BT4 final, VMware 6.5, RTL8187L wireless on USB, SIOCSIFFLAGS errors

[airfr8dog]

Greetings all:

Some background: Trying to get an ALFA AWUS036H usb wireless card working thru vmware in BT4
final. I have taken the unit apart and it is for sure a RTL8187L chipset.

Earlier versions of vmware prior to 6.5 will not power on the vm's from the download area, it
appears they were made with vmware7. Workstation 6.5 works however
before I spend the $$ to upgrade to vmware 7, here are my error messages with 6.5:

Running Vmware 6.5, BT4 final guest, WinXPSP3 host:

Alfa card is recognized by BT:

modprobe -l | grep phy
/lib/modules/2.6.30.9/kernel/drivers/net/phy/realtek.ko


modprobe -l | grep wireless
/lib/modules/2.6.30.9/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/rtl8187/r8187.ko

(other returns omitted)

lsusb:
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 0bda:8187 Realtek Semi.......RTL8187 Wireless adapter

ifconfig wlan0 up
phy0: Reset timeout!
SIOCSIFFLAGS: Connection timed out

iwconfig with no arguments shows wlan0, even though ifconfig seems not to affect the wlan0
interface up or down

airmon-ng start wlan0 returns:

wlan0 RTL8187 rtl8187 - [phy0]phy0: Reset timeout!
SIOCSIFFLAGS: Connection timed out
(monitor mode enabled on mon0)

But I don't think mon0 was actually enabled.

Anyone use this card in VMware 7? The card works fine in BT4 final if booted directly. Someone else suggested to add the rtl8187 drivers to the /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist, and unlist the r8187 driver, reboot, but that did not work for me. But since I specifically bought this card for vmware, I would like to get working there. Can anyone recommend a patch if one exists (and if it is a driver issue?) or does it work Ok with wmware 7 and BT4 final without issues?

By work, I mean to use normally and for testing (injection) with the aircrack tools. It appears
that on the aircrack-ng "install" page under "Installing vmware image" it states vmware 6.5 is known to have problems with the rtl8187 driver. States it is unusually slow and hangs.

Maybe I should just use an earlier VMware and create my own VM.

Thanks for any help!

[DigiP]

Not 100% sure this will help your problem, r8187 [Aircrack-ng]

Now, I had similar driver issue with my ralink RT73 based card. The drivers shipped in BT4 Final VM and ISO would not allow monitor mode nor iwprivs for my card, so I renamed the existing driver, then updated to the enhanced drivers for my specific card. All is working now. You might try and uninstall, or disable the current drivers, and manually compile and install known working ones for your VM. This isn't the same card as yours, but you can sort of see what I did here: digip : sailing the high seas of the internet

Maybe you can find better drivers for the card than what is already installed in BT4. Just dont install them while leaving the originals in the system, as I had all sorts of trouble when I did that. Modprobe would try to start the card with both drivers loaded and I would get all kinds of errors when that happened.

Good luck.

[MassAppeal]

Why dont you just download the new free vmware player, and see if it works in that.

Save you buying vmware 7... if you were going to get it legit.

[airfr8dog]

UPDATE: Jan 16

DigiP, thanks for the link to the r8187 page. It appears that driver is the ieee80211, not mac80211. The blacklist in BT4 has the r8187 blacklisted by default, I had tried to blacklist the mac80211 driver (rtl8187) and use the older ieee driver, but that did not work.

I then created a new VM using vmware 6.05(not 6.5) and BT4 final (using the iso), and the rtl8187 driver seems to work. I have not yet tried a intensive test, however the basic injection tests show working as well as I can now use the card thru vmware to set up a normal connection thru dhclient or a static IP. All of the errors I posted about are gone, however there seems to be time lag when ifconfig wlan0 up is done. There is another thread here about some process which should be killed, the audio drivers, I think when running in vmware.

Because the ALFA card worked out of the box in BT4 final with the mac80211 drivers, I am thinking my problems were related to vmware 6.5.

I would really like to know if there are ppl here using vmware 7 (windows host) Bt4 final guest, the ALFA card, with the mac80211 drivers.

I really don't mind paying the upgrade for vmware7 if I know it will work (thanks MassAppeal), I understand if the free player works then ver7 will also??

Thanks!!

[MassAppeal]

I encountered this exact problem today. With the exact same dongle using the iso to create my vm image in vmware 7.0

ifconfig wlan0 up

Gave me a connection, timed out error.

I did get it working though.

Unplug the ALFA Dongle, Plug it into a different USB port

ifconfig wlan0 down
macchanger -A wlan0
iwconfig wlan0 mode monitor
ifconfig wlan0 up

I think i got this problem from changing the mac address then putting it down & trying to get it up, then getting a power surge on my USB port, then it not fully recognizing the Dongle again. Also the iso does use mon0 if you use airmon-ng but you cant change your mac address then from what ive encountered.

The Pre-Built VM is a different story all togethor.

I have not touched anything to do with the drivers, stock standard from the iso.

ifconfig wlan0 up

Is very laggy for me, takes around 7 seconds. I disabled sound all togethor. You can stop the artsd process from running though. Or you can kill it with

pidof artsd
kill -9 pidnumber

Good Luck!

[airfr8dog]

I think i got this problem from changing the mac address then putting it down & trying to get it up, then getting a power surge on my USB port, then it not fully recognizing the Dongle again. Also the iso does use mon0 if you use airmon-ng but you cant change your mac address then from what ive encountered.

The Pre-Built VM is a different story all togethor.

Mass:

I am inclined to test "basics" first, under VMware 6.5 and the downloadable pre-built vm, I could not get the card to work....even basic networking, all from the command line. Macchanger was never attempted.

ifconfig wlan0 up
iwlist wlan0 scan
iwconfig wlan0 essid XXXXX
dhclient wlan0

Under vmware 6.05, no errors,but I also notice the lag on "ifconfig wlan0 up". I read somewhere that USB 1.1 speeds were being used for this, I am not sure.

Did killing the artsd service help with the lag? It did not for me but this testing was done on an old laptop.

Can you elaborate:

The Pre-Built VM is a different story all togethor.

Do you mean it worked for you, or not? What did you find? Error messages?

I do believe both r8187 and rtl8187 drivers are in BT4, the ieeee ones are blacklisted by default.

Thanks!

[MassAppeal]

My lag was never resolved until i downloaded the ISO & Made my own VM.

They just work differently.

Pre-Built

iwpriv = works
iw reg set = fails
iwconfig wlan0 tx power 27 = works
airmon-ng start wlan0 = puts wlan0 to monitor mode but doesnt create mon0

ISO

iwpriv = fails
iw reg set = works, can change my region
iwconfig wlan0 txpower = fails, because iwpriv fails
airmon-ng start wlan0 = creates mon0 interface in monitor mode