Configuring Alfa AWUS036NH correctly

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2014-01-15
NewtoLinux

Configuring Alfa AWUS036NH correctly

I have a Alfa AWUS036NH which I'm trying to configure on Kali (Linux LINUX 3.7-trunk-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 3.7.2-0+kali8 x86_64 GNU/Linux). Kali is configured on it's own partition following the directions from this site to dual boot with Windows. From this thread someone mentioned that Kali should recognize this adapter and just plug and play. I wasn't able to get it to work after shutting down wlan0, and ensuring wlan1 was up. I did a dhclient wlan1 to renew my IP settings, and I still couldn't ping my gateway.

I figured I'd try to download and install the drivers and this has only confused me even more. The linux drivers that I found from www.alfa.com.tw/download.php (Product Category-Indoor wireless, Model-AWUS036NH, Type of File-Driver) were labled 2011_0719_RT3070_RT3370_RT5370_RT5372_Linux_STA_V2 .5.0.3_DPO and dated May 21, 2013. I presume these are updates to the one that is on the CD, rtl8192_8188CU_linux_v3.0.2164.20110715.tar.gz. I did not see a folder specific to a AWUS036NH. The closest name was 036NHR, so I assume it should still be the one for my USB adapter.

When I attempted to follow along the poorly written directions from Alfa's site to setup the drivers, running the Make command generated the following output: make: *** No targets specified and no makefile found. Stop.

If anyone can provide some better guidance to the directions I've re-written below that would be very helpful.

1. Download the 3070 Linux driver to your platform
2. Open Terminal
3. Make; type "sudo make", enter root password
4. After Make finish and Modify Blacklist.conf; Type "sudo insmod rt2870sta.ko", Type "cd /etc/modprobe.d/"
5. Insert "blacklist rt2800usb in button of blacklist.conf (I believe they mean edit the blacklist.conf file and place blacklist rt2800usb at the bottom of the text); Type keyboard "a", page down to file button, keyin string "blacklist rt2800usb", Type keyboard "Esc"
**personal thought- What the heck was the last 4 lines supposed to do?!?:confused:
6. Save; Type ":", Type "wq!", Enter

10. Now, Reboot
**personal thought- Where did steps 7, 8, and 9 go??:confused:
11. After reboot you can plug in WLAN adapter to USB port.

Clearly these directions were not edited well, if at all.
2014-01-15
zimmaro

Quote:

Originally Posted by NewtoLinux

I have a Alfa AWUS036NH which I'm trying to configure on Kali (Linux LINUX 3.7-trunk-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 3.7.2-0+kali8 x86_64 GNU/Linux). Kali is configured on it's own partition following the directions from this site to dual boot with Windows. From this thread someone mentioned that Kali should recognize this adapter and just plug and play. I wasn't able to get it to work after shutting down wlan0, and ensuring wlan1 was up. I did a dhclient wlan1 to renew my IP settings, and I still couldn't ping my gateway.

I figured I'd try to download and install the drivers and this has only confused me even more. The linux drivers that I found from www.alfa.com.tw/download.php (Product Category-Indoor wireless, Model-AWUS036NH, Type of File-Driver) were labled 2011_0719_RT3070_RT3370_RT5370_RT5372_Linux_STA_V2 .5.0.3_DPO and dated May 21, 2013. I presume these are updates to the one that is on the CD, rtl8192_8188CU_linux_v3.0.2164.20110715.tar.gz. I did not see a folder specific to a AWUS036NH. The closest name was 036NHR, so I assume it should still be the one for my USB adapter.

When I attempted to follow along the poorly written directions from Alfa's site to setup the drivers, running the Make command generated the following output: make: *** No targets specified and no makefile found. Stop.

If anyone can provide some better guidance to the directions I've re-written below that would be very helpful.

1. Download the 3070 Linux driver to your platform
2. Open Terminal
3. Make; type "sudo make", enter root password
4. After Make finish and Modify Blacklist.conf; Type "sudo insmod rt2870sta.ko", Type "cd /etc/modprobe.d/"
5. Insert "blacklist rt2800usb in button of blacklist.conf (I believe they mean edit the blacklist.conf file and place blacklist rt2800usb at the bottom of the text); Type keyboard "a", page down to file button, keyin string "blacklist rt2800usb", Type keyboard "Esc"
**personal thought- What the heck was the last 4 lines supposed to do?!?:confused:
6. Save; Type ":", Type "wq!", Enter

10. Now, Reboot
**personal thought- Where did steps 7, 8, and 9 go??:confused:
11. After reboot you can plug in WLAN adapter to USB port.

Clearly these directions were not edited well, if at all.

hi :)
if this thing can be of help:
in my kali-old (kernel 3.7) 64bit MY alpha 36NH is recognized by default! (I have not installed anything)
worked in the connection-mode:
https://imageshack.com/i/5mxov9p

worked in sniffing-mode:
https://imageshack.com/i/n5fqvxp

PS: the test was performed under the ground!:o
2014-10-20
nigelmercier

I have the Alfa AWUS036NH and I'm getting "wlan0 is not injecting or proximity is low" when using Fern, but the device works fine in normal use.
2014-11-01
gbgunner

Quote:

Originally Posted by NewtoLinux

I have a Alfa AWUS036NH which I'm trying to configure on Kali (Linux LINUX 3.7-trunk-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 3.7.2-0+kali8 x86_64 GNU/Linux). Kali is configured on it's own partition following the directions from this site to dual boot with Windows. From this thread someone mentioned that Kali should recognize this adapter and just plug and play. I wasn't able to get it to work after shutting down wlan0, and ensuring wlan1 was up. I did a dhclient wlan1 to renew my IP settings, and I still couldn't ping my gateway.

I figured I'd try to download and install the drivers and this has only confused me even more. The linux drivers that I found from www.alfa.com.tw/download.php (Product Category-Indoor wireless, Model-AWUS036NH, Type of File-Driver) were labled 2011_0719_RT3070_RT3370_RT5370_RT5372_Linux_STA_V2 .5.0.3_DPO and dated May 21, 2013. I presume these are updates to the one that is on the CD, rtl8192_8188CU_linux_v3.0.2164.20110715.tar.gz. I did not see a folder specific to a AWUS036NH. The closest name was 036NHR, so I assume it should still be the one for my USB adapter.

When I attempted to follow along the poorly written directions from Alfa's site to setup the drivers, running the Make command generated the following output: make: *** No targets specified and no makefile found. Stop.

If anyone can provide some better guidance to the directions I've re-written below that would be very helpful.

1. Download the 3070 Linux driver to your platform
2. Open Terminal
3. Make; type "sudo make", enter root password
4. After Make finish and Modify Blacklist.conf; Type "sudo insmod rt2870sta.ko", Type "cd /etc/modprobe.d/"
5. Insert "blacklist rt2800usb in button of blacklist.conf (I believe they mean edit the blacklist.conf file and place blacklist rt2800usb at the bottom of the text); Type keyboard "a", page down to file button, keyin string "blacklist rt2800usb", Type keyboard "Esc"
**personal thought- What the heck was the last 4 lines supposed to do?!?:confused:
6. Save; Type ":", Type "wq!", Enter

10. Now, Reboot
**personal thought- Where did steps 7, 8, and 9 go??:confused:
11. After reboot you can plug in WLAN adapter to USB port.

Clearly these directions were not edited well, if at all.

Did you get the problem sorted? I have a Alfa AWUS036H and it doesn't need any drivers to connect to kali, just plug it in, connect it in 'vm' menu....and it works. If it is still messing you around maybe worth just getting a new adapter....can recommend mine with kali.

Gb
2014-11-02
ding( . Y . ) dongle

alpha

Quote:

Originally Posted by gbgunner

Did you get the problem sorted? I have a Alfa AWUS036H and it doesn't need any drivers to connect to kali, just plug it in, connect it in 'vm' menu....and it works. If it is still messing you around maybe worth just getting a new adapter....can recommend mine with kali.

Gb

I have the same card. No need to install any drivers. The card works "out of the box".
2017-12-27
martimarti

Hey guys,
I was just about to purchase this device but before doing so, wanted to make sure it's worth it and it will work properly. Why? I bought AWUS1900 4days ago and legit went through every single post there is on the web and couldn't make it work on Kali, worked perfectly on Windows. Just wanted to make sure I won't be having the same issues with this device.
Thank you!

P. S. 1/4/2018 bought the item, plug and play, no additional installation needed on windows nor kali
2018-05-18
cold iron

It works fine in Windows, but it's a nightmare in Linux/Kali. I have been trying for a week or more with no joy. I may send it back and get my $40+ back.
2018-05-25
Kali-for-good

Quote:

Originally Posted by cold iron

It works fine in Windows, but it's a nightmare in Linux/Kali. I have been trying for a week or more with no joy. I may send it back and get my $40+ back.

[H5]R[/H5]eally...I have an AWUS036NHA and IT WORKS FINE with Linux/Kali but a NIGHTMARE in Windows...
2018-05-25
cold iron

I guess I should have bought a AWUS036ACH.
2018-06-23
bonzo

I had a lot of trouble with this card also: the light kept coming on and off every few seconds, iwconfig would show the card when the light was on and not when it was off.
dmesg would show:

Quote:

usb 2-2: ath9k_htc: USB layer deinitialized

What worked was

Code:

apt remove firmware-atheros apt install firmware-atheros
2018-06-24
cold iron

I find it odd that my $8 no name card works with zero input and my $42 ACH is a night mare to make work! Why?
2018-06-24
cold iron

I read both commands but the 2nd one reported "can not find firmware-atheros"
2018-06-28
bonzo

Quote:

Originally Posted by cold iron

I find it odd that my $8 no name card works with zero input and my $42 ACH is a night mare to make work! Why?

Probably if you use Ubuntu or Win10 it will work perfectly. This is a specialized distro and occasionally it acts that way. This will not be the last time this happens, it sure aint the first!

Quote:

Originally Posted by cold iron

I read both commands but the 2nd one reported "can not find firmware-atheros"

Do this:

Code:

apt-get update apt-get upgrade apt-get dist-upgrade apt-get install firmware-atheros

If you have any problem then check your sources file:
https://docs.kali.org/general-use/ka...t-repositories
2018-06-30
godot

Quote:

Originally Posted by bonzo

Probably if you use Ubuntu or Win10 it will work perfectly. This is a specialized distro and occasionally it acts that way. This will not be the last time this happens, it sure aint the first!

Do this:
[/CODE]
apt-get update
apt-get upgrade
apt-get dist-upgrade
apt-get install firmware-atheros
[/CODE]

If you have any problem then check your sources file:
https://docs.kali.org/general-use/ka...t-repositories

Hi, guys. I tried to follow this steps with no success. I have Alfa AWUS036NH, launched in VM Kali linux (2018.2-amd64). I saw that just plug-and-play to go, but in my case VM doesn't see Alfa. I need your helps.
Thanks
2018-07-06
bonzo

Does your host OS see the card? Did you pass-through the card? What happened when you tried to follow the steps?
You did not give enough information to help you, my suspicion is you have not understood exactly how to use this setup. If that is the case you should search on youtube for your setup and how to use it.
2018-07-27
godot

Quote:

Originally Posted by bonzo

Does your host OS see the card? Did you pass-through the card? What happened when you tried to follow the steps?
You did not give enough information to help you, my suspicion is you have not understood exactly how to use this setup. If that is the case you should search on youtube for your setup and how to use it.

I'm sorry for my small info. Yes, Windows 10 see the wireless card and when i inserted the command nothing happens. My main problem is the VM Oracle, that doesn't see my card in no one methods (i saw different configuration in Youtube). First time, I added wireless card in USB-configuration, that my Kali Linux, but nothing changed. When i booted, there is no sign of my ALFA card.When I tryied such as bootable-USB SO (Kali Linux), they works perfectly, just simply plug-and-play. In my case, maybe there is a specific drive necessary or i don't know. That my problem.

ps: I hope it was more specific than last time.

Thanks
2018-07-28
bonzo

Well....

tl;dr Check your cable, swap it out for a known good one.

So I started to reply to this yesterday and found my card no longer worked. I have two laptops, one ubuntu and one kali, the kali one has a virtualbox kali guest and that was the one the card did not work on, neither host nor guest. With the vm not started the card was flaky in the host so I went home and tried it on my ubuntu laptop and it was perfect. So the problem was kali right? As soon as I start a kali machine the first thing I do is update so that must be it... some update along the way had broken this card.

Cut to today, I sit down to try and work out exactly why this doesnt work in kali. I plugged the card in but it worked perfectly. Again, the first thing I do is update, so the new update had fixed whatever was broken right? I started the vm and sure enough it didnt work, updated and... it still didnt work. Stopped the vm and went to the host and it DID NOT work. Rebooted the host and it still didnt work. A this point I knew something was up and swapped out the cable I had for a different adapter I brought for troubleshooting and now everything works. When I say it didnt work, I'm talking about verifiably the same problem in every case: dmesg reports the same error (Failed to wakeup in 500us).

I rebooted and swapped the cable a few times and sure enough everything points to the cable. That still leaves some questions (why did it work first time in the ubuntu machine, why did it work second time in the kali machine?) so conceivably there is an issue that complicates things, maybe power management or something? Or possibly my cable is on the very threshold of failing completely or something. In addition these cards may be fishy themselves, there are reports of different chipsets that allow different possibilities of TX power manipulation (mine appears to be hardwired) so maybe the different manufacturers are using different quality of cable? I'm guessing at this point.

So I recommend:
swap out your cable for one FROM A DIFFERENT SOURCE and check everything
try in a non-kali machine and test everything
if using a vm see what happens in your host without the vm running