WiFi Scanner

A simple Node.js WiFi Scanner for Windows, Linux and macOS. Works great on embedded devices like the Raspberry Pi.

Installation

npm install wifiscanner

Basic Usage

1. Require wifiscanner
2. Create an instance of a scanner
3. Call scan with a callback with two parameters
4. Profit?

const wifiscanner = require("wifiscanner");
 
//Returns appropriate instance of a wifi scanner
const scanner = wifiscanner();
 
scanner.scan((error, networks) => {
    if(error) {
        console.error(error);
    } else {
        console.dir(networks);
    }
});
 

Network is an Array of nearby networks. Each network will have the following keys:

• ssid
• mac
• channel
• security (Array e.g [ 'WPA', 'WPA2' ])

JSON Sample Output

[
    {
        ssid: 'wifi with-n0-s3cur1ty!',
        mac: '16:0d:7f:49:da:e1',
        channel: '1',
        security: ['None']
    },
    {
        ssid: 'WEP enabled',
        mac: '16:0d:7f:49:da:e2',
        channel: '1',
        security: ['WEP']
    },
    {
        ssid: 'WPA1 Enabled',
        mac: '16:0d:7f:49:da:e3',
        channel: '1',
        security: ['WPA']
    },
    {
        ssid: 'WPA1+WPA2',
        mac: '16:0d:7f:49:da:e4',
        channel: '1',
        security: ['WPA', 'WPA2'],
    },
    {
        ssid: 'WPA2 Only',
        mac: '16:0d:7f:49:da:e5',
        channel: '1',
        security: ['WPA2']
    }
]

There is a limitation on Windows. If there is a network that is both WPA and WPA2 security, only WPA2 will be reported.

Less Basic Usage

Custom binaries and arguments

You can specify binary (binaryPath) and arguments (args) in a set of options.

const wifiscanner = require("wifiscanner");
 
 
//Options
const options = {
    args: "wlan2 scan",
    binaryPath: "/path/to/iwlist"
}
 
const scanner = wifiscanner(options);
 
scanner.scan(function(error, networks){
    if(error) {
        console.error(error);
    } else {
        console.dir(networks);
    }
});
 

Handling stderr

Standard error can is more of a warning. For example, if you're on Linux with wlan0, en0 and lo and you run the iwlist scan command you get both the stdout of the networks on the wlan0 network interface (which is parsed in to the networks Array) and the stderr of:

lo        Interface doesn't support scanning.

eth0      Interface doesn't support scanning.

The default behavior from this module is to do nothing. However, you can pass in a second optional callback to the scan method and do what you want with it.

const wifiscanner = require("wifiscanner");
 
 
//Options
const options = {
    args: "wlan2 scan",
    binaryPath: "/path/to/iwlist"
}
 
const scanner = wifiscanner(options);
 
scanner.scan(function(error, networks){
    //...
}, function(standardError){
    console.error(standardError);
});