Member Avatar for nschessnerd

Hey people,
i just installed ubuntu 7.10 on a latitude d610 and i am trying to get kismet on it. i installed it, but i get an error in the config file at the line where i choose my driver and hardware source... i currently have
source= ipw2200,eth1,kismet
is there something wrong with that? im pretty sure my wireless card uses ipw2200 and is on eth1. any suggestions? oh and i can see wireless networks without kismet, so it is something in the config file.\
the error is
Support for capture source type 'ipw2200' was not built.
do i need to install some driver? i did got a driver from a site listed in the readme file but i do not see why i should have to install it if my wireless card works without kismet. If i need to install it how would i do it?
Cheers
M

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Short summary: ran Kismet on a Latitude D610 with an Intel 2200-series card and saw that the ipw2200 capture source wasn’t available. That means the Kismet binary you ran was built without the Linux capture support (or the build missed required headers/libs), or the kernel driver wasn’t exposing monitor/radiotap support. ’s point about needing monitor (rfmon) support is correct — Kismet needs a monitor-capable driver plus the capture plugins enabled at build time. (kismetwireless.net)

Practical checks to run first (on the host, not inside a VM): confirm the hardware module and interface name, and whether the kernel driver exposes monitor features. Example quick commands:

lspci -nn | grep -i wireless
lsmod | grep ipw2200
iwconfig

If the driver is present but Kismet refused the capture source, inspect the output from Kismet’s ./configure (or the package build log) — missing linux wireless headers or libnl often causes specific capture sources not to be compiled. (docs.kernel.org)

If the packaged distro Kismet lacks the source you need, rebuild Kismet with the right dev packages installed (pcap, libnl, kernel headers, etc.). On Debian/Ubuntu-family systems install the build deps, then configure/make/install Kismet from upstream:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install build-essential git libpcap-dev libcap-dev pkg-config \
                 libnl-3-dev libnl-genl-3-dev linux-headers-$(uname -r)
git clone https://www.kismetwireless.net/git/kismet.git
cd kismet && ./configure && make
sudo make suidinstall && sudo make plugins-install

Follow the official install notes and watch configure output for missing libraries. (kismetwireless.app)

Driver notes and VM caveat: Intel ipw2200/ipw3945 drivers can support rfmon and optionally provide a radiotap/rtap interface (module option like rtap_iface=1) — enabling that can give Kismet the headers it needs. Also stop NetworkManager/wpa_supplicant (they’ll interfere) before capturing. If running in VMware, built‑in laptop Wi‑Fi normally won’t present true monitor access to the guest; use a USB Wi‑Fi adapter with passthrough or run Kismet on the host. (wiki.wireshark.org)

These steps are the common causes and fixes for the problem you described; they tie back to ’s monitor-mode note and explain why a distro package can “work for normal Wi‑Fi” yet still fail for Kismet sniffing.

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Member Avatar for Spriggan

from what I understand of it, you need to install a patched driver to put your card into promiscuous mode. once in prmsc. mode, as long as kismet supports your drivers, you can packet sniff to your hearts content.

Member Avatar for nschessnerd

Thanks, i fixed this a while ago though... but i dont remember what i did

Member Avatar for Chris Potter

a little question here. I'm kind of new to the sniffing game, and I'm trying to learn everything I can. I recently installed the latest Ubuntu on a VMWare virtual drive, yet I'm having a little problem with the new Linux learning curve. I don't really know how to compile Kismet, or any other file really. And even if they are compiled already, I'm having a hard time running them with success. I figured out that I should probably enable whatever I want to run as an executable, but I'm still a little baffled. Can anyone help me with some examples? If it's possible to give an idiot-proof example of how I would install a program such as this, or even this program in fact, it would be a great help. I'm a smart person, I just need a beginning example from somewhere so that I can begin to learn how to work Linux. I'm teaching myself here, and a little bump in the right direction will probably get me going well.

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