I really don't know what terminology to search for this, so it may exist already....
It would be great to have the access points running openwrt report client connection stats back to the router somehow so that they appear under the 'Overview' like it would if the radios were connected to the router itself. It would be really cool to have the disconnect/add-to-blacklist dropdown too...
I'm sure there are other much more elaborate solutions for monitoring these things. Of the ones I've looked into most of these solutions are just wayy over the top for a (my) home network though.
This "somehow" is always going to be an issue, as it means "somebody" would have to write this dashboard and the inter-node communication in a secure and flexible way. Sadly these mystical "somebodies" are in chronic short demand, so the development work typically falls back to the requester…
There are quite different requirements for 'enterprise' solutions (e.g. OpenWISP comes to mind) or SNMP (like) based exporting, or what one might want to see on a home 'mesh' with 1-5 participants. What all of them have in common, is that they would require quite some integration- and development work - and once you start evaluating if these pretty readings are really that important, you may conclude that the path of least resistance may be to just leave it.
Realistically, chances for that to materialize out of thin air are slim to none. It just isn't that simple to accomplish, as it opens Pandora's box in terms of inter-node communication channels, which makes it either hard to set up or insecure (or both). Of course it's possible, but I don't see anyone lining up for developing this task, there are just plenty of easier and more rewarding (more useful results) things to do first (as mentioned before, this could be solved on multiple layers, each of them requiring different approaches and different results).
Yeah, you bring up some of the things I was thinking might be an issue, especially with the security aspect. Maybe its not the greatest idea to be able to blacklist or disconnect clients, but it sure would be nice to have the info from the radio sent back from the AP. I have a couple of ideas on how that could be done... but like you said it does indeed take time which is a limited resource
You can't blacklist a client which knows the access credentials to your network.
Yes, you could blacklist its MAC address, but that's changed within seconds (and modern phones even random MAC addresses by default), rendering this idea useless. Even if you could reliably blacklist it, the client would still have the access credentials (PSK) to passively monitor/ decrypt all traffic - it just doesn't work.
But there is one revolutionary approach that does work, don't give these devices your PSK in the first place (and/ or change it regularly).
So what about IOT devices, smart TVs etc. on their own subnet that may misbehave and don't happen to have an intelligent person operating them to connect with a new mac address or the storage to retain the traffic they might capture in order to upload it whenever they are reconnected?
There are some uses for blacklisting whether you have encountered them or not
Not really, if you don't operate those devices, someone else will (in the least-worst case the vendor, but probably external attackers as well).
If you don't trust a device, either don't give it wifi access in the first place - or lock it into a second wifi network (different access credentials) with access rules according to your requirements.
Well I disagree as someone who up until last year only had the option for 1-3mbps internet connection at home. I promise you its much easier to log in to the access point and hit the blacklist button when someone forgets to turn off their smart TV or various other device(s) picked the absolute worst time to update when bandwidth is needed elsewhere for work, which usually happened when the ISPs overloaded network was saturated by people getting home from work or working at home due to the pandemic thus limiting me to 1mbps, sometimes even less. Thankfully those days are just an unpleasant memory for me though.
