Why having Network manager and tons of conflict instead of wicd (and no conflicts)?

[kcdtv]

In our GNU-Linux world Network Manager became the default solution in the vast majority of distribution
I guess this choice is mainly due to the lack of alternatives.
Network manger may have a nice design but it deamons is absolutely terrible and since system.d imposed itself it is more buggy than ever
As we all know we have to turn it off to be able to pass properly monitor mode with airmon-ng (with check kill )
That's very annoying
If we dig a little we will see that netwrok manger
- doesn't allow to change mac to connect to an access point
- doesn't let ifconfig switch on or off an interface
- in kali 2016.1 (specific and very annoying bug) it simply doesn't allow you to use a single wifi interface if you use two. Or boithes are switched off or bothes are switched on
To say it simply, network manger doesn't let the user to have a control on its interfaces.

If these features may not interest a regular user of ubuntu or linux mint, it is not the case for a pentester...
...Not so far ago wicd was the default network aplication in backtrack

The wicd project is maybe less famous and may look a bit "abandoned" as iut has a new version every two year
But it is stable, reliable and absolutly conflictless with other command line tool

Some may argue that it is less fancy and trendy then gome netwrok manager...
But should that be a priority in pentest distribution? (that a rhetoric question in case you didn't get it )
wicd is a python open source code and its design can be simply adapted (gtk) to kali linux look

I really wonder how network manger could have been choosen by kali team and how can't this big lack of functionalism hasn't been detected (and that's nothing new)
I wonder why "at least", if kali staff want to stick to network manger, why they did not automatize playing with netwrok manger conf file to exclude the interface that we want to use in monitor mode or whatever.
They are several themes in this forum and others about this isues and tips to solve it... the simplest one is without any doubt switching to wicd

My aim is not to criticize but to help kali linux to improve. My feeling is that there is a gap between the comunity and the staff, this forum should help to create bridges and should be a place of exchange but we barely - never - see any kali developer answering or explaining stuff...
Is that's really how a GNU-Linux distribution should work? (that's also a rhetoric question)

Yes, there is the " bugtrack "... but that not the place or the form to generate dialogue and exchange points of view.
I think this forum lack of partition from developer, that the community is not listened too and that leads to very bad choice like having network manager as a default network manager

[aanarchyy]

Very strongly agree with you here kcdtv, One of the first things i do in ANY linux install is dump network manager. Absolutely nothing but a headache.
Also agree with your other point, and that's one of the reasons i really don't use kali. Almost feels as there is no way to get involved.

[kcdtv]

Hi aanarchy
It would have been nice to get the point of view of some developer, but i guess this is not the way kali linux works ...
I wanted to give it a go to kali linux 2016,1 and stick to the original concept... but GNOME 3 and other details like network manager make me wonder why
For sure we can easly build our custom kali live system with "live build" or do it form scartch with mini Kali... As we can usae driectly debian SID with XFCE and add tools from kali repo by hand...
I just think it is a shame that there is so few connection between the forum/user community and the offensive security' developers
It seems very important if you are "going roling release"
And a bugtrack is not a place for exchanging point of view and having a real dialogue
Things could be different, things could be better...
I am not "complaining" or demanding; as you i don't need kali linux to have my hacking tool in my GNU-Linux
But i am pretty sure that distribution are better if there is a good communication between staff and users...
take care and cya ariund

[Maxnonym]

I tottaly agree with you,wicd works properly for me on Kali Sana,but in this Rolling edition just issues,can't connect wicd(bad password),when i try MITMF,broke after 10 sec :-(

[kcdtv]

i haven't got any problem with wicd and kali2016.1.

Removing netwrk manager and installing wicd was one the first things I did.

Did you remove properly network-manager and network-manager-gnome?

sudo apt-get remove network-manager-gnome network-manager

can't connect wicd(bad password)

You have to be aware and select the proper way... by default with a WPA netwrok it is WPA (hex), you have to switch to WPA (passphrase)

when i try MITMF

I am not an expert or english speaker so i am bit lost here
MITM is "Man in the Middle", I don't know MITMF and what the "F" stands for.
I guess you are speaking about creating a rogue access point (F for Fake? )
You have more sucess with network manager on this operation?

[Maxnonym]

YES thank you i fix it now works properly,and mitmf ist the best mitm tool look here https://github.com/byt3bl33d3r/MITMf and F means Framework,thank you

[kcdtv]

You very welcome
And thanks to you for pointing out MITMF... It looks very interesting.. I will have to give it a go

[Maxnonym]

Thanks, you are also welcome!!!!

[aanarchyy]

Briefly spoke with a "developer" tonight, and apparently they actively avoid the forums: <unnamed developer> i ignore the forums like the plague that they are because users can't be arsed to search"

Nice... :-/

And his words of advice to get involved are: <unnamed developer> file bugs in the bug tracker

Perhaps gives merit to the antipathy i feel towards the team behind this project...

[bob79]

"wlan0" does not sound like an interface name which has been put in monitor
mode. Please make sure to post pertinent debugging information when you post
here, this is not a support forum."
this was the answer from bug tracker of a issue of kali rolling on january . oh well.. "getting involved" doesn't mean they'll listen

[kcdtv]

i ignore the forums like the plague that they are because users can't be arsed to search"

On the one hand i understand his behaviour because this forum is a real mess.
Nevertheless, that maybe their role to moderate it better....
The only time i got "feedback" from one person from the staff, about whom i had never heard about before and never saw animating the forum, was to "take me away" some kind of "good behavior points" for swearing using the f--- word
Be treated like a kid by somebody who is I guess younger than me and have surely less experience than me in moderating forums is somehow quite funny.
Are you here to behave like a kinder garden vigilante or to moderate? ... Which means taking the time to delete the duplicated question or regroup them, to attend people and give some direction to this messy forum..
I have the feeling that apart form gotm1lked, they really don't give a... poopoo < i have to take care to don't get strike two... about what is going on here.

And the pixiedust "adventure" demonstrate that this developer is wrong...
.. without the community and this forum he would never have understood or even dreamed about including a tool to exploit the main wifi breach discovered in the last past two years...
So he shouldn't ignore this forum and think that it is all about "arsed" (a world taht i don't understand but it doesn't sound like a compliment) whatever

file bugs in the bug tracker

I got this...
BUT a bugtrack is for ... bug tracking,
Nt to launch a debate about "what is the best solution to make the best distribution"... that's the point to have a forum.
So if he wants the bugtrack to be as messy as the forum, that's definitely the way

Aanarchyy, if you can sepak about him again ask him if he could explain you briefly why they choosed network manager instead of wicd?
because with what you tell me i doubt that any member of the staff or development team will come here to give us some piece of information

By the way, isn't this forum called Kali Linux Development ?
I understand that a devloper doesn't have time to answer basic question in genral use... But creating a forum called "development" and if it is moderated properly... Knoewing thsat no developer will never loock at it sounds like a big and bad joke...

"wlan0" does not sound like an interface name which has been put in monitor

Really?
...Unless you enable mode monitor with iwconfig which is, as aanaarchy sayed in another thread "basically what does airmon-ng"
If you cannot enable properly mode monitor with iwconfig... well...Guess what! : it won't work better with airmon-ng

I am sure that the kali staff people knows much more than me, no doubt about that, and i am grateful to all their work... nevertheless user experience and feedback is primordial to a GNU-linux distribution and ignoring them is a big mistake.
A forum is a tool if you know how to make it works.
I thought that the fact that - at least - they opened a "community project" sub-forum after pixiedust adventure showed that they had understood the interest and potencial in having a forum with a dynamic community...
I guess that somebody will have to find a new flow in WPA to make them fully realize it.

[aanarchyy]

*slow clap* Very well put kcdtv, as usual. This forum is a complete mess and needs some moderation from someone who knows how to moderate a forum. A regular user... not someone that checks in every week or so..

The bug-tracker is NOT a place to DEVELOP and further improve the distro or the tools, it's a way to report broken stuff. Just as it is also not a platform for support. If the only way to get involved is to complain about broken stuff, then this is CLEARLY not a community driven distro. And to be honest, that isn't the type of project i want to be involved with.
So from what i get from that is: the devs couldn't be arsed with what the users want(think of "arsed" to mean a rude way of saying "bothered" ;-)) And that gives merit to why they continue to use software that causes issues, like network-manager.

Pixiewps research and development sprung to life on the kali forums, which i feel is partly responsible for the "Community Projects" subfurum. I am actually kinda surprised that thread wasn't closed seeing the militant enforcement of "Not Kali related. Closing". It almost feels like the forum and irc channel snubs attempts at involvement and advancement of the tools and the distro overall. As a sec-os, most discussions will obviously be based on the tools the distro includes. So why not include development of methods and tools? Isn't that what this is about?

I'ts kinda sad the devs of this distro assume most of the users are morons that don't know how to google stuff and fix things themselves. Granted there is a vast majority of users like that, but to lump everyone together is just not right... Kinda elitist.

[bob79]

we were all noobs at a certain point. at first i folowed kali.org as refference, but when i got in trouble i used google(all and videos on another page) the thing is that seeing on their main page the community forums, it is quite understandable that people get here thinking that, beeing the official page, you will find valid people here, that are using onli kali and know things better than you and maybe better than things you will find on google. as a noob i found myself in trouble and maybe if found a solution without making a video and it's common sense to think that better issues were solved by people inhere. when i asked google about an issue, often i was redirected to ubuntu pages. where we should go if not here? if i have a win problem, for sure i won't go to mac page. if i use samsung i won't go to apple or widows to find a solution. thinking as they are.. they will only find that kali users will become less in time. as on their website, they only count the downloads, without thinking that maybe there are people who have issues, and re-download multiple times the same thing thinking that they are the issue, and not the distro. meh!

[Quest]

*funny how, reading all the comments, either about software or human behavior, I see a greater Linux problem [insert a 6posts long philosophical explanation here]*

[kcdtv]

A kind of déjÃ*-vu?
the problem is that we know the answers : great community = great distribution.
Look at arch linux for example : excellent forum, excellent wiki, good interaction between community and developers = One of the best "roling release" Operative System (if the not the best)
So, if you go rolling release, do as the pro do.

[kcdtv]

Good news...
As I didn't have network manager installed I don't know exactly when the issue was solved...
So; the good news is that network manager is not making any more conflict with the mode monitor interfaces created by airmon-ng
We can enable mode monitor normally, without using "check kill"
That means that we can be connected with one interface and have the other one working in monitor mode.
Like it should be and like it was one year before...
That's my conf :

kcdtv@kalimuxo:~$ apt show network-manager
Package: network-manager
Version: 1.1.92-1

kcdtv@kalimuxo:~$ uname -a
Linux kalimuxo 4.4.0-kali1-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 4.4.6-1kali1 (2016-03-18) x86_64 GNU/Linux

Just an updated kali rolling (upgrade AND dist-upgrade) nothing weird.

[thu292]

"wlan0" does not sound like an interface name which has been put in monitor
mode. Please make sure to post pertinent debugging information when you post
here, this is not a support forum."
this was the answer from bug tracker of a issue of kali rolling on january . oh well.. "getting involved" doesn't mean they'll listen

but that not the place or the form to generate dialogue and exchange points of view

[kcdtv]

You are right: A bugtrack is a bugtrack
The forum should be here for that
Unfortunately it is not used by kali development crew and barely moderated.
This community has shown in the past that it could be a great place to help in the development of kali linux (no better example than the thread about pixiedust attack and pixiewps) and it is a shame that there is no relation between users and developers beside the "bugtrack"
I understand that developers don't have time to loose with "newbs question" but some attention and constructive dialogue with users is always useful for a GNU Linux distribution
Wicd is still very nice buy the way and does not connect you automatically at boot time like network manger (which seems to me a terrible idea)
And we can enable and disable only one interface not like with network manger in kali linux that disable bothes
That the kind of little details that may not have realized kali linux crew but users did... I opened a ticket and bugtrack and it is stil opened. No answer, i don't know if somebody rode it, don't know if they work on it, I don't even know if they understood it...
Forum could be used to have a more dynamic dialogue,to cross experiences... i don't know. it is called "communication" isn't it?
It is not bad, we could give it a go

[hightraffic]

Thanks, you are also welcome!!!!