Airodump-ng says device is busy what does this mean?

[mrx89_07]

ok I started trying to use airodump, but I cant seem to get off the ground. Essentially all the commands I try to run say i need to enable a device. I tried to do that... I think. Here's what it said:

root@bt:~# airodump-ng wlan0
ioctl(SIOCSIWMODE) failed: Device or resource busy

ARP linktype is set to 1 (Ethernet) - expected ARPHRD_IEEE80211,
ARPHRD_IEEE80211_FULL or ARPHRD_IEEE80211_PRISM instead. Make
sure RFMON is enabled: run 'airmon-ng start wlan0 <#>'
Sysfs injection support was not found either.

I used iwconfig to pick that wlan0 idk if that right

[Archangel-Amael]

I used iwconfig to pick that wlan0 idk if that right

I mean you can't just go picking interface names at random. Well you could but the man page will definitely have a better way to go about it. You might also want to tell us more about your setup.

[mrx89_07]

ok so again my post may have been a little premature, but wlan0 is definitely my wireless adapter. I found out you can use airmon to find this out.... right? Anyways after I ran kismet i ended up running iwconfig again well after i did that this other device magically appeared- wlan0mon. Evidently well you run kismet it puts your adapter into monitor mode at least thats what i read. Anyhow i entered wlan0mon into airodump as my wireless device and it seems to be working

[batbout]

try to put your wireless card in monitor mode using thses command :

ifconfig wlan0 up

airmon-ng start wlan0

this should return a result like this

PID Name
925 avahi-daemon
926 avahi-daemon
1086 NetworkManager
1281 wpa_supplicant
1856 dhclient
Process with PID 1856 (dhclient) is running on interface wlan0


Interface Chipset Driver

wlan0 Ralink 2573 USB rt73usb - [phy0]
(monitor mode enabled on mon0)
mon0 Ralink 2573 USB rt73usb - [phy0]

note that in this case the name of the monitor mode enabled wireless card is mon0 (monitor mode enabled on mon1)

than try airodump-ng mon0 (in my case)

[mixit]

airmon-ng start wlan0

should start a new interface called mon0, which is to be used for monitoring. If you read the output of the command, you would probably have noticed this. Try using that interface with airodump. Also next time you have a question, try searching the forum, man pages, or wiki before asking a question. I'm pretty sure this question has been answered in about a thousand other places.

[ravenrose]

I think it has to do with your card not being in ,,monitor mode,,. You have to get your card working in ,,monitor mode,, either by running command ,,airmon-ng start wlan0,, (this should sound familiar to you, see your post :-) ) or ,,iwconfig wlan0 mode monitor,, .
Then check ,,iwconfig,, see what wifi interface is in monitor mode (if using ,,airmon-ng,, it may show you ,,mon0,, in monitor mode while wlan0 still in managed mode.)
then just run airodump again exactly as you tried.

added: note that some of the wifi card can't run in monitor mode.