Member Avatar for winrawr

I downloaded a backtrack ISO and burned it to DVD. When I boot my computer from it, I cannot get it to work with the wireless device in my laptop... I have an acer aspire 5000 series with a broadcom 802.11g network adapter... Anyways to make it run more smoothly I downloaded VMware and ran it from the ISO, but now it doesn't even recognize my wireless network card, just my wired card "eth0." Since windows will use my wireless and connect to my wireless network, I was wondering if there was any way to sort of link the two... make the wireless card being used as windows, connect to eth0 in VM?
I can't figure out how to get it working; however when I run the wireless lan assistant, it autodetects the eth0 adapter, asks me to configure it and it defaults to "wired." I hit okay and get an error (attached). All I want is for this to connect to the internet--

oh, and since this is booted from a CD/DVD (or in this case ISO image), how can I save settings to it? So that I don't run into this trouble in future uses of the o/s?

  • 2 Contributors
  • 2 Replies
  • 201 Views
  • 2 Months Discussion Span
  • Latest Post Latest Post by winrawr

Dani AI

Generated

Short summary and practical steps tied to the replies by and .

There are two different environments here: (A) booting BackTrack 3 on the laptop (bare metal) and (B) running the ISO inside VMware on Windows. On bare metal a wireless device can be presented as eth0 (kernel/udev naming varies), which matches ’s observation. Inside VMware the guest usually sees a virtual wired NIC (also eth0) — that virtual device is not the physical radio and so wireless-specific features won’t be available there.

Quick checks to see what the guest actually sees:

ifconfig -a
iwconfig
lspci -nnk | grep -i -A3 802.11
lsusb

If the only goal is simple Internet access from the VM: use VMware’s NAT mode (VM → Settings → Network Adapter → NAT) or Bridged networking. NAT is easiest and will let the guest reach the Internet immediately; the guest will still show a wired interface (eth0) because VMware presents a virtual Ethernet device.

If the goal is wireless testing (monitor mode / packet injection): internal Broadcom laptop cards are commonly problematic and often lack monitor/injection support. Running BackTrack inside VMware will not give direct control of the host’s internal radio. The reliable solution is a USB Wi‑Fi adapter that supports monitor mode and injection, then pass the USB device through to the VM (VM → Removable Devices → [USB device] → Connect (Disconnect from Host)). After connecting, verify with iwconfig or airmon-ng.

Persistence: a Live CD/DVD won’t save settings. Options are (1) install BackTrack into a virtual disk in VMware (recommended for a VM workflow), (2) create a persistent live USB, or (3) install to the laptop’s hard drive. Note: BackTrack is an older project; modern equivalents (for up-to-date drivers and tooling) are available. Also note legal/ethical restrictions—only test networks with explicit permission.

Member Avatar for funky_f

It's probably late for an answer now, but the "eth0" IS your wireless card. For some reason, BT3 just calls some wireless cards on laptops "eth0" and not "wlan0", as you might have expected.

I've been working with BT3 on an Asus laptop, and it always calls my wlan card "eth0".

Member Avatar for winrawr

not too late, thanks for the tip

Be a part of the DaniWeb community

We're a friendly, industry-focused community of developers, IT pros, digital marketers, and technology enthusiasts meeting, networking, learning, and sharing knowledge.