Connecting to specific BSSID

I don't think there's a way to do this...

That said, you really shouldn't give two wireless access points the same SSID unless they are part of one larger network (created with WDS, for instance). I'm assuming the two wireless access points are controlled by you, and that you know how to correct this issue. If you don't please post here, and I will be glad to assist.

wiz561 said:

It's actually the corporate / campus network here. I have mixed reception, and it really flip-flops between two AP's. I used kismac and saw that there's two AP's on the same channel with different BSSID's.

Since I'm not the admin of the network, I can not make a change to the AP's. However, it would be nice to be able to choose which AP I connect to based upon BSSID.

Thanks!

Click to expand...

Now you've got me curious... what is a BSSID? I've heard of SSIDs before but never "BSSID".

Here's a possible solution:
If you're running Panther or earlier I can't help.
If you're running Tiger, I know there's a setting for preferred order of wireless networks to connect to but can't recall where it is
If you're running Leopard, the setting you want is in System Preferences, under the Network pane. Select AirPort. It's in there, somewhere (I'm not at my Mac right now, alas).

Possible solution

wiz561 said:

I was wondering if there was a way to connect to a specific mac address for a wireless access point.

Click to expand...

According to this thread you should be able to achieve this with:

/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Resources/airport -A'NETWORKNAME' BSSID='00:11:22:33:44:55' password='PASSWORD'

I found that I have to type in the password again even when I specify it as a parameter though.

I realize this is a very old thread... But I ran into it while needing a command to connect to a specific BSSID. I issued the command:

/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Resources/airport -A'LAGnet' BSSID='f8:1e:df:fd:34:9e' password='password'

Very shortly after (maybe a few seconds to a minute), I began to have all kinds of wireless problems on this computer, that now seem to persist through even a clean install of the OS.

The problem is a loss of traffic over the wireless, while the wireless stays associated. Example: I run a ping to my AP, and I will see the pings start to fail, however the airport stays associated, and with a good signal strength (-55 to -60). It will either start passing traffic again after a random amount of time, or I can turn airport off, and back on again, and it will start working. Sometimes for only a few seconds, and sometime for hours.

Ive tried resetting the PRAM (Command Option P R on bootup), but continue to have the problem.

I've opened a trouble ticket with Apple, but they seem to be just as stumped, and have yet to come up with a explanation or fix.

What I'm wondering is, could this command affect NVRAM on the mac, that could persist between formatting the hard drive and doing a clean install? Or is it all just a coincidence and I'm starting to have a hardware failure?