Nexus 6P monitor mode installation issue

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2020-08-27
Octar

Nexus 6P monitor mode installation issue

Hello all :D

I am struggling to get monitor mode to work on the nexus 6P. The other day I installed nethunter on a Nexus 6P 32GB using TWRP recovery and Magisk root. I then flashed nethunter. When attempting to use nexmon to try and install the wifi firmware, the app homepage would repeatedly crash, and after supposedly installing the firmware (radio chip bcm4358, version 7.112.300.14), monitor mode wouldn't work. I also tried a fresh nethunter installation, and tried building it from source here but this didn't work either. Has anyone got a fix or solution?

Thanks in advance
2020-09-03
aaronouthier

I suspect you are trying this under LineageOS 17.1 which uses Android 10. AFAIK, Nexmon is not compatible with Android 10. I have a 64 GB model, and monitor mode works fine without needing Nexmon. Open the main NetHunter app, and go to Custom Commands section. Find the item titled “Start Wlan0 monitor mode”, and the Run button to the right of it.

Boom, your internal WiFi is now in monitor mode. To exit monitor mode, tap run next to “Stop Wlan0 monitor mode”.
2020-09-03
Octar

Quote:

Originally Posted by aaronouthier

I suspect you are trying this under LineageOS 17.1 which uses Android 10. AFAIK, Nexmon is not compatible with Android 10. I have a 64 GB model, and monitor mode works fine without needing Nexmon. Open the main NetHunter app, and go to Custom Commands section. Find the item titled “Start Wlan0 monitor mode”, and the Run button to the right of it.

Boom, your internal WiFi is now in monitor mode. To exit monitor mode, tap run next to “Stop Wlan0 monitor mode”.

I installed the nexus 6p oreo image, which is android 8.1. I am not using lineage os.
2020-09-03
aaronouthier

Okay, well I haven’t tried it in Oreo, but it might still work. Worst case scenario, you’ll get an error message.
2020-09-03
Octar

Quote:

Originally Posted by aaronouthier

you’ll get an error message.

This is precisely the problem. I'm not sure whats going on, and i might try reinstall and then immediatley build firmware for my phone's radio chip.
2020-09-04
aaronouthier

Did you try the method I mentioned? It turns out that Nexmon doesn’t work with Android 8 and up.
If it still doesn’t work as expected, I can link the instructions for installing LineageOS. Monitor mode works fine there (using the method in post #2).
2020-09-04
Octar

1 Attachment(s)

Quote:

Originally Posted by aaronouthier

Did you try the method I mentioned? It turns out that Nexmon doesn’t work with Android 8 and up.
If it still doesn’t work as expected, I can link the instructions for installing LineageOS. Monitor mode works fine there (using the method in post #2).

There's a second download image for nethunter called "los ten"Attachment 4233 which I might try. Not sure what it is, but the name suggests it is lineage os.
2020-09-04
aaronouthier

It is NetHunter for LineageOS. You need to install LineageOS first. There is an unofficial version on xda-developers.com.
https://forum.xda-developers.com/nex...ngler-t4012099
2020-09-04
Octar

Ok thank you!
2020-09-20
KaliWorm

Monitor mode does work in 8.1. The nethunter rom already has the nexmon tools installed, no need to build them.

The trick is that you need to swap out the firmware, which isn't really well-publicized.

You can find the monitor-enabled firmware here: https://gitlab.com/kalilinux/nethunt...gler/nexmon-fw

To install it, you need to be in the ANDROID shell (not the kali chroot shell).
This is how I did it.

1) First, download the monitor-enabled firmware from the above link -- get the one labelled "fw_bcmdhd.bin.nexmon".
2) From a PC with adb installed, push that firmware file onto the device:
adb push fw_bcmdhd.bin.nexmon /mnt/sdcard/
3) now get a shell on the device:
adb shell
4) now that you're on the device, you need to become root:
su
5) we need to replace the firmware, which is on the read-only /vendor partition. so we need to make it read-writable.
mount -o rw,remount /vendor

6) go to the firmware directory
cd /vendor/firmware
7) copy the modified monitor-mode firmware over top of the original
cp /mnt/sdcard/fw_bcmdhd.bin.nexmon fw_bcmdhd.bin

Now reboot the phone and monitor mode should work.