Analyzing with airmon-ng on mesh network with multiple nodes with different BSSIDs

Kali Linux Forums Kali Linux Troubleshooting
1

I am using airodump-ng for the first time and I am trying to analyze my home network. I have a mesh system that has 3 nodes in the house. When running airodump-ng I see 6 separate BSSIDs for my networks SSID. My guess is that each of the 3 nodes are broadcasting on both 2.4 and 5ghz, causing 6 APs to appear.

$ airodump-ng wlan0

*CH 7 ][ Elapsed: 2 mins ][ 2025-01-22 21:15 *

  • BSSID PWR Beacons #Data, #/s CH MB ENC CIPHER AUTH ESSID*
  • 24:E5:0F:4F:C0:10 -43 10 0 0 11 130 WPA2 CCMP PSK SpeakFriendAndEnter *
  • 24:E5:0F:4F:C3:1C -34 9 0 0 11 130 WPA2 CCMP PSK SpeakFriendAndEnter *
  • 24:E5:0F:4F:D4:BF -26 42 0 0 6 130 WPA2 CCMP PSK SpeakFriendAndEnter*
  • 24:E5:0F:4F:C0:14 -31 7 0 0 149 866 WPA2 CCMP PSK SpeakFriendAndEnter *
  • 24:E5:0F:4F:D4:C3 -24 7 0 0 149 866 WPA2 CCMP PSK SpeakFriendAndEnter *
  • 24:E5:0F:4F:C3:20 -53 7 0 0 149 866 WPA2 CCMP PSK SpeakFriendAndEnter*

When I try to pick one of these MAC addresses to analyze, I get no results.

$ airodump-ng --bssid 24:E5:0F:4F:D4:BF --channel 6 wlan0.

*CH 6 ][ Elapsed: 12 s ][ 2025-01-22 21:31 *

  • BSSID PWR RXQ Beacons #Data, #/s CH MB ENC CIPHER AUTH ESSID*

  • BSSID STATION PWR Rate Lost Frames Notes Probes*

My question is, if I want to isolate a network to analyze to identify a machine on it, is there a way to run airmon-ng on 6 individual BSSIDs some of which are on different channels? if not, how does one typically approach mesh networks, or this situation? That is assuming I am getting 6 APs because its mesh, if I am incorrect there, please teach me! :slight_smile:

What have you tried:

$ apt update
$ apt upgrade
$ airmon-ng check kill

then airodump-ng will not detect anything.
I reset the network manager using:

$ sudo systemctl restart networking
$ sudo systemctl restart NetworkManager

That restores airdump-ng’s ability to see all traffic, but trying to focus it onto a specific BSSID still causes the same issue.

$ airodump-ng --bssid 24:E5:0F:4F:D4:BF --channel 6 wlan0.

*CH 6 ][ Elapsed: 12 s ][ 2025-01-22 21:31 *

  • BSSID PWR RXQ Beacons #Data, #/s CH MB ENC CIPHER AUTH ESSID*

  • BSSID STATION PWR Rate Lost Frames Notes Probes*

What device is this on:
-Running Kali 2024.1 on VMware Virtual Machine
-Nest Wifi Pro
-ALFA AWUS036ACH

2

and you use
airodump-ng --bssid 24:E5:0F:4F:D4:BF --channel 6 wlan0
surely that too should be channel 7…