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Thread: ifconfig shows wlan0 but airmon-ng won't start it

  1. #1
    Join Date
    2013-Aug
    Posts
    20

    ifconfig shows wlan0 but airmon-ng won't start it

    I'm running Kali 1.06 on a Raspberry Pi with 2x identical USB WiFi NICs. wlan0 is for pentesting, wlan1 is set up as a WAP for SSHing in. Both NICs have been on my home network and work just fine, drivers and everything check out. I've even had airmon-ng airodump-ng and aircrack-ng working on this pi setup with these NICs before, but now something's wrong.

    ifconfig:
    Code:
    root@kali:~# ifconfig
    lo        Link encap:Local Loopback
              inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
              inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
              UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:65536  Metric:1
              RX packets:1 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
              TX packets:1 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
              collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
              RX bytes:76 (76.0 B)  TX bytes:76 (76.0 B)
    
    wlan0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr --snip--
              UP BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
              RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
              TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
              collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
              RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)
    
    wlan1     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr --snip--
              inet addr:10.0.0.1  Bcast:10.0.0.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
              inet6 addr: fe80::821f:2ff:feb5:adae/64 Scope:Link
              UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
              RX packets:148 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
              TX packets:92 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
              collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
              RX bytes:20317 (19.8 KiB)  TX bytes:16650 (16.2 KiB)
    iwconfig
    Code:
    root@kali:~# iwconfig
    wlan0     unassociated  Nickname:"<WIFI@REALTEK>"
              Mode:Auto  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
    
    lo        no wireless extensions.
    
    eth0      no wireless extensions.
    
    wlan1     IEEE 802.11bgn  ESSID:"--snip--"  Nickname:"<WIFI@REALTEK>"
              Mode:Master  Frequency:2.412 GHz  Access Point: --snip--
              Sensitivity:0/0
              Retry:off   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
              Encryption key:off
              Power Management:off
              Link Quality=67/100  Signal level=67/100  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
    airmon-ng fails to start, only references wlan1
    Code:
    root@kali:~# airmon-ng start wlan0
    
    
    Found 2 processes that could cause trouble.
    If airodump-ng, aireplay-ng or airtun-ng stops working after
    a short period of time, you may want to kill (some of) them!
    -e
    PID     Name
    1957    NetworkManager
    2334    dhclient
    Process with PID 1933 (dhcpd) is running on interface wlan1
    
    
    Interface       Chipset         Driver
    
    wlan1           Unknown                 rtl8192cu
    
    root@kali:~#
    contents of /etc/network/interfaces (and yes, wlan0 is set to DHCP even though it isn't connected to anything).
    Code:
    auto lo
    iface lo inet loopback
    
    auto eth0
    iface eth0 inet manual
    
    auto wlan0
    allow-hotplug wlan0
    iface wlan0 inet dhcp
    
    auto wlan1
    allow-hotplug wlan1
    iface wlan1 inet static
    address 10.0.0.1
    netmask 255.255.255.0
    Wlan0 is certainly up, so why does airmon-ng only reference wlan1 when I tell it to "start wlan0"?

  2. #2
    Join Date
    2013-Jul
    Location
    United States
    Posts
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    So unless you're saying that you've had everything set up exactly how you wanted before, my guess would be that you can't load two instances of the same driver. Not sure about that but if they're both the same card, why don't you just use wlan1 for monitor mode and wlan0 for your WAP? Also, try plugging in one adapter, running airmon, and seeing if wlan0 comes up. If it doesn't the first time, plug in the other adapter.
    Last edited by soxrok2212; 2014-01-23 at 02:13.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    2013-Aug
    Posts
    20
    Quote Originally Posted by soxrok2212 View Post
    So unless you're saying that you've had everything set up exactly how you wanted before, my guess would be that you can't load two instances of the same driver. Not sure about that but if they're both the same card, why don't you just use wlan1 for monitor mode and wlan0 for your WAP? Also, try plugging in one adapter, running airmon, and seeing if wlan0 comes up. If it doesn't the first time, plug in the other adapter.
    Interesting.... How would changing it to be wlan0=WAP/wlan1=mon fix it if the problem is two instances of the same driver?

  4. #4
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    2013-Jul
    Location
    United States
    Posts
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    Quote Originally Posted by rpilover View Post
    Interesting.... How would changing it to be wlan0=WAP/wlan1=mon fix it if the problem is two instances of the same driver?
    Well that's why I said if you had it running fine before then you could just try changing which interface is acting as an AP and which is in monitor mode.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    2013-Aug
    Posts
    20
    Ah, no I've not had this working simultaneously as WAP and monitor. Both functions have worked, but only now am I trying them simultaneously.

    Now I've removed wlan1 and commented out the wlan1 section of /etc/network/interfaces. Reboot, "airmon-ng start wlan0", and I get nothing under "Interface Chipset Driver", just blank. I'll try reversing the mon/WAP interfaces now and see if that helps.
    Last edited by rpilover; 2014-01-24 at 01:19.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    2013-Aug
    Posts
    20
    Yeah, now I've reconfigured it so wlan0 is the WAP and plugged wlan1 in for monitor mode ... but "airmon-ng start wlan1" won't put wlan1 into monitor mode, so it sounds like your idea is right on the money.

    Is there maybe a way to have two copies of the driver in separate directories and have each interface refer to its own copy of the driver?

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