Airmon-ng Cannot Put wlan0 into Monitor Mode

**Acidic9** · 2017-07-26

I am using an external USB wireless adapter TP-LINK TL-WN722N V2 and I have just spent the last 4 hours installing the driver for it to work. My issue now is I cannot set it into monitor mode with airmon-ng start wlan0. I have run airmon-ng check kill and it still produces the following output:

Code:

root@kali:~# airmon-ng check kill; airmon-ng start wlan0

Killing these processes:

  PID Name
16277 wpa_supplicant



PHY	Interface	Driver		Chipset

phy7	wlan0		??????		 
cat: /sys/class/ieee80211/phy7/device/net/wlan0mon/type: No such file or directory

Newly created monitor mode interface wlan0mon is *NOT* in monitor mode.
Removing non-monitor wlan0mon interface...

WARNING: unable to start monitor mode, please run "airmon-ng check kill"

As you can see, the Driver and Chipset are not detected in the output from airmon-ng.

Output of iwconfig:

Code:

wlan1     IEEE 802.11  ESSID:off/any  
          Mode:Managed  Access Point: Not-Associated   Tx-Power=20 dBm   
          Retry short limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:off
          
wlan0     unassociated  Nickname:"<WIFI@REALTEK>"
          Mode:Managed  Frequency=2.412 GHz  Access Point: Not-Associated   
          Sensitivity:0/0  
          Retry:off   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality:0  Signal level:0  Noise level:0
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

eth0      no wireless extensions.

lo        no wireless extensions.

Output of ifconfig:

Code:

eth0: flags=4099<UP,BROADCAST,MULTICAST>  mtu 1500
        ether b8:88:e3:e1:30:4b  txqueuelen 1000  (Ethernet)
        RX packets 0  bytes 0 (0.0 B)
        RX errors 0  dropped 0  overruns 0  frame 0
        TX packets 0  bytes 0 (0.0 B)
        TX errors 0  dropped 0 overruns 0  carrier 0  collisions 0

lo: flags=73<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING>  mtu 65536
        inet 127.0.0.1  netmask 255.0.0.0
        inet6 ::1  prefixlen 128  scopeid 0x10<host>
        loop  txqueuelen 1  (Local Loopback)
        RX packets 10235  bytes 822767 (803.4 KiB)
        RX errors 0  dropped 0  overruns 0  frame 0
        TX packets 10235  bytes 822767 (803.4 KiB)
        TX errors 0  dropped 0 overruns 0  carrier 0  collisions 0

wlan0: flags=4099<UP,BROADCAST,MULTICAST>  mtu 1500
        ether d4:6e:0e:0f:83:7b  txqueuelen 1000  (Ethernet)
        RX packets 0  bytes 4407499 (4.2 MiB)
        RX errors 0  dropped 64  overruns 0  frame 0
        TX packets 0  bytes 3506227 (3.3 MiB)
        TX errors 0  dropped 0 overruns 0  carrier 0  collisions 0

wlan1: flags=4099<UP,BROADCAST,MULTICAST>  mtu 1500
        ether ce:5b:ae:0b:86:a0  txqueuelen 1000  (Ethernet)
        RX packets 488  bytes 116148 (113.4 KiB)
        RX errors 0  dropped 0  overruns 0  frame 0
        TX packets 626  bytes 353786 (345.4 KiB)
        TX errors 0  dropped 0 overruns 0  carrier 0  collisions 0

Note, the external wifi adapter is wlan0, wlan1 is inbuilt into my laptop (but not usable for hacking).

**grid** · 2017-07-26

Try touch /sys/class/ieee80211/phy7/device/net/wlan0mon/type to create the missing file, reboot, and see if that works.

Not had this problem myself, but creating a missing file manually is my go-to troubleshooting technique

Might also be necessary to disable your wlan1 interface, have had problems with incompatible in-built device conflicts.

**Acidic9** · 2017-07-26

I actually already tried that, but I can't do anything in the /phyX/device/net directory.. all my commands result in Operation not permitted.

I tried disabling my secondary wlan interface then trying and it didn't change anything.

Also, I turned monitor mode on for my secondary wlan interface and look inside the /phyX/device/net directory to see what happens before and after. It starts off as having a directory called wlan1, then after turning monitor mode, the contents become a single directory called wlan1mon.

**grid** · 2017-07-27

That's odd, I would think as root, you could do anything in any directory.

Makes sense, since airmon-ng places the device in monitor mode. I'm stumped...suggest you check forum.aircrack-ng.org

**Acidic9** · 2017-07-27

Idk, I've tried so much. I'm just going to give up and try Wifislax (os) a go to see if I have any luck with that. It's easier to setup **** but natively an English OS.

I'll post here if I have any success with Wifislax and my TP-LINK TL-WN722N V2 external wireless adapter.

**Acidic9** · 2017-07-28

I had no success with Wifislax (some annoying error wouldn't even let me boot it).

I just want to say that I am able to put my external network card into monitor mode with

Code:

ifconfig wan1 down; iwconfig wlan1 mode monitor; ifconfig wlan1 up

(but not with airmon-ng start wlan1) but I still have some issues with it.
Some automatic scripts like fluxion and wifite don't allow me to use the network card and reaver is unable to receive a beacon when trying to hack a ap.

**mmusket33** · 2017-07-28

To Acidic9

You might try using iw instead of airmon-ng

iw wlan0 interface add mon0 type monitor

Read thru

https://forums.kali.org/showthread.p...tiple+monitors

You might also try

iw wlan0 interface add wlan0mon type monitor

Then type airmon-ng [Enter] and see if airmon-ng accepts it.

or use an older version of airmon-ng. We can post for download if you need it or download our latest varmacscan we put an older version in the script as an option during setup.

Reference airmon-ng check kill

This is just a series of service commands killing Network Manager and wpa supplicant.

Musket Teams

**Acidic9** · 2017-07-29

You might try using iw instead of airmon-ng

iw wlan0 interface add mon0 type monitor

I attempted the command above and received no output, but I can confirm mon0 was added by typing iwconfig:

Code:

root@kali:~# iw wlan0 interface add mon0 type monitor
root@kali:~# iwconfig
wlan1     IEEE 802.11  ESSID:"fmt.Println("Internet")"  
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.412 GHz  Access Point: E0:46:9A:8A:78:4D   
          Bit Rate=54 Mb/s   Tx-Power=20 dBm   
          Retry short limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality=70/70  Signal level=-39 dBm  
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:9  Invalid misc:5   Missed beacon:0

mon0      IEEE 802.11  Mode:Monitor  Tx-Power=12 dBm   
          Retry short limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Power Management:on
          
wlan0     IEEE 802.11bg  ESSID:"fmt.Println("Internet")"  Nickname:"<WIFI@REALTEK>"
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.412 GHz  Access Point: E0:46:9A:8A:78:4D   
          Bit Rate:54 Mb/s   Sensitivity:0/0  
          Retry:off   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:****-****-****-****-****-****-****-****   Security mode:open
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality=100/100  Signal level=74/100  Noise level=0/100
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

eth0      no wireless extensions.

lo        no wireless extensions.

I have my mon0 ready (so it seems) and I attempt to use airodump-ng to monitor the networks around me.

Code:

root@kali:~# airmon-ng mon0

 CH  4 ][ Elapsed: 6 s ][ 2017-07-29 12:20                                         
                                                                                                                                               
 BSSID              PWR  Beacons    #Data, #/s  CH  MB   ENC  CIPHER AUTH ESSID
                                                                                                                                               
                                                                                                                                               
 BSSID              STATION            PWR   Rate    Lost    Frames  Probe

But it doesn't detect any networks around me.

You might also try

iw wlan0 interface add wlan0mon type monitor

Then type airmon-ng [Enter] and see if airmon-ng accepts it.

I unplugged and plugged my external network adapter from my laptop and mon0 was gone so I was back to having only wlan0 (and wlan1 which is my in-built network adapter).
I then ran

Code:

iw wlan0 interface add wlan0mon type monitor

successfully but then after running airmon-ng I was left with the following output:

Code:

root@kali:~# iw wlan0 interface add wlan0mon type monitor
root@kali:~# airmon-ng

PHY	Interface	Driver		Chipset

phy5	wlan0		??????		 

ethtool failed...
Only mac80211 devices on kernel 2.6.33 or higher are officially supported by airmon-ng.

FYI, the output of uname -r is 4.9.0-kali4-amd64.

**Pixy** · 2017-07-29

I had same problem.try this command
iwconfig wlan1 mode monitor

**Acidic9** · 2017-07-30

Originally Posted by Pixy

I had same problem.try this command
iwconfig wlan1 mode monitor

Look at post #6

Essentially, I am able to go into monitor mode, but it doesn't act as expected.

**Tengoles** · 2017-08-03

Once I read somewhere that TP-LINK TL-WN722N V2 doesn't work with monitor mode, the problem is in the V2, that means it has a chipset that is not supported. Try to buy one that is V1 and will work fine!

I don't know how to know if the device is V1 or V2 buy just looking at the box or something if you find that out please share!

**rodgermoore** · 2017-08-05

Check out this post. It is stating V2 of the TP-LINK TL-WN722N is not supported / not working:
http://www.wirelesshack.org/best-kal...gles-2016.html

**mmusket33** · 2017-09-25

This V1/V2 problem seems to have a solution

Go to this link and read the last entries

https://forums.kali.org/showthread.p...e-Problem-HELP!

Musket Teams

**PT_Bourne** · 2017-10-04

Originally Posted by Tengoles

... I don't know how to know if the device is V1 or V2...

On the back of the device you should see a label with the TP-LINK logo. On that same label you will see to the bottom left S/N. moving to the right from there is a bar code with numbers under it (the serial numbers). At the end of those numbers you will see a "V" fallowed by number/s. For Example: [serial number] V1.1

Can you type uname -a in terminal and post the output please.

**E.T.II** · 2018-01-14

Originally Posted by Acidic9

Look at post #6

Essentially, I am able to go into monitor mode, but it doesn't act as expected.

It may be the chipset in your adapter. I have an Atheros model AWUS036NHA. Works with fluxion and reaver. No issues.

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