broadcom sta/ wl driver

[hololight]

Now before we start discussing the merits of using the bcm wlan cards and their poor (or lack) of mon/ injection.... I know.

I have other cards for that.

BT4 final comes with the wl driver from broadcom... doesn't work

Downloaded and compiled from broadcom's site... doesn't work

in both cases, the only message recorded in the logs is that the license is unknown, or something, and the kernel is 'tainted'.

No other error, the wl module IS loaded.

No interface.

Ideas, thoughts?

Thanks,

Chris

[reeth]

It's because of the kernel version Backtrack uses, deal with it

[hololight]

Given enought time, I usually figure 'something' out.

So far I have failed with compat-wireless, the shipped wl (broadcom-sta) driver, and the wl driver compiled from source.

I didn't want to upgrade to a newer kernel because I didn't want to worry about breaking everything

But...

the wl driver that ships with bt4 pre final DOES work. I am typing this post from my Hp Mini 110 right now.

To be clear though, the wl driver will NOT help you with any sort of wireless pentesting, as this closed driver does not support monitor or injection.

Hope this helps

[thinker7]

I had a similar problem with Broadcom BCM4322. ssb is included in the 2.6.34 kernel and binds to the device before the wl module loads. Google "Manual driver binding and unbinding".

I added the file /etc/modprobe.d/wl (single line)

install wl echo -n 0000\:08\:00.0 > /sys/bus/pci/drivers/b43-pci-bridge/unbind; /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install wl

Where 0000:08:00.0 is the bus id of my card, found as a symbolic link in /sys/bus/pci/drivers/b43-pci-bridge.

And add wl to /etc/modules. This will unbind the ssb driver before loading wl and allow wl to pick it up. No kernel recompile (without ssb) required.