carried in the “Frame Body” field  24 . The RA (receiver address) is the address of the station contained in the access point in the wireless distribution system that is the next intended recipient of the frame. The TA (transmitter address) is the address of the station contained in the Access Point in the wireless distribution system that is transmitting the frame. The “BSSID (Basic Service Set Identification)” field contains either the MAC address of the Access Point or the BSSID of the IBSS(Independent Basic Service Set). If the content of the “Address 4” field  38  is shown as “N/A (not applicable)” then this address field is omitted from the frame. 
     The “More Frag” subfield  52  indicates whether another fragment of the same frame  20  will follow in a subsequent frame. IEEE802.11 protocol allows management and data frame types to be fragmented at the MAC layer in order to increase the possibility of delivery of the original large frame. The receiving station supports mechanism that will allow it to reassemble the fragmented frames originated from a sending station. The “Retry” subfield  54  indicates whether the frame  20  is a retransmission of an earlier frame where the reason for retransmission may be due to errors in the transmission of the first frame that resulted in an unsuccessful frame check sequence processing. 
     The Power Management subfield  56  indicates the power management mode that the sending station will reside after the current frame exchange sequence. The “More Data” subfield  58  alerts the receiving station in power-save mode to prepare to receive additional frames. The “Wired Equivalent Privacy” (WEP) subfield  60  indicates to the receiving station that the data contained in the frame body  24  has been processed by a wired equivalent privacy algorithm, that is, the data bits have been encrypted using a secret key for increased security and privacy. The order subfield  62  indicates whether the frame  20  was sent using the “Strictly Ordered” service class, which tells the receiving station that frames must be processed in a particular order and indicating the order sequence. The bit data contained in the corresponding fields and subfields of the frame  20 , provides information as to the frame type and subtype as well as its service or function of the corresponding frame. 
     The Network Monitoring tool  80  (as shown in FIG. 1) operates to wirelessly “tap” into the wireless network  13  and capture the data frames transmitted in the network. In one embodiment of the present invention, the user, upon capturing the transmitted frames, may choose to decode and analyze the information contained in the captured frames. Even though the general structure of the IEEE802.11 frames fit the frame format of a MAC frame  20  shown in FIG. 2A, actual frame format depends on the frame type of the frame. Therefore the decoding and detailed analysis for each frame type are processed separately. 
     With reference to the flowcharts of FIG. 3 through 43, the operation of the present invention will be described in greater detail. With reference to FIG. 3, the routine of the present invention is initiated in step  300  of the Interpret_ 802 _ 11 ( ) routine. In step  300  the user initiates the decoding process, typically by use of a menu on a display screen. For example, in FIG. 49, a display provided in the “Sniffer® Wireless” product of Network Associates, Inc. is shown. A user uses their mouse to open the “File” menu item. The user then selects the “Open” sub menu item by way of a mouse cursor. This process opens a dialog window as depicted in FIG.  50 . The user selects the captured file to be loaded into the system memory  83 . As the network monitoring tool  80  loads the captured file, the information contained in each frame is analyzed in detail by calling Interpret_ 802 _ 11 ( ) routine at step  300  for each frame in the capture buffer  83  in the order they are stored into the buffer  83 . 
     With respect to the flowchart of FIG. 3, the Interpret_ 802 _ 11 ( ) programming routine is defined in steps  300  through  307 . The Interpret_ 802 _ 11 ( ) routine decodes the information contained in each bit of the IEEE802.11 header of the frames captured wirelessly from the network  10 . The routine first determines the parameters which are necessary to decode the IEEE802.11 header further by executing a routine referred as Determine_ 802 _ 11 _DecodingParameters( ) at step  301  as described in greater detail by the flowchart of FIG. 4, In step  302  of FIG. 3, the routine next determines if the current frame is a part of a bigger fragmented frame, and if it needs to be reassembled by executing a routine called PreScan_ 802 _ 11  ( ). The detail of the PreScan_ 802 _ 11 ( ) routine is described in greater detail by the flowchart of FIG.  5 . At step  303  of FIG. 3, the Interpret_ 802 _ 11 ( ) routine then proceeds to determine and display the source and destination addresses of the frame by calling a routine called Scan_ 802 _ 11 ( ) at step  303  as described in greater detail by the flowchart of FIG.  6 . The Interpret_ 802 _ 11 ( ) routine executes the Format_ 802 _ 11 _Summary( ) routine at step  304  to display the summary information about the contents of the frame as described in greater detail by the flowchart of FIG.  7 . Then the routine proceeds to call the Format_ 802 _ 11 _Detail( ) routine at step  305  to perform a detailed analysis of the information contained in the IEEE802.11 header of the frame as described in greater detail by the flowchart of FIG.  8 . The decoding of the information contained in the frame is done in a different routine for each layer. In order to determine the parameters required for further decoding of the contents of the frame by higher layer protocol interpreters, the Interpret_ 802 _ 11 ( ) routine calls the PrepareForUpperLayerDecoding( ) routine at step  306  as described in greater detail by the flowchart of FIG.  26 . The Interpret_ 802 _ 11 ( )  300  is terminated at step  307 . 
     As shown in FIG. 4, the software initiates a routine called Determine_ 802 _ 11 _DecodingParameters( ) denoted at step  301 . The routine referred generally at step  301  in FIG. 3, functions to determine the parameters required to decode the information in each frame. After initiating the routine  301 , the programming or routine proceeds to execute GetFrameType( ) and GetFrameSubtype( ) functions at step  401  to determine the frame type and subtype of the current frame. The GetFrameType( ) and GetFrameSubtype( ) functions return the frame type and subtype by checking the “Type” and “Subtype” fields  44  and  46 , respectively. The routine determines the frame type and subtype according to the corresponding bit values listed in Table 1. The results of the GetFrameType( ) and GetFrameSubtype( ) functions are stored in the “ulFrameType” and “ulFrameSubtype” variables. The routine proceeds to step  402  to determine if the frame type is a “Management” frame. If “Yes”, then the routine proceeds to step  406  where the value of the variable “ulHeaderLength” is set to 24, which is the length (in octets) of the IEEE802.11 header for the management frames. If the result of step  402  is “No” then the routine proceeds to step  403  to determine if the frame type is a “Control” frame. If “Yes”, then the routine proceeds to step  407  to determine if the frame subtype is either an “Acknowledgement (ACK)” or “Clear to Send (CTS)” frame. If “Yes”, then the routine proceeds to step  408  to set the value of the variable “ulHeaderLength” is set to 10, which is the IEEE802.11 header length for ACK and CTS frames. If the result of step  407  is “No”, which means the frame subtype of the Control frame is other than an ACK or CTS frame, the routine proceeds to step  409  to set the value of the variable “ulHeaderLength” to 16. If the frame type is not a Control frame at step  403 , then the routine proceeds to step  404  to determine if the frame type is a “Data” frame. If “Yes”, the routine proceeds to step  410  to determine if both of the ToDS and FromDS fields  48  and  50  are set to one. If “Yes”, then the value of the variable “ulHeaderLength” is set to  30  at step  411 , and if “No” it is set to 24. If the frame type is not a data frame at step  404 , the routine proceeds to set the value of the variable “ulHeaderLength” to zero. The Determine_ 802 _ 11 _DecodingParemeters( ) routine of step  400  is terminated at step  413 . 
     With reference to FIG. 5, the program executes the PreScan_ 802   11 ( ) routine (step  302  of FIG. 3) as denoted by steps  501  to  515 . The role of this routine is to determine the parameters needed to reassemble the fragmented frames. The program initiates the PreScan_ 802 _ 11 ( ) routine at step  302 . The routine proceeds to step  501  to determine if the frame type is a “Control” frame or a frame with an error or it is an encrypted frame. If “Yes”, then the routine proceeds to step  502  to disable the reassembly for the current frame. The Control frames are not fragmented in the IEEE802.11 standard. The frames with an error are not used in assembly because the contents of the frames may be wrong. The encrypted frames will not be decoded at the higher layer, because the higher layer decoding functions will not understand the contents of the frame. If the result of step  501  is “No”, then the routine proceeds to step  503  to determine if the current frame is originally encrypted but decrypted by the network analysis tool  80  upon receiving the frame. Since the decryption is done in place, the decrypted frame will have a 4-octet “IV” field  66  that contains the initialization vector for the encryption. At the end of the frame body field  76 , there will be an “ICV” (Integrity Check Value) field  70 , which is 4 octets in length. If the result of step  503  is “Yes”, the routine proceeds to step  504  where the frame length is reduced by  4  octets due to “ICV” field  70 , and the data offset that the upper layers start decoding will be increased from the protocol header length by 4 octets due to the length of the “IV” field  66 . However, if the frame is not originally encrypted and later decrypted (step  503 ), then the data offset will be set to the length of the MAC header, and the fragment length will be set to the length of the frame at step  505 . The routine then proceeds to step  506  to determine if “More Frag” field  52  is set to one (There will be more fragments belonging to the original large frame). If “Yes”, then it proceeds to step  507  to determine if the fragment number of the current frame is zero. If “Yes”, then the routine proceeds to step  509  where the fragment type is set to “First Fragment”, the data offset is set to zero, and the reassembly is enabled. If the fragment number is not zero (step  507 ), then the routine proceeds to step  508 , where the fragment type is set to “Middle Fragment”, the fragment length is reduced by the data offset (which corresponds to IEEE802.11 header field  64  length plus the length of the “IV” field  66 ), and the reassembly is enabled. If the “More Frag” field  52  is not set to one, then the routine proceeds to step  510  to determine if the fragment number is zero. If “Yes”, then it proceeds to step  511  where it disables the reassembly of the current frame because it is single fragment. However, if the fragment number is not equal to zero (step  510 ), then it proceeds to step  512 , where it sets the fragment type to “Last Fragment”, reduces the fragment length by data offset, and enables the reassembly. The routine then proceeds to step  513  to determine if the frame is a decrypted frame. If “Yes”, it proceeds to step  514  to increase the fragment length by 4 octets due to the length of the “ICV” field  70 . If “No” at Step  513 , the routine proceeds to Step  515 . The PreScan_ 802 _ 11 ( ) routine ends at step  515 . 
     As shown in FIG. 6, the program executes the Scan_ 802 _ 11 ( ) subroutine  303  generally shown in FIG.  3 . The Scan_ 802 _ 11 ( ) routine is responsible for determining and displaying the source and destination addresses of the frame. After initiation at Step  303 , the routine than proceeds to step  601  to determine if the frame type is a “Control” frame. If “Yes”, the routine proceeds to step  602  to determine if the frame subtype is either an “Acknowledgement (ACK)” or “Clear To Send (CTS)” frame. If “Yes”, then it proceeds to step  603  to set the variable “DestAddr” to the contents of “Address1” field  32 . The routine then proceeds to step  604  to determine if the transmitter address is known. The transmitter address for “ACK” and “CTS” frames can not be determined from the contents of the frame, because these frames do not carry the Address2 field  34 . If the software inside the Network Interface Card (NIC)  81  can determine the address of transmitting station for these frame types it sets the variable “bTransmitteAddressKnown” to true and sets the contents of the “ImpliedTransmitterAddress” variable to the address of the transmitting station. The details of determining the transmitter address are beyond the scope of this invention, and are covered by the above-indicated Related application Ser. No. 09/875,544. If the transmitter address is known the routine proceeds to step  605  to set the variable “SrcAddr” to the value stored in the variable “ImpliedTransmitterAddress”. If the result of step  604  is “No”, then the variable “SrcAddr” is set to NULL at step  606 . If the result of step  602  is “No”, the routine proceeds to step  608  to set the “DestAddr” and “SrcAddr” variable to the contents of “Address1” and “Address2” fields  32  and  34  respectively. If the frame type is not a “Control” frame at step  601 , the routine proceeds to step  607  to determine if the frame type is a “Management” frame. If “Yes”, it proceeds to step  608  to set the “DestAddr” and “SrcAddr” variable to the contents of “Address1” and “Address2” fields  32  and  34  respectively. However, if the frame type is not a “Management” frame at step  607 , the routine proceeds to step  609  to determine if the frame type is a “Data” frame. If “Yes”, then it proceeds to step  611  to determine if “ToDS” bit field  48  is set to zero. If “Yes”, it sets the “DestAddr” variable to the contents of “Address1” field  32  at step  612 . It then proceeds to step  613  to determine if “FromDS” bit field  50  is set to zero. If “Yes”, then the routine proceeds to step  614  where it sets the variable “SrcAddr” to the contents of “Address2” field  34 . If the result of step  613  is “No”, it proceeds to step  615  where it sets the variable “SrcAddr” to the contents of “Address3” field  36 . If the “ToDS: bit field  48  is not set to zero at step  611 , the routine proceeds to step  616  where it sets the variable “DstAddr” to the contents of the “Address3” field  36 . The routine then proceeds to step  617  to determine if “ToDS” bit field  48  is set to zero. If “Yes”, then it proceeds to step  618  to set the variable “SrcAddr” to the contents of the “Address2” field  34 . If the result of step  617  is “No”, then it proceeds to step  619  to set the variable “SrcAddr” to the contents of the “Address4” field  38 . The routine proceeds to step  620  after it executes the steps  603 ,  605 ,  606 ,  608 ,  610 ,  614 ,  615 ,  618 , or  619 . At step  620 , the routine executes the DisplaySourceAndDestinationAddress( ) routine. The implementation of this routine is proprietary to Network Associates, Inc. of Santa Clara, Calif., and beyond the scope of this invention. However, the output of this function can be seen in FIG.  51 . The Scan_ 802 _ 11 ( ) terminates at step  621 . 
     As shown FIG. 7, the program executes the Format_ 802 _ 11 _Summary( ) routine  304  generally shown in FIG.  3 . The Format_ 802 _ 11 _Summary( ) routine is responsible for determining and displaying a short concise summary information about the frame. After the initialization step  304 , the routine proceeds to step  701  where it initializes a string to be used as the summary line. It also formats the data rate and the signal strength level as determined by the Network Interface Card(NIC)  81 . The routine then proceeds to step  702  where it formats the name of the frame subtype according to the corresponding bit values listed in Table 1. It then proceeds to step  703  to determine if the “WEP” bit field  60  is set to one. If “Yes”, it adds the “WEP” string to the summary line at step  704 . It then proceeds to step  705  to determine if the “Retry” bit field  54  is set to one. If “Yes”, then it adds to the summary line a “Retry” string. The details of formatting the summary line string are beyond the scope of this invention. Some sample summary lines are shown in FIG.  52 . The Format_ 802 _ 11 _Summary( ) routine terminates at step  707 . 
     With reference to FIG. 8, the program executes the Format_ 802 _ 11 _Detail( ) routine (step  305  of FIG. 3) as denoted by steps  801  to  807 . The role of this routine  305  is to decode the information contained in each frame in detail, and to display it to the user. Upon initiation of step  305 , the Format_ 802 _ 11 _Detail( ) routine is activated. The routine then proceeds to step  801  to determine if the frame type is a “Management” frame. If “Yes”, the routine proceeds to step  802  to execute the FormatCTRLDetail( ) subroutine as described in greater detail in the flow chart of FIG.  9 . If the frame type is not “Management” frame at step  801  the routine proceeds to step  803  to determine if the frame type is a “Control” frame. If “Yes”, the routine proceeds to step  804  to execute the FormatDATADetail( ) subroutine as described in greater detail in the flow chart of FIG.  20 . If “No”, then it proceeds to step  805  to determine if the frame type is “Data” frame. If “Yes”, it proceeds to step  806  where it executes execute the FormatControlDetail( ) subroutine as described in greater detail in the flow chart of FIG.  25 . The Format_ 802 _ 11 _Detail( ) routine terminates at step  807 . 
     With reference to FIG. 9, the program executes the FormatManagementDetail( ) subroutine(step  802  of FIG. 8) as denoted by steps  901  to  909 . The role of this routine is to decode the information contained in management frames in detail, and to display it to the user. Upon initiation of step  802 , the FormatManagementDetail( ) routine is activated. The routine then proceeds to step  901 , where it executes the DisplayPhysicalLayerInformation( ) routine to display the physical layer related information determined by the Network Interface Card (NIC)  81  as described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  27 . The routine then proceeds to step  902  to execute the DisplayFrameControlField( ) routine as described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  28 . The routine proceeds to step  903  where it displays the contents of the duration field  30 . It treats the contents of the duration field  30  as a little-endian unsigned integer of two octets in length. The value of “Duration” field  30  corresponds in microseconds that the medium is reserved by the sending station. The detail implementation of displaying the contents of the “Duration” field  30  is beyond the scope of this invention. The routine then proceeds to step  904  where it displays the destination address by executing the DisplayDestinationAddress( ) routine as described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  29 . The routine executes the DisplaySourceAddress( ) routine at step  905  as described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  30 . The routine then proceeds to step  906  to execute the DisplayBSSID( ) routine as described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  31 . The routine then proceeds to step  907  where it displays the fragment and sequence numbers by executing the DisplaySequenceControlField( ) routine as described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  34 . It then proceeds to step  908  to display the information specific to each frame subtype by executing the FormatMangementFrameSubtype( ) as described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  10 . 
     As shown FIG. 10, the program executes the FormatMangementFrameSubtype( ) routine  908  generally shown in FIG.  9 . The task of this routine is to decode and display the information contained in the frame body  24  section of management frame subtypes. The routine is activated upon initiation of Step  908 , and it proceeds to step  1001  to determine if the frame subtype is a “Association Request” frame. If “Yes”, then the routine proceeds to step  1002  to execute the DisplayAssociationRequestFrameDetail( ) routine as described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  11 . If “No”, then the routine proceeds to step  1003  to determine if the frame subtype is a “Reassociation Request” frame. If “Yes”, then it executes the DisplayReassociationRequestFrameDetail( ) routine at step  1004 . The DisplayReassociationRequestFrameDetail( ) routine is described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  12 . If the result of step  1003  is “No”, then the routine proceeds to step  1005  to determine if the frame subtype is either an “Association Response” or “Reassociation Response” frame. If “Yes”, the routine proceeds to step  1006 , where it executes the DisplayRe_associationResponseFrameDetail( ) routine as described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  13 . If “No”, then the routine proceeds to step  1007  to determine if the frame subtype is a “Probe Request” frame. If “Yes”, the routine proceeds to step  1008 , where it executes the DisplayProbeRequestFrameDetail( ) routine as described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  14 . If the result of step  1007  is “No”, then the routine proceeds to step  1009  to determine if the frame subtype is a “Probe Response” frame. If “Yes”, the routine proceeds to step  1010  to execute a DisplayProbeResponseFrameDetail( ) routine as described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  15 . If the frame subtype is not a “Probe Response” at step  1009 , the routine proceeds to step  1011  to determine if the frame subtype is a “Beacon” frame. If “Yes”, the routine proceeds to step  1012 , where it executes the DisplayBeaconFrameDetail( ) routine as described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  16 . If “No” at step  1011 , the routine proceeds to step  1013  to determine if the frame subtype is a “Disassociation” frame. If “Yes”, then it proceeds to step  1014  to execute the DisplayDisassociationFrameDetail( ) routine as described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  17 . If “No”, then it proceeds to step  1015  to determine if the frame subtype is a “Authentication” frame. If “Yes”, then the routine proceeds to step  1016 , where it executes the DisplayAuthenticationFrameDetail( ) routine as described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  18 . If the result of step  1015  is “No”, then the routine proceeds to step  1017  to determine if the frame type is a “Deauthentication” frame. If “Yes”, then it proceeds to step  1018  to execute the DisplayDeauthenticationFrameDetail( ) routine as described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  19 . The FormatMangementFrameSubtype( ) routine terminates at step  1019 . 
     With reference to FIG. 11, the program executes the DisplayAssociationRequestFrameDetail( ) routine (step  1002  of FIG. 10) as denoted by the steps  1101  to  1107 . The role of this routine is to decode and display the information contained in the frame body field  24  of the “Association Request” management frame subtype. Upon initiation of step  1002 , the DisplayAssociationRequestFrameDetail( ) routine is activated. The routine then proceeds to step  1101  to execute the DisplayCapabilityInformationElement( ) routine as described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  35 . It then proceeds to step  1102  to display the contents of the “Listen Interval” field  4408 . Listen interval is 2 octets in length. This field is used to indicate to the Access Point how often a station wakes to listen to the Beacon management frames. It is expressed in units of Beacon interval. The routine then proceeds to step  1103  to execute the DisplaySSIDInformationElement( ) routine as described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  36 . The routine then proceeds to step  1104  to execute the DisplaySupportedRatesInformationElement( ) routine as described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  37 . The routine then proceeds to step  1105  to determine if there is an unknown information element at the end of the frame. If “Yes”, then it proceeds to step  1106  to execute the DisplayUnknownInformationElement( ) routine as described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  38 . The DisplayAssociationRequestFrameDetail( ) routine terminates at step  1107 , from Step  1106 , or from Step  1105  if “No.” Display of a typical “Association Request” frame body is shown in FIG.  53 . 
     With reference to FIG. 12, the program executes the DisplayReassociationRequestFrameDetail( ) routine (step  1004  of FIG. 10) as denoted by the steps  1201  to  1208 . The role of this routine is to decode and display the information contained in the frame body field  24  of the “Reassociation Request” management frame subtype. Upon initiation of step  1004 , the DisplayReassociationRequestFrameDetail( ) is activated. The routine then proceeds to step  1201  to execute the DisplayCapabilityInformationElement( ) routine as described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  35 . It then proceeds to step  1202  to display the contents of the “Listen Interval” field  4408 . Listen interval is 2 octets in length. This field is used to indicate to the Access Point how often a station wakes to listen to the Beacon management frames. It is expressed in units of Beacon interval. The routine then proceeds to step  1203  to display the MAC address of the current Access Point. The program displays the current AP address field  4508  by calling the DisplaySourceAddress( ) routine of FIG. 30 with appropriate parameters. The routine then proceeds to step  1204  to execute the DisplaySSIDInformationElement( ) routine as described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  36 . The routine proceeds to step  1205  to execute the DisplaySupportedRatesInformationElement( ) routine as described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  37 . The routine then proceeds to step  1206  to determine if there is an unknown information element at the end of the frame. If “Yes”, then it proceeds to step  1207  to execute the DisplayUnknownInformationElement( ) routine as described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  38 . The DisplayReassociationRequestFrameDetail( ) routine terminates at step  1208 . Display of a typical “Ressociation Request” frame body is shown in FIG.  54 . 
     With reference to FIG. 13, the program executes the DisplayRe_associationResponseFrameDetail( ) routine (step  1006  of FIG. 10) as denoted by the steps  1301  to  1307 . The role of this routine is to decode and display the information contained in the frame body field  24  of the “Association Response” and “Reassociation Response” management frame subtypes. Upon initiation of step  1006 , the DisplayRe_AssociationResponseFrameDetail( ) routine is activated. The routine then proceeds to step  1301  to execute the DisplayCapabilityInformationElement( ) routine as described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  35 . It then proceeds to step  1302  to display the contents of the “Status Code” field  4506 . The status code field is 2 octets in length. The routine displays the status code according to the code values shown in Table 3. The routine then proceeds to step  1303 , where it displays the contents of the “Association ID” field  4504  as an unsigned integer of 2 octets in length at step. The two most significant bits of the association ID field  4504  must be set to ones. The association ID should be between 1 and 2007. The routine then proceeds to step  1304  to execute the DisplaySupportedRatesInformationElement( ) routine as described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  37 . The routine then proceeds to step  1305  to determine if there is an unknown information element at the end of the frame. If “Yes”, then it proceeds to step  1306  to execute the DisplayUnknownInformationElement( ) routine as described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  38 . The DisplayRe_associationResponseFrameDetail( ) routine terminates at step  1307 , from Step  1306 , or from Step  1305  if “No.” Display of a typical “Association Response” frame body is shown in FIG.  55 . 
     With reference to FIG. 14, the program executes the DisplayProbeRequestFrameDetail( ) routine (step  1008  of FIG. 10) as denoted by the steps  1401  to  1405 . The role of this routine is to decode and display the information contained in the frame body field  24  of the “Probe Request” management frame subtype. Upon initiation of step  1008 , the DisplayProbeRequestFrameDetail( ) routine is activated. The routine then proceeds to step  1401  to execute the DisplaySSIDInformationElement( ) routine as described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  36 . It then proceeds to step  1402  to execute the DisplaySupportedRatesInformationElement( ) routine as described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  37 . The routine then proceeds to step  1403  to determine if there is an unknown information element at the end of the frame. If “Yes”, then it proceeds to step  1404  to execute the DisplayUnknownInformationElement( ) routine as described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  38 . The DisplayProbeRequestFrameDetail( ) routine terminates at step  1405  from Step  1404 , or from Step  1403  if “No.” Display of a typical “Probe Request” frame body is shown in FIG.  56 . 
     
       
         
               
             
               
               
             
           
               
                 TABLE 3 
               
             
             
               
                   
               
               
                 Status codes 
               
             
          
           
               
                 Status 
                   
               
               
                 code 
                 Meaning 
               
               
                   
               
               
                  0 
                 Successful 
               
               
                  1 
                 Unspecified failure 
               
               
                  2-9 
                 Reserved 
               
               
                 10 
                 Cannot support all requested capabilities in the Capability 
               
               
                   
                 Information Field 
               
               
                 11 
                 Reassocitaion denied due to inability to confirm that 
               
               
                   
                 association exists 
               
               
                 12 
                 Association denied due to reason outside of IEEE802.11 
               
               
                   
                 standard 
               
               
                 13 
                 Responding station does not support the specified authentica- 
               
               
                   
                 tion algorithm 
               
               
                 14 
                 Received an Authentication frame with authentication trans- 
               
               
                   
                 action sequence number out of expected sequence 
               
               
                 15 
                 Authentication rejected because of challenge failure 
               
               
                 16 
                 Authentication rejected due to timeout waiting for next frame 
               
               
                   
                 in sequence 
               
               
                 17 
                 Association denied because Access Point is unable to handle 
               
               
                   
                 additional associated stations 
               
               
                 18 
                 Association denied due to requesting station not supporting all 
               
               
                   
                 of the data rates in the Basic Service Set Basic Rate Set. 
               
               
                 19 
                 Association denied due to requesting station not supporting 
               
               
                   
                 Short Preamble option 
               
               
                 20 
                 Association denied due to requesting station not supporting 
               
               
                   
                 PBCC Modulation option 
               
               
                 21 
                 Association denied due to requesting station not supporting 
               
               
                   
                 Channel Agility option 
               
               
                 22-65535 
                 Reserved 
               
               
                   
               
             
          
         
       
     
     With reference to FIG. 15, the program executes the DisplayProbeResponseFrameDetail( ) routine (step  1010  of FIG. 10) as denoted by the steps  1501  to  1511 . The role of this routine is to decode and display the information contained in the frame body field  24  of the “Probe Response” management frame subtype. Upon initiation of step  1010 , the DisplayProbeResponseFrameDetail( ) routine is activated. The routine then proceeds to step  1501  to display the “Timestamp” field  4602  of FIG.  46 A. The “Timestamp” field  4602  is 8 octets long. The routine treats the time stamp number as an 8 octet unsigned little endian integer. It then proceeds to step  1502  to display the “Beacon Interval” field  4406 . The “Beacon Interval” field is 2 octets long. It represents the number of time units between target beacon transmission times. The routine then proceeds to step  1503 , where it executes the DisplayCapabilityInformationElement( ) routine as described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  35 . It then proceeds to step  1504  to execute the DisplaySSIDInformationElement( ) routine as described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  36 . It then proceeds to step  1505  to execute the DisplaySupportedRatesInformationElement( ) routine as described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  37 . The routine proceeds to step  1506  to execute the DisplayDSParameterSetInformationElement( ) routine as described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  39 . If the frame contains a “CF Parameter Set” information element as transmitted by Access Points supporting a Point Coordination Function, the routine then proceeds to step  1507  to execute the DisplayDSParameterSetInformationElement( ) routine as described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  40 . The next element in the probe response frame is the “Independent Basic Service Set (IBSS) parameter set” if the sending station is operating in an Independent Basic Service Set. The routine then executes the DisplayIBSSParameterSetInformationElement( ) routine at step  1508  as described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  41 . The routine then proceeds to step  1509  to determine if there is an unknown information element at the end of the frame. If “Yes”, then it proceeds to step  1510  to execute the DisplayUnknownInformationElement( ) routine as described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  38 . The DisplayProbeResponseFrameDetail( ) routine terminates at step  1511  from Step  1510 , or from Step  1509  if “No.” Display of a typical “Probe Response” frame body is shown in FIG.  57 . 
     With reference to FIG. 16, the program executes the DisplayBeaconFrameDetail( ) routine (step  1012  of FIG. 10) as denoted by the steps  1601  to  16412 . The role of this routine is to decode and display the information contained in the frame body field  24  of the “Beacon” management frame subtype. Upon initiation of step  1012 , the DisplayBeaconFrameDetail( ) routine is activated. The routine then proceeds to step  1601  to display the “Timestamp” field  4602  of FIG.  46 A. The “Timestamp” field  4602  is 8 octets long. The routine treats the time stamp number as an 8 octet unsigned little endian integer. It then proceeds to step  1602  to display the “Beacon Interval” field  4406 . The “Beacon Interval” field is 2 octets long. It represents the number of time units between target beacon transmission times. The routine then proceeds to step  1603 , where it executes the DisplayCapabilityInformationElement( ) routine as described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  35 . It then proceeds to step  1604  to execute the DisplaySSIDInformationElement( ) routine as described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  36 . It then proceeds to step  1605  to execute the DisplaySupportedRatesInformationElement( ) routine as described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  37 . The routine proceeds to step  1606  to execute the DisplayDSParameterSetInformationElement( ) routine as described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  39 . If the frame contains a “CF Parameter Set” information element as transmitted by Access Points supporting a Point Coordination Function, the routine then proceeds to step  1607  to execute the DisplayCFParameterSetInformationElement( ) routine as described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  40 . The next element in the beacon frame is the “Independent Basic Service Set (IBSS) parameter set” if the sending station is operating in an Independent Basic Service Set. The routine then executes the DisplayIBSSParameterSetInformationElement( ) routine at step  1608  as described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  41 . The routine proceeds to step  1609  to execute the DisplayTIMParameterSetInformationElement( ) routine as described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  42 . The routine then proceeds to step  1610  to determine if there is an unknown information element at the end of the frame. If “Yes”, then it proceeds to step  1611  to execute the DisplayUnknownInformationElement( ) routine as described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  38 . The DisplayBeaconFrameDetail( ) routine terminates at step  1612  from Step  1611 , or from Step  1610  if “No.” Display of a typical “Beacon” frame body is shown in FIG.  58 . 
     With reference to FIG. 17, the program executes the DisplayDisassociationFrameDetail( ) routine (step  1014  of FIG. 10) as denoted by the steps  1701  to  1704 . The role of this routine is to decode and display the information contained in the frame body field  24  of the “Disassociation” management frame subtype. Upon initiation of step  1014 , the DisplayDisassociationFrameDetail( ) routine is activated. The routine then proceeds to step  1701  to display the contents of the “Reason Code” field  4502 . The Reason Code is an unsigned number that is 2 octets long. The routine displays a message corresponding to the “Reason Code” field  4502  according to the values listed in Table 4. The routine then proceeds to step  1702  to determine if there is an unknown information element at the end of the frame. If “Yes”, then it proceeds to step  1703  to execute the DisplayUnknownInformationElement( ) routine as described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  38 . The DisplayDisassociationFrameDetail( ) routine terminates at step  1704  from Step  1703 , or from Step  1702  if “No.” Display of a typical “Disassociation” frame body is shown in FIG.  59 . 
     
       
         
               
             
               
               
             
           
               
                 TABLE 4 
               
             
             
               
                   
               
               
                 Reason codes 
               
             
          
           
               
                 Reason 
                   
               
               
                 code 
                 Meaning 
               
               
                   
               
               
                  0 
                 Reserved 
               
               
                  1 
                 Unspecified reason 
               
               
                  2 
                 Previous authentication no longer valid 
               
               
                  3 
                 Deauthenticated because sending station is leaving (or has 
               
               
                   
                 left) IBSS or ESS 
               
               
                  4 
                 Disassociated due to inactivity 
               
               
                  5 
                 Disassociated because Access Point is unable to handle all 
               
               
                   
                 currently associated stations 
               
               
                  6 
                 Class 2 frame received from nonauthenticated station 
               
               
                  7 
                 Class 3 frame received from nonassociated station 
               
               
                  8 
                 Disassociated because sending station is leaving (has left) BSS 
               
               
                  9 
                 Station requesting (re)association is not authenticated with 
               
               
                   
                 responding station 
               
               
                 10-65535 
                 Reserved 
               
               
                   
               
             
          
         
       
     
     With reference to FIG. 18, the program executes the DisplayAuthenticationFrameDetail( ) routine (step  1016  of FIG. 10) as denoted by the steps  1801  to  1814 . The role of this routine is to decode and display the information contained in the frame body field  24  of the “Authentication” management frame subtype. Upon initiation of step  1016 , the DisplayAuthenticationFrameDetail( ) routine is activated. The routine then proceeds to step  1801  to determine if the “WEP” bit field  60  is set to one. If “Yes”, the frame is originally encrypted and the routine proceeds to step  1802  to display the contents of the WEP-IV field  66  (See FIG. 2C) of length 4 octets. The first three octets contain the initialization vector for the decoding engine. The two most significant bits of the last octet holds the key number used to encrypt the data. The remaining bits of the last octet are reserved for future use. The routine then proceeds to step  1803  to determine if the frame is decrypted. If “No”, then the routine proceeds to step  1804  to display the contents of the encrypted data. The routine then proceeds to step  1805  to display the contents of the WEP-ICV field  70 . The WEP-ICV field is 4 octets in length and carries the “Integrity Check Value” of the encrypted data. The routine then proceeds to termination step  1814 . If the frame is not originally encrypted (step  1801 ) or the frame is decrypted (step  1803 ) the routine proceeds to step  1806  to display the contents of the “Authentication Algorithm Number” field  4402 . Authentication algorithm number is an unsigned number that is 2 octets long. The current allowed values are 0, which corresponds to Open System Authentication; and 1, which corresponds to Shared Key Authentication. The routine proceeds to step  1807  to display the contents of the “Authentication Transaction Sequence Number” field  4404 . The authentication transaction sequence number is an unsigned number that is 2 octets long. This number is used to identify the frame number used in the authentication exchange sequence. It proceeds to step  1808  to display the contents of the “Status Code” field  4506 . The status code field is 2 octets in length. The routine displays the status code according to the code values shown in Table 3. The routine proceeds to step  1809  to determine if the “Authentication Algorithm Number” is equal to 1 (Shared key), and the transaction sequence number is either  2  or  3 . If “Yes”, the routine proceeds to step  1810  to execute the DisplayChallengeTextInformationElement( ) routine as described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  43 . The routine then proceeds to step  1811  to determine if there is an unknown information element at the end of the frame. If “Yes”, then it proceeds to step  1812  to execute the DisplayUnknownInformationElement( ) routine as described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  38 . The routine then proceeds to step  1813  to determine if the frame is a decrypted frame. If “Yes”, the routine proceeds to step  1805  to display the contents of the WEP-ICV field  70 . The DisplayAuthenticationFrameDetail( ) routine terminates at step  1814  either from Step  1805 , or from Step  1813  if “No.” Authentication frames are exchanged between the stations to authenticate the requesting station by the responding station. The authentication transaction sequence transaction number depends on the frame direction. Display of a typical “Authentication” frame with transaction sequence number  2  is shown in FIG.  60 . 
     With reference to FIG. 19, the program executes the DisplayDeauthenticationFrameDetail( ) routine (step  1018  of FIG. 10) as denoted by the steps  1901  to  1904 . The role of this routine is to decode and display the information contained in the frame body field  24  of the “Deauthentication” management frame subtype. Upon initiation of step  1018 , the DisplayDeauthenticationFrameDetail( ) routine is activated. The routine then proceeds to step  1901  to display the contents of the “Reason Code” field  4502 . The Reason Code is an unsigned number that is 2 octets long. The routine displays a message corresponding to the “Reason Code” field  4502  according to the values listed in Table 4. The routine then proceeds to step  1902  to determine if there is an unknown information element at the end of the frame. If “Yes”, then it proceeds to step  1903  to execute the DisplayUnknownInformationElement( ) routine as described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  38 . The DisplayDeauthenticationFrameDetail( ) routine terminates at step  1904  from step  1903 , or from step  1902  if “No”. Display of a typical “Deauthentication” frame body is shown in FIG.  62 . 
     With reference to FIG. 20, the program executes the FormatCTRLDetail( ) routine (step  804  of FIG. 8) as denoted by the steps  2001  to  2011 . The role of this routine is to decode and display the information contained in the “Control” frame type. Upon initiation of step  804 , the FormatCTRLDetail( ) routine is activated. The routine then proceeds to step  2001 , where it executes the DisplayPhysicalLayerInformation( ) routine to display the physical layer related information determined by the Network Interface Card (NIC)  81  (see FIG. 1) as described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  27 . The routine proceeds to step  2002  to execute the DisplayFrameControlField( ) routine as described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  28 . It then proceeds to step  2003  to determine if the frame subtype is a “Power Save (PS)-Poll” frame. If “Yes”, the routine proceeds to step  2004  to execute the FormatPS_POLLDetail( ) as described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  21 . If “No”, the routine then proceeds to step  2005  to determine if the frame subtype is a “Request To Send (RTS)” frame. If “Yes”, the routine proceeds to step  2006  to execute the FormatRTSDetail( ) as described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  22 . If the result of step  2005  is “No”, the routine proceeds to step  2007  to determine if the frame subtype is either a “Clear To Send (CTS)” or an “Acknowledgement” frame. If “Yes”, the routine proceeds to step  2008  to execute the FormatCTS_ACKDetail( )as described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  23 . If the result of step  2007  is “No”, the routine then proceeds to step  2009  to determine if the frame subtype is either a “Contention Free (CF)-End” or a “CF-End+CF-Ack” frame. If “Yes”, the routine proceeds to step  2010  to execute the FormatCF_END_ACKDetail( ) as described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  24 . The FormnatCTRLDetail( ) routine terminates at step  2011  from Step  2010 , or from Step  2009  if “No.” 
     As shown in FIG. 21, the program executes the FormatPS_POLLDetail( ) subroutine  2004  generally shown in FIG.  20 . The task of this routine is to decode and display the information contained in the “Power Save (PS)—Poll” frame. The routine is activated at step  2004 , and it proceeds to step  2101  to determine if the two most significant bits of the “Association ID” field  30  are not set to one, because the IEEE802.11 standard requires these bits to be set to one. If “Yes”, then the routine proceeds to step  2102  where it displays a warning message “2 MSB bits of Association ID field should be 1”. If the result of step  2101  is “No”, then it proceeds to step  2103  to check if the 2 octet little endian number in the “Association ID” field  30  is between 1 and 2007. If “Yes”, then the routine displays the contents of the “Association ID” field  30  as an unsigned integer of two octets in length at step  2104 . If the result of step  2103  is “No”, then the routine displays a warning message “Association ID should be in range 1 to 2007” at step  2105 . The routine then proceeds to step  2106  to execute the DisplayBSSID( ) routine as described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  31 . It then proceeds to step  2107 , where it executes the DisplayTransmitterAddress( ) routine as described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  33 . The FormatPS_POLLDetail( ) routine terminates at step  2108 . Display of a typical “Power Save (PS)-Poll” frame is shown in FIG.  62 . 
     As shown FIG. 22, the program executes the FormatRTSDetail( ) subroutine  2006  generally shown in FIG.  20 . The task of this routine is to decode and display the information contained in the “Request To Send (RTS)” frame. The routine is activated at step  2006 , and it proceeds to step  2201  where it displays the contents of the duration field  30 . It treats the contents of the duration field as a little-endian unsigned integer of two octets in length. The value in “Duration” field  30  corresponds to the amount of time in microseconds that the medium is reserved by the sending station. The routine then proceeds to step  2202  to execute the DisplayReceiverAddress( ) routine as described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  32 . It then proceeds to step  2203 , where it executes the DisplayTransmitterAddress( ) routine as described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  33 . The FormatRTSDetail( ) routine terminates at step  2204 . Display of a typical “Request To Send (RTS)” frame is shown in FIG.  63 . 
     As shown FIG. 23, the program executes the FormatCTS_ACKDetail( ) subroutine  2008  generally shown in FIG. 20 via initiation step  2300 . The task of this routine is to decode and display the information contained in the “Clear To Send (CTS)” and “Acknowledgement (ACK)” frames. The routine is activated at step  2008 , and it proceeds to step  2301  where it displays the contents of the duration field  30 . It treats the contents of the duration field as a little-endian unsigned integer of two octets in length. The value in “Duration” field  30  corresponds to the amount of time in microseconds that the medium is reserved by the sending station. The routine then proceeds to step  2302  to execute the DisplayReceiverAddress( ) routine as described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  32 . The routine then proceeds to step  2303  to determine if the transmitter address is known. The transmitter address for “ACK” and “CTS” frames cannot be determined from the contents of the frame, because these frames do not carry the Address2 field  34 . If the software inside the Network Interface Card (NIC)  81  can determine the address of the transmitting station for these frame types, it sets the variable “bTransmitteAddressKnown” to “TRUE”, and sets the contents of the “ImpliedTransmitterAddress” variable to the address of the transmitting station. The details of determining the transmitter address are beyond the scope of this invention, and is covered by co-pending Ser. No. 09/875,544 shown above as a Related Application. If the transmitter address is known the routine proceeds to step  2304 , where it executes the DisplayTransmitterAddress( ) routine as described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  33 . The FormatCTS_ACKDetail( ) routine terminates at step  2305  from step  2304 , or from step  2303  if “No.” Display of a typical “Acknowledgement (ACK)” and “Clear To Send (CTS)” frames are shown in FIG.  64  and FIG. 65 respectively. 
     As shown in FIG. 24, the program executes the FormatCF_END_ACKDetail( ) subroutine  2010  generally shown in FIG.  20 . The task of this routine is to decode and display the information contained in the “Contention Free (CF)-End” and “CF+End+CF-Ack” frames. The routine is activated at step  2010 , and it proceeds to step  2401 , where it displays the contents of the duration field  30 . It treats the contents of the duration field as a little-endian unsigned integer of two octets in length. The value in “Duration” field  30  corresponds to the amount of time in microseconds that the medium is reserved by the sending station. The routine then proceeds to step  2402  to execute the DisplayReceiverAddress( ) routine as described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  32 . It then proceeds to step  2403 , where it executes the DisplayBSSIDO routine as described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  31 . The FormatCF_END_ACKDetail( ) routine terminates at step  2404 . Display of a typical “Contention Free (CF)-End” frame is shown in FIG.  66 . 
     With reference to FIG. 25, the program executes the FormatDATADetail( ) routine (step  806  of FIG. 8) as denoted by the steps  2501  to  2528 . The role of this routine is to decode and display the information contained in the “Data” frame type. Upon initiation of step  806 , the FormatDATADetail( ) routine is activated. The routine then proceeds to step  2501 , where it executes the DisplayPhysicalLayerInformation( ) routine to display the physical layer related information determined by the Network Interface Card (NIC)  81  as described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  27 . The routine proceeds to step  2502  to execute the DisplayFrameControlField( ) routine as described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  28 . The routine proceeds to step  2503 , where it displays the contents of the duration field  30 . It treats the contents of the duration field as a little-endian unsigned integer of two octets in length. The value of “Duration” field  30  corresponds to the amount of time in microseconds that the medium is reserved by the sending station. The routine then proceeds to step  2504  to determine if the “ToDS” bit field  48  is set to zero. If “Yes”, then it proceeds to step  2505  to execute the DisplayDestinationAddress( ) routine as described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  29 . It then proceeds to step  2506  to determine if the “FromDS” bit field  50  is set to zero. If “Yes”, then the routine proceeds to step  2507  to execute the DisplaySourceAddress( ) routine as described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  30 . It then proceeds to step  2508  to execute the DisplayBSSID( ) routine as described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  31 . The routine then proceeds to step  2511 . If the “FromDS” bit field  50  is not set to zero in step  2506 , then the routine proceeds to step  2509  to execute the DisplayBSSID( ) routine as described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  31 . The routine proceeds to step  2520  to execute the DisplaySourceAddress( ) routine as described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  30 . The routine then proceeds to step  2511  to execute the DisplaySequenceControlField( ) as described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  34 . The execution then moves to step  2522 . If the “ToDS” bit field  48  is not set to zero at step  2504  the routine proceeds to step  2512  to determine if the “FromDS” bit field  50  is set to zero. If “Yes”, then the routine proceeds to step  2513  to execute the DisplayBSSID( ) routine as described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  31 . The execution then moves to step  2514  to invoke the DisplaySourceAddress( ) routine as described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  30 . The routine then invokes at step  2515  the DisplayDestinationAddress( ) routine as described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  29 . The next step  2516  is the execution of the DisplaySequenceControlField( ) routine as described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  34 . The routine moves the execution to step  2522 . If the “FromDS” bit field  50  is not set to zero on step  2512 , the routine then proceeds to step  2517  where it executes the DisplayReceiverAddress( ) routine as described in detail by the flowchart of FIG.  32 . It then proceeds to step  2518  to execute the DisplayTransmitterAddress( ) routine as described by the flowchart of FIG.  33 . It then moves to step  2519  to execute DisplayDestinationAddress( ) routine as described by the flowchart of FIG.  29 . The routine proceeds to step  2520  to execute the DisplaySequenceControlField( ) routine as described by the flowchart of FIG.  34 . The routine next executes DisplaySourceAddress( ) at step  2521  as described by the flowchart of FIG.  30 . The routine then proceeds to step  2522  to determine if the data frame subtype is one of the “Null Function (No data)”, “Contention Free (CF)-Acknowledgement (No Data)”, “Contention Free (CF)-Poll(No Data)” or ““Contention Free (CF)-Acknowledgement+CF-Poll(No Data)” frames. If “Yes”, the routines terminates at step  2528 , because these frame subtype do not carry any data in the frame body field  24 . If “No”, then the routine proceeds to step  2523  for further decoding of the data frame. At step  2523  the routine determines if the “WEP” bit field  60  is set to one. If “No” the routine terminates. If the result of step  2523  is “Yes”, the routine proceeds to step  2524  display the contents of the WEP-IV field  66  of length 4 octets. The first three octets contain the initialization vector for the decoding engine. The two most significant bits of the last octet holds the key number used to encrypt the data. The remaining bits of the last octet are reserved for future use. The routine then proceeds to step  2525  to determine if the contents of the originally encrypted frame is not decrypted by the Network Interface Car (NIC)  81 . If “Yes” the routine then proceeds to step  2526  to execute the DisplayEncryptedData( ) routine which shows the number of encrypted octets. The routine then proceeds to step  2527  both from steps  2525  and  2526  to display the contents of the WEP-ICV field  70 . The WEP-ICV field is 4 octets in length carries the “Integrity Check Value” of the data frame. The FormatDATADetail( ) routine terminates at step  2528 . The display of a typical encrypted and decrypted data frames are shown in FIG.  67  and FIG. 68 respectively. 
     With reference to FIG. 26, the program executes the PrepareForUpperLayerDecoding( ) routine (step  306  of FIG. 3) as denoted by the steps  2601  to  2612 . The role of this routine is to determine the parameters that will be necessary for upper layer decoding to be completed. The routine determines which upper layer decoding interpreter will be called next along with which data offset the new decoding routine will start decoding. Upon initiation of step  306 , the PrepareForUpperLayerDecoding( ) routine is activated. The routine then proceeds to step  2601  to determine if the frame type is a “Data” frame, and whether it was received without a decryption error, because only data frames without decryption errors will have valid data. If the result of step  2601  is “No”, the variable “NextLayer” will be set to NULL at step  2602 , and the routine proceeds to step  2612  to terminate. If the result of step  2601  is “Yes”, the routine then proceeds to step  2603  to determine if the “WEP” bit field  60  is set to zero. If “Yes”, the routine proceeds to step  2604 , where it sets the variable “DataStart” used by the higher layer interpreter to the length of the MAC header of the IEEE802.11 wireless standard. The routine then will proceed to step  2608 . If the “WEP” bit field  60  is not set to zero at step  2603 , the routine then proceeds to step  2605  to determine if the frame is decrypted. If “No”, the routine proceeds to step  2606 , where the variable “NextLayer” will be set to NULL, and the routine proceeds to step  2612  to terminate. If the frame is decrypted as determined at step  2605 , the routine proceeds to step  2607  where the variable “DataStart” is set to the length of the MAC header of the IEEE802.11 wireless standard plus four. The extra four octets are due to the length of the WEP-IV field  66  as shown in FIG.  2 C. The routine then proceeds to step  2608  to determine if the 2-octet field at the location of “DataStart” in the frame is equal to 0xFFFF in hexadecimal. If “Yes”, then the variable “NextLayer” will be set to “IPX” via step  2609 , which corresponds to Novell Internet Packet Exchange over Data Link Control layer. The routine then proceeds to step  2611 . If the result of step  2608  is “No”, then the routine proceeds to step  2610  where the variable “NextLayer” will be set to “LLC”, which corresponds to Logical Link Control layer encapsulation of the data. Then the routine proceeds to step  2611  to notify the calling routine about the next layer to be called, and where the next layer will start decoding in the frame. The PrepareForUpperLayerDecoding( ) routine terminates at step  2612 . 
     With reference to FIG. 27, the program executes the DisplayPhysicalLayerInformation( ) routine as denoted by the steps  2700  to  2713 . The role of this routine is to display the physical characteristics of the frame, determined by the Network Analysis Tool  80  when the frame is captured. The physical characteristics of the frame are stored in the capture buffer along with the frame data. The information stored relates to characteristics such as frame number in the capture buffer, frame size, frame error if any, radio signal strength, the channel that the signal is received, data rate, if the frame is transmitted using short physical header, and encryption information such as encryption key used to decode the encrypted frame. Upon activation at step  2700 , the routine proceeds to step  2701  to display the time the frame is captured and the size of the frame in octets. The Network Analysis Tool  80  can be configured by the user in such a way that the number of octets stored in the capture buffer can be limited to a user selected number. This allows the user to capture a lot more frames for a fixed size of the capture buffer  83 . However, some information at the higher layers will be lost when the user wants to analyze the captured frames offline. The routine proceeds to step  2702  to determine if the frame is sliced during the capture. If “Yes”, the routine proceeds to step  2703  and displays the sliced size of the captured frame. The routine proceeds to step  2704  either from step  2703 , or from step  2702  if “No,” to determine if the captured frame contains any error. If “Yes”, the routine proceeds to step  2705  to display the error information. The error types the frames can have: 
     i) Bad CRC (Cyclic Redundancy Check) 
     ii) PLCP (Physical Layer Control Protocol) error 
     iii) WEP-ICV (Wired Equivalent Privacy Integrity Value) error 
     iv) Undersize frame error 
     v) Oversize frame error 
     The routine proceeds to step  2706  either from step  2705 , or from step  2704  if“No,” to display the strength of the radio signal in percentage when the frame is received. At step  2707 , the routine displays the channel number on which the frame is received. At step  2708 , the routine displays the data rate in terms of Mbits per second. The routine then proceeds to step  2709  to determine if the frame is transmitted using short physical layer control protocol (PLCP) header. If “Yes”, the routine proceeds to step  2710 , where it displays information to the user that the frame is received with a short PLCP header. It then proceeds to step  2711 , either from step  2710 , or from step  2709  if “No,” to determine if the frame is originally encrypted. If “Yes”, then the routine proceeds to step  2712  to display the key number used for the encryption if it does not have any decryption error. If it has a decryption error then it simply displays via step  2712  information that notifies the user that frame was originally encrypted. The routine terminates at step  2713 , either from steo  2712 , or from step  2711  if “No”. A typical output of the DisplayPhysicalLayerInformation( ) routine is shown in FIG.  69 . 
     With reference to FIG. 28, the program executes the DisplayFrameControlField( ) routine as denoted by the steps  2800  to  2805 . This routine displays the contents of the “Frame Control” field  20 . The length of the frame control field  20  is 16 bits (2 octets) as shown in FIG.  2 B. Upon activation at step  2800 , the routine proceeds to step  2801  to display the version number of the protocol as determined by the IEEE802.11 standard. The protocol version field  42  is 2 bits in length, and resides in the two least significant bits (bits 0 and 1). At step  2802 , the routine displays the frame type. “Frame Type” field  44  is 2 bits in length and resides in the bits B 2  and B 3 . The program displays the frame type according to the bit values as shown in Table 1. The routine then proceeds to step  2803  to display the frame subtype. “Frame Subtype” field  46  is 4 bits in length, and it resides in bits B 4  through B 7 . The routine displays the frame subtype according to the bit value combinations as shown in Table 1. The routine then proceeds to step  2804  to display the contents of the second octet of the “Frame Control” field  28 . It displays suitable messages depending on the bit values in each bit as follows. Bit B 8  of the “Frame Control” field corresponds to the “ToDS” bit field  48 . “ToDS” field  48  is set to one if the frame is destined for the distribution system. Otherwise it is set to zero. The bit B 9  corresponds to “FromDS” bit field  50 . If the frame is from the distribution server this bit is set to one, otherwise set to zero. Bit B 10  corresponds to “MoreFrag” bit field  52 . If the current frame is a fragment of a larger frame and there are more fragments to follow this bit is set to one. Bit B 11  corresponds to “Retry” bit field  54 . It is set to one if the current frame is a retry of a previously transmitted frame. Bit B 12  corresponds to the “Pwr Mgmt” bit field  56 . It is set to one if the sending station will be in the power-save mode. It will be set to zero if it will be in active mode. Bit B 13  corresponds to “More Data” bit field  58 . It is set to one if there are more data destined at the Access Point to a station in power-save mode. It is set to zero otherwise. Bit B 14  corresponds to “WEP bit field  60 . It is set one if the frame is encrypted and set to zero otherwise. Bit B  15  of the “Frame Control” field  28  corresponds to “Order” bit field  62 . It is set to one in any frame that contains data, which is being transferred using “Strictly Ordered” service class. After displaying the values of the bits and corresponding meaning of the bits the routine terminates at step  2805 . A typical output of the DisplayFrameControlField( ) routine is shown in FIG.  69 . 
     With respect to FIG. 29, the program executes the DisplayDestinationAddress( ) routine as denoted by the steps  2900  to  2907 . The role of this routine is to format and to display the destination address of the frame. The Medium Access Control (MAC) addresses are 6 octets in length. If the address is destined to a single station it is referred to as a “Unicast” address. If the frame is destined to a group of stations it is referred to as “Multicast” address. If it is destined to all stations it is called a “Broadcast” address. According to IEEE802.11 standard if the MAC address field carries all ones (0xFFFFFFFFFFFF in hexadecimal) it is a broadcast address. If the least significant bit of the first octet of the MAC address is “1”, it is a multicast address. Otherwise it is a unicast address. Upon activation at step  2900 , the routine proceeds to step  2901  to determine if the destination address is a broadcast address. If “Yes”, it proceeds to step  2902  to display “BROADCAST” string for the address. It then proceeds to step  2906 . If the address is not broadcast at step  2901 , the routine proceeds to step  2903  to determine if the destination address is a multicast address. If “Yes”, the routine then proceeds to step  2904  to display the string “Multicast”. The routine proceeds to step  2906 . If the address is not a multicast at step  2903 , the routine proceeds to step  2905  to display the string “Station” indicating a unicast address. The routine then proceeds to step  2606  to format and display the destination address. The first 3 octets of any unicast MAC address are unique to a manufacturer. The routine displays a 6-character abbreviation for the first three octets of the MAC address. The remaining octets are printed as hexadecimal numbers for each octet in order. The routine terminates at step  2907 . A typical output of the DisplayDestinationAddress( ) routine is shown in FIG.  70 . 
     With respect to FIG. 30, the program executes the DisplaySourceAddress( ) routine as denoted by the steps  3000  to  3007 . The role of this routine is to format and to display the source address of the frame. Upon activation at step  3000 , the routine proceeds to step  3001  to display the string “Station”. The routine proceeds to step  3002  to format and display the source address. The first 3 octets of any unicast MAC address are unique to a manufacturer. The routine displays a 6-character abbreviation for the first three octets of the MAC address. The remaining octets are printed as hexadecimal numbers for each octet in order. The routine proceeds to step  3003  to determine if the source address is a broadcast address. If “Yes”, it proceeds to step  3004  to display warning message string “(Should not be Broadcast)”, because the source address cannot be a broadcast address. It then proceeds to step  3007 . If the address is not broadcast at step  3003 , the routine proceeds to step  3005  to determine if the source address is a multicast address. If “Yes,” it proceeds to step  3006  to display warning message string “(Should not be Multicast)”, because the source address cannot be a multicast address. The routine terminates at step  3007 . A typical output of the DisplaySourceAddress( ) routine is shown in FIG.  70 . 
     With respect to FIG. 31, the program executes the DisplayBSSID( ) routine as denoted by the steps  3100  to  3112 . The role of this routine is to format and to display the Basic Service Set Identification (BSSID) of the frame. Upon activation at step  3100 , the routine proceeds to step  3101  to determine if the address type in the BSSID field corresponds to BSSID of an Access Point. If “Yes”, the routine proceeds to step  3102  to display the “Station” string, because the BSSID of an Access Point is the same as its MAC address; therefore, it cannot be a multicast or broadcast address. The routine proceeds to step  3103  to format and display the BSSID using the same techniques as the source and destination address. The routine proceeds to step  3104  to determine if the address in the BSSID field is a broadcast address. If “Yes”, step  3105  is entered, and displays a warning message of “(Should not be Broadcast)”. The routine proceeds to termination step  3114 . If the address is not broadcast at step  3104 , the routine proceeds to step  3106  to determine if the address is multicast. If “Yes”, step  3107  is entered, and displays a warning message “(Should not be Multicast)”. The routine proceeds to step  3114 . If the BSSID type at step  3101  is not an Access Point BSSID, the routine then proceeds to step  3108  to determine if the address type is broadcast. If “Yes”, it proceeds to step  3109  to display “BROADCAST”. The routine then proceeds to step  3110  to format and display the BSSID as if it is an address as described previously. The routine proceeds to step  3114 . If the address type is not broadcast at step  3108 , the routine proceeds to step  3111  to determine if the address is multicast. If “Yes”, the routine proceeds to step  3112  to format and display the BSSID as a MAC address. The routine then proceeds to step  3113  to display a warning message ““(Should not be Multicast)”. The routine terminates at step  3114 . A typical output of the DisplayBSSID( ) routine is shown in FIG.  69 . 
     With respect to FIG. 32, the program executes the DisplayReceiverAddress( ) routine as denoted by the steps  3200  to  3207 . The role of this routine is to format and to display the to determine if the receiver address is a broadcast address. If “Yes”, it proceeds to step  3202  to display “BROADCAST” string for the address. It then proceeds to step  3206 . If the address is not broadcast at step  3201 , the routine proceeds to step  3203  to determine if the receiver address is a multicast address. If “Yes”, the routine then proceeds to step  3204  to display the string “Multicast”. The routine proceeds to step  3206 . If the address is not a multicast at step  3203 , the routine proceeds to step  3205  to display the string “Station” indicating a unicast address. The routine then proceeds to step  3206  to format and display the receiver address. The first 3 octets of any unicast MAC address are unique to a manufacturer. The routine displays a 6-character abbreviation for the first three octets of the MAC address. The remaining octets are printed as hexadecimal numbers for each octet in order. The routine terminates at step  3207 . A typical output of the DisplayReceiverAddress( ) routine is shown in FIG.  70 . 
     With respect to FIG. 33, the program executes the DisplayTransmitterAddress( ) routine as denoted by the steps  3000  to  3007 . The role of this routine is to format and to display the transmitter address of the frame. Upon activation at step  3300 , the routine proceeds to step  3301  to display the string “Station”. The routine proceeds to step  3202  to format and display the transmitter address. The first 3 octets of any unicast MAC address are unique to a manufacturer. The routine displays a 6-character abbreviation for the first three octets of the MAC address. The remaining octets are printed as hexadecimal numbers for each octet in order. The routine proceeds to step  3303  to determine if the transmitter address is a broadcast address. If “Yes”, it proceeds to step  3304  to display warning message string “(Should not be Broadcast)”, because the transmitter address cannot be a broadcast address. It then proceeds to termination step  3307 . If the address is not broadcast at step  3003 , the routine proceeds to step  3305  to determine if the transmitter address is a multicast address. If “Yes,” it proceeds to step  3306  to display warning message string “(Should not be Multicast)”, because the transmitter address cannot be a multicast address, and then proceeds to step  3307 . If “No,” the routine terminates at step  3307 . A typical output of the DisplayTransmitterAddress( ) routine is shown in FIG.  70 . 
     With respect to FIG. 34, the program executes the DisplaySequenceControlField( ) routine as denoted by the steps  3400  to  3405 . The role of this routine is to format and to display the sequence and the fragment number of the frame. Upon activation at step  3400 , the routine proceeds to step  3401  to determine the sequence number. The “Sequence Control” field  40  is 2 octets in length. The sequence number occupies the twelve most significant bits of the “Sequence Control” field  40 . The routine first gets the twelve most significant bits of the sequence control field and shifts the result by 4 bits to right. The routine then proceeds to step  3402  to determine the fragment number which resides in the 4 least significant bits of the “Sequence Control” field  40 . The routine then proceeds to step  3403  to display the sequence number, and then to step  3404  to display the fragment number. The routine terminates at step  3405 . A typical output of the DisplaySequenceControlField( ) routine is shown in FIG.  69  and FIG.  70 . 
     With respect to FIG. 35, the program executes the DisplayCapabilityInformationElement( ) routine as denoted by the steps  3500  to  3507 . The role of this routine is to format and to display the capability information field. The capability information element is 2 octetsin length. The structure of the Capability Information element is shown in FIG.  46 B. Upon activation at step  3500 , the routine proceeds to step  3501  to display the ESS bit field  4604  (bit  0 ). If it is set to one it means the station is operating in an Extended Service Set. It is set to zero otherwise. The routine displays the content of the IBSS bit field  4606 . The IBSS bit is set to 1 if the station is running in an Independent Basic Service Set. It is set to zero otherwise. The routine proceeds to step  3502  to determine if the management frame subtype is either an “Association Request” or “Reassociation Request” frame. If “Yes”, the routine proceeds to step  3503  to display the contents of the “CF-Pollable” and “CF Poll Request” bit fields  4608  and  4610 , respectively, according to the bit values as shown in Table 5 (see below). If the result of the step  3502  is “No”, then the routine proceeds to step  3504  to display the contents of the “CF-Pollable” and “CF Poll Request” bit fields  4608  and  4610  respectively according to the bit values as shown in Table 6 (see below). The routine then proceeds to step  3505  either from step  3503 , or from step  3504 , to display the contents of the remaining bits. If the “Privacy” bit field  4612  is set to one, the station is using WEP encryption. If the “Short Preamble” bit field  4614  is set to one the station is capable of running short preambles. If the Packet Binary Convolutional Coding (PBCC) is implemented, the “PBCC” bit field  4616  is set to one. It is set to zero otherwise. If the channel agility is in use the “Channel Agility” bit field  4618  is set to one. It is set to zero otherwise. The routine next displays the contents of the bits B 8 -B 15  as reserved at step  3506 . The routine terminates at step  3507 . A typical output of the DisplayCapabilityInformationElement( ) routine is shown in FIG.  58 . 
     
       
         
               
             
               
               
               
             
           
               
                 TABLE 5 
               
             
             
               
                   
               
               
                 Station usage of CF-Pollable and CF-Poll Request 
               
             
          
           
               
                 CF- 
                 CF-Poll 
                   
               
               
                 Pollable 
                 Request 
                 Meaning 
               
               
                   
               
               
                 0 
                 0 
                 Station is not CF-Pollable 
               
               
                 0 
                 1 
                 Station is CF-Pollable, not requesting to be placed on 
               
               
                   
                   
                 CF-Polling List 
               
               
                 1 
                 0 
                 Station is CF-Pollable, requesting to be placed on CF- 
               
               
                   
                   
                 Polling List 
               
               
                 1 
                 1 
                 Station is CF-Pollable, requesting never to be polled 
               
               
                   
               
             
          
         
       
     
     
       
         
               
             
               
               
               
             
           
               
                 TABLE 6 
               
             
             
               
                   
               
               
                 Access Point usage of CF-Pollable and CF-Poll Request 
               
             
          
           
               
                 CF- 
                 CF-Poll 
                   
               
               
                 Pollable 
                 Request 
                 Meaning 
               
               
                   
               
               
                 0 
                 0 
                 No point coordinator at Access Point 
               
               
                 0 
                 1 
                 Point coordinator at Access Point for delivery only (no 
               
               
                   
                   
                 Polling) 
               
               
                 1 
                 0 
                 Point coordinator at Access Point for delivery and 
               
               
                   
                   
                 polling 
               
               
                 1 
                 1 
                 Reserved 
               
               
                   
               
             
          
         
       
     
     With respect to FIG. 36, the program executes the DisplaySSIDInformationElement( ) routine as denoted by the steps  3600  to  3608 . The role of this routine is to format and to display the Service Set Identification (SSID) information field  4628 . The structure of the SSID information element is shown in FIG.  46 C. Upon activation at step  3600 , the routine proceeds to step  3601  to display the information element identification number. The information element ID for the SSID is equal to 0. The routine then proceeds to step  3602  to display the length of the SSID field  4628 . The valid length of the SSID field  4628  is 0-32 octets. The routine then proceeds to step  3603  to determine if the length is greater than 32 octets. If “Yes”, then the routine proceeds to step  3604  to display a warning message “(should be&lt;=32)” indicating that the length of the SSID field should not be greater than 32 octets. The routine next proceeds to step  3605 , either from step  3604  or step  3603 , to determine if the length is set to zero octets. If “Yes”, then the routine displays via step  3605  a message “Broadcast Service Set Identity”. The routine then proceeds to step  3607  to display the contents of the SSID field  4628 . The routine terminates at step  3608 . A typical output of the DisplaySSIDInformationElement( ) routine is shown in FIG.  58 . 
     With respect to FIG. 37, the program executes the DisplaySupportedRatesInformationElement( ) routine as denoted by the steps  3700  to  3708 . The role of this routine is to format and to display the “Supported Rates” information field  4706 . The structure of the Supported Rates information element is shown in FIG.  47 A. Upon activation at step  3700 , the routine proceeds to step  3701  to display the information element identification number. The information element ID for the Supported Rates is equal to 1. The routine then proceeds to step  3702  to display the length of the Supported Rates field  4706 . The valid length of the Supported Rates field  4706  is 1-8 octets. The routine then proceeds to step  3703  to determine if the length is greater than 8 octets or less than 1 octet. If “Yes”, then the routine proceeds to step  3704  to display a warning message” (should be 1 to 8 octets)” indicating that the length of the Supported Rates field  4706  should be between 1 to 8 octets. The routine next proceeds to step  3705 , either from step  3704  or step  3703  (if “No“), to determine if the length is greater than 0 octets, because each supported rate occupies 1 octet. If “Yes”, then the routine proceeds to step  3706  to display the supported rate. If the most significant bit of each supported rate is set to one, the supported rate belongs to the Basic Service Set Basic Rate. The remaining bits describe the supported rate in units of 500 kbit/s. The routine next proceeds to step  3707  where the “Length” variable is decremented by 1. The routine returns to step  3705  to determine if there is any more rates to display. If there is not any more rates at step  3705 , the routine terminates at step  3708 . A typical output of the DisplaySupportedRatesInformationElement( ) routine is shown in FIG.  58 . 
     With respect to FIG. 38, the program executes the DisplayUnknownInformationElement( ) routine as denoted by the steps  3800  to  3804 . The role of this routine is to format and to display the Unknown information field  4836 . The structure of the Unknown information element is shown in FIG.  48 D. Upon activation at step  3800 , the routine proceeds to step  3801  to display the information element identification number. The information element ID for the Unknown information element is specific to the manufacturer. Manufacturers use the reserved information element ID numbers to implement vendor specific information transfer. The routine then proceeds to step  3802  to display the length of the Unknown information field  4836 . The routine then proceeds to step  3803  to display the contents of the Unknown information field  4836 . The routine terminates at step  3804 . A typical output of the DisplayUnknownInformationElement( ) routine is shown in FIG.  71 . 
     With respect to FIG. 39, the program executes the DisplayDSParameterSetInformationElement( ) routine as denoted by the steps  3900  to  3906 . The role of this routine is to format and to display the Direct Sequence (DS) Parameter Set information element  4716 . The structure of the DS Parameter Set information element is shown in FIG.  47 B. The “Current Channel” field  4714  describes the channel being operated by the sending station. Upon activation at step  3900 , the routine proceeds to step  3901  to display the information element identification number. The information element ID for the DS Parameter Set information element is equal to 3. The routine then proceeds to step  3902  to display the length of the “Current Channel” field  4714 , which is 1 octet long. The routine then proceeds to step  3903  to determine if the length is equal to 1 octet. If “No”, then the routine proceeds to step  3904  to display a warning message “(should be 1 octet)” indicating that the length of the “Current Channel” field  4714  should be equal to one octet. The routine from either step  3903  if “Yes,” or from step  3904 , proceeds to step  3905  to display the contents of the “Current Channel” field  4714 . The routine terminates at step  3906 . A typical output of the DisplayDSParameterSetInformationElement( ) routine is shown in FIG.  71 . 
     With respect to FIG. 40, the program executes the DisplayCFParameterSetInformationElement( ) routine as denoted by the steps  4000  to  4006 . The role of this routine is to format and to display Contention Free (CF) Parameter Set Information element  4730 . The structure of the CF Parameter Set information element is shown in FIG.  47 C. Upon activation at step  4000 , the routine proceeds to step  4001  to display the information element identification number. The information element ID for the CF Parameter Set information element is equal to 4. The routine then proceeds to step  4002  to display the length of the information field, which is 6 octets long. The routine then proceeds to step  4003  to determine if the length is equal to 6 octets. If “No”, then the routine proceeds to step  4004  to display a warning message “(should be 6 octets)”. The routine then proceeds to step  4005  from either step  4004 , or from step  4003  if “Yes,” to display the contents of the information field. The information field contains the CFP Count field  4722 , CFP Period field  4724 , CFP Maximum Duration field  4726 , and CFP duration remaining field  4728 . The routine first displays the CFP Count field  4722 . This field contains an unsigned number 1 octet long. The routine than displays the CFP Period field  4724  that is an unsigned number of 1 octet length. The routine displays the CFP Maximum Duration field  4726 , which is an unsigned integer that is 2 octetslong. The routine then displays the CFP Duration Remaining field  4728 . This field is an unsigned integer that is 2 octetslong. The numbers described by the CFP Maximum Duration and CFPO Duration Remaining fields  4726  and  4728  respectively are expressed in terms of time units. The routine terminates at step  4006 . A typical output of the DisplayCFParameterSetInformationElement( ) routine is shown in FIG.  72 . 
     With respect to FIG. 41, the program executes the DisplayIBSSParameterSetInformationElement( ) routine as denoted by the steps  4100  to  4106 . The role of this routine is to format and to display the Independed Basic Service Set (IBSS) information element  4822 . The structure of the IBSS information element is shown in FIG.  48 B. The “Announcement Traffic Indication Message (ATIM) Window” field  4820  describes the ATIM window length in time units (TU). Upon activation at step  4100 , the routine proceeds to step  4101  to display the information element identification number. The information element ID for the IBSS information element is equal to 6. The routine then proceeds to step  4102  to display the length of the “ATIM Window” field  4820 , which is 2 octets long. The routine then proceeds to step  4103  to determine if the length is equal to 2 octets. If “No”, then the routine proceeds to step  4104  to display a warning message “(should be 2 octets)”. The routine then proceeds to step  4105  either from step  4104 , or from step  4103  if “Yes,” to display the contents of the “ATIM Window” field  4820 . The routine terminates at step  4106 . A typical output of the DisplayIBSSParameterSetInformationElement( ) routine is shown in FIG.  57 . 
     With respect to FIG. 42, the program executes the DisplayTIMParameterSetInformationElement( ) routine as denoted by the steps  4200  to  4206 . The role of this routine is to format and to display the Traffic Indication Message (TIM) information element  4814 . The structure of the TIM information element is shown in FIG.  48 A. Upon activation at step  4200 , the routine proceeds to step  4201  to display the information element identification number. The information element ID for the TIM information element is equal to 5. The routine then proceeds to step  4202  to display the length of the information field, which is between 4 and 254 octets long. The routine then proceeds to step  4203  to determine if the length is less than 4 or greater than 254 octets. If “Yes”, then the routine proceeds to step  4204  to display a warning message “(should be 4 to 254 octets)”. The routine then proceeds from either step  4204 , or from step  4203  if “No,” from either step  4204 , or from step  4203  if “No,” to step  4205  to display the contents of the information element. The information element contains the Delivery Traffic Indication Message (DTIM) Count field  4806 , DTIM Period field  4808 , Bitmap Control field  4810 , and Partial Virtual Bitmap field  4812 . The routine first displays the DTIM Count field  4806 . This field is 1 octet long, and it contains an unsigned number. The routine next displays the DTIM Period field  4808 . The DTIM Period field  4808  is 1 octet long, and also contains an unsigned number. The Bitmap Control field  4810  is a single octet. The least significant bit (bit  0 ) of this field contains the Traffic Indicator bit associated with Association ID  0 . This bit is set to 1 whenever there is Multicast or Broadcast frames buffered at the Access Point. The remaining bits of the Bitmap Control field  4810  describes the bitmap offset of the Partial Virtual Bitmap field  4812 . The routine then displays the contents of the Partial Virtual Bitmap field  4812 . The routine terminates at step  4206 . A typical output of the DisplayTIMParameterSetInformationElement( ) routine is shown in FIG.  71 . 
     With respect to FIG. 43, the program executes the DisplayChallengeTextInformationElement( ) routine as denoted by the steps  4300  to  4306 . The role of this routine is to format and to display “Challenge Text” information element  4830 . The structure of the “Challenge Text” information element is shown in FIG.  48 C. The “Challenge Text” field  4828  contains random information that is sent from the responding station to the requesting station in authentication frame exchange sequence. The requesting station then encrypts the next authentication frame and sends it back. The responding station decrypts the contents of the authentication frame body and compares it with the random information it has sent. If they are the same then the requesting station is authenticated. Upon activation at step  4300 , the routine proceeds to step  4301  to display the information element identification number. The information element ID for the Challenge Text information element is equal to 16. The routine then proceeds to step  4302  to display the length of the “Challenge Text” field  4828 , which is between 1 to 253 octets long. The routine then proceeds to step  4303  to determine if the length is less than 1 octet or greater than 253 octets. If “Yes”, then the routine proceeds to step  4304  to display a warning message “(should be 1-253 octets)”. The routine then proceeds either from step  4304 , or from step  4303  if “No,” to step  4305  to display the contents of the “Challenge Text” field  4828 . The routine terminates at step  4306 . A typical output of the DisplayChallengeTextInformationElement( ) routine is shown in FIG.  73 . Note that as previously mentioned, FIGS. 49 through 73 show display screens for various embodiments of the invention, respectively. 
     Although various embodiments of the invention have been shown and described, they are not meant to be limiting. Those of skill in the art may recognize various modifications to these embodiments, which modifications are meant to be covered by the spirit and scope of the appended claims.