Airmon-ng Network-manager Commentary Kali2.0

Before we continue into this subject readers should be aware that MTeams are only interested in what we are actually seeing on our computer screens. All of this can be easily tested for duplication in a users individual computer.

The use of airmon-ng check kill:

We took a look at the bash coding in the new airmon-ng script thru

leafpad /usr/sbin/airmon-ng

It looks to us that airmon-ng check kill really calls up:

service network-manager stop
service avahi-daemon stop

So all this instruction in these forums about referencing the man pages and the necessity of using airmon-ng check kill is just one(1) way of handling the current network-manager problem or as we think, simply overkill.

Nuking your network connections to allow aircrack-ng tools to run sounds simple. The problem is that:

1. This kills all internet access on all devices

2. If you try and restart ALL these processes good luck. First the man pages are written to resolve airmon-ng conflict. There is little thought to it's total effect on the operating system. Do you see any instruction on how to restore your computer internet functions? The real commands are buried beneath airmon-ng check kill which is a bash script written by aircrack-ng calling up linux commands. To restore your internet connection thru network-manager you can try:

service network-manager start
service avahi-daemon start

However if you kill your wifi system and then try and restore it good luck. Network-manager jams up in part when restored. After restoring these processes try selecting another AP that has not been setup - nothing happens. You can move between Wifi devices that have been already established in the /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections folder BUT you cannot make a new location automatically. To setup a new location in this case you must manually do the following:

For ALL Wifi Operations AVOID using the small black drop down menu(i.e. top has speaker then light intensity) for anything except:

Select the device

DONOT USE Select Network
DONOT USE Turn Off

Click On Wifi Settings and do ALL your work on the Wifi Settings large page that appears after you select Wifi Settings. Pay no attention to connection info on this small black applet.

Click on the "gear in a box symbol" and manually put in your WPA key thru the "security selection" and spoof your address thru the "identity page." Now try and connect using this main page only(again DO NOT USE the small drop down applet).

Reference airmon-ng

There is a far easier method then nuking your entire system if you want a virtual monitor thru airmon-ng

airmon-ng wlan0 start
ifconfig wlan0mon down
iwconfig wlan0mon mode monitor
ifconfig wlan0mon up

Then run:

airodump-ng wlan0mon or reaver or wash or aireplay-ng

Now if you have another wifi device you can use it, as you did not send your entire wifi system into purgatory.

Here is how we set up monitor mode and spoof a mac. We DONOT use airmon-ng check kill.

You must place the device in monitor mode first thru airmon-ng before you spoof the device.

airmon-ng start wlan1
ifconfig wlan1mon down
macchanger -m 00:11:22:33:44:55 wlan1mon

or

macchanger -r wlan1mon

iwconfig wlan1mon mode monitor
ifconfig wlan1mon up

If your network-manager is running and you want to stop your monitor and place back in managed mode you do not need to stop your network-manager especially if you are using another device. Just put the device in mode monitor and remove it as follows.

ifconfig wlan1mon down
iwconfig wlan1mon mode monitor
ifconfig wlan1mon up
airmon-ng stop wlan1mon

If you want to spoof the mac address of any device connecting to the internet thru network-manager suggest you spoof your device using the Network-manager menu NOT thru the terminal window. Note when you enter your mac address the entries stay white and are hard to read BUT when a correct hex address is entered the characters turn black.

In closing there are operations where you want to maintain internet access on one(1) device while establishing a monitor to run other processes on another device. An example is making a rogue AP supported by airbase-ng on one(1) device while supplying internet access on the other.

These methods above work for us. We expect Kali will slowly correct network-manager menus but this is how we see the system at present.

Musket Teams

You could have a look at using Wicd as your 'network manager'. In twelve months of intensive testing with it I've had NO conflicts with any of the aircrack-ng suite of tools - including testing with Kali 2.0 since its release. I haven't uninstalled network-manager (as I still use it for other scripts & VPN) - I've just disabled the network-manager service on startup & primarily use Wicd (& the Wicd-curses terminal interface). Anyway, just a thought & worth checking out as it's easy to swap between the two without much hassle... aG

To aGravity

Thanks for the suggestion. However as you know we are working on Pwnstar9.0 trying to code it over to Kali2.0 and that program uses network-manager and requires that one(1) device access the internet. Therefore killing network-manager would cause Pwnstar9.0 to fail. We think we have solved the coding problems. Furthermore both Aerial and linset have virtually the same problems when coding into kali2.0

MTeams

dear sir (mmusket33),
thanks a lot for your useful directions.
i followed it and my internet connection which was down while putting command airmon-ng and airodump-ng ... IS NOW CONNECTED..
thanks again.

Thanks for this. I'm having this same issue and I cannot get around it. I've tried all of the various workarounds on the forums and nothing works. In the example above, I hang at "ifconfig wlan0 down". I've been beating my head against this wall for three hours with exactly zero results. Monitor mode is simply not functional in Kali 2.0. I'm about to restore to Kali 1.1 because of this, I basically can't work.

Hello there... Mr. Musket33 could you please give me ideas on how to create multiple monitor modes on same wireless card in Kali 2.0 like it was mon0 mon1 in kali 1.1 ?? I am having problem in it...

Hey. The instructions above don't seem to be possible in my situation. Maybe I'm missing something but I'm not able to run the first command because airmon-ng fails to start if Network-Manager is running. So wlan0mon is never created . If I omit the first step an manually put the card into monitor mode using iwconfig, then other tools like airdrop-ng break.

Any idea as to how I can get the card into monitor mode using airmon-ng but keep network manager running?

I've found network manager to be nothing but a problem and I uninstall it in any system i have. Also, i second the vote for Wicd
Network manager kept taking my second card out of monitor mode.

As for creating multiple monitor interfaces, just use iw:

Code:

---

iw dev wlanX interface add monX type monitor

---

just change wlanX for the parent interface then monX to what you want the monitor interface to be named, then just run it as many times as you need more interfaces just increment the monX number (mon0 mon1 mon2 etc...)

Note: you will most likely have to put the parent interface down.

This way you will be able to be connected to the internet with one card, and another can be in monitor mode.