# Access Points
Plugin: charts.d.plugin
Module: ap
## Overview
The ap collector visualizes data related to wireless access points.
It uses the `iw` command line utility to detect access points. For each interface that is of `type AP`, it then runs `iw INTERFACE station dump` and collects statistics.
This collector is only supported on the following platforms:
- Linux
This collector only supports collecting metrics from a single instance of this integration.
### Default Behavior
#### Auto-Detection
The plugin is able to auto-detect if you are running access points on your linux box.
#### Limits
The default configuration for this integration does not impose any limits on data collection.
#### Performance Impact
The default configuration for this integration is not expected to impose a significant performance impact on the system.
## Metrics
Metrics grouped by *scope*.
The scope defines the instance that the metric belongs to. An instance is uniquely identified by a set of labels.
### Per wireless device
These metrics refer to the entire monitored application.
This scope has no labels.
Metrics:
| Metric | Dimensions | Unit |
|:------|:----------|:----|
| ap.clients | clients | clients |
| ap.net | received, sent | kilobits/s |
| ap.packets | received, sent | packets/s |
| ap.issues | retries, failures | issues/s |
| ap.signal | average signal | dBm |
| ap.bitrate | receive, transmit, expected | Mbps |
## Alerts
There are no alerts configured by default for this integration.
## Setup
### Prerequisites
#### Install charts.d plugin
If [using our official native DEB/RPM packages](https://github.com/netdata/netdata/blob/master/packaging/installer/UPDATE.md#determine-which-installation-method-you-used), make sure `netdata-plugin-chartsd` is installed.
#### `iw` utility.
Make sure the `iw` utility is installed.
### Configuration
#### File
The configuration file name for this integration is `charts.d/ap.conf`.
You can edit the configuration file using the `edit-config` script from the
Netdata [config directory](https://github.com/netdata/netdata/blob/master/docs/configure/nodes.md#the-netdata-config-directory).
```bash
cd /etc/netdata 2>/dev/null || cd /opt/netdata/etc/netdata
sudo ./edit-config charts.d/ap.conf
```
#### Options
The config file is sourced by the charts.d plugin. It's a standard bash file.
The following collapsed table contains all the options that can be configured for the ap collector.
Config options
| Name | Description | Default | Required |
|:----|:-----------|:-------|:--------:|
| ap_update_every | The data collection frequency. If unset, will inherit the netdata update frequency. | 1 | no |
| ap_priority | Controls the order of charts at the netdata dashboard. | 6900 | no |
| ap_retries | The number of retries to do in case of failure before disabling the collector. | 10 | no |