HOWTO- Alfa 802.11a/b/g/n AWUS050NH (rt2800usb) on BackTrack 4 R1

[muts]

Alfa 802.11a/b/g/n AWUS050NH (rt2800usb) on BackTrack 4 R1

We had some last moment issues with kernel 2.6.34 and the rt2800usb drivers. The card would be recognized, would go into monitor mode, but not capture anything. Rather than leaving our AWUS050NH owners in the dark, we placed a copy of a working compat-wireless package in /usr/src/drivers. These drivers are patched with the fragmentation patch, and are precompiled. Mst importantly, they *work* and go into monitor mode. To get these drivers working, you need to install the compat wireless drivers, in the following way:

cd /usr/src/drivers/compat*
make install
make wlunload
make wlload

[fnord0]

currently Im on bt4 R1 blackhat release, and notice the same thing u mention above = no scan results. it appears that this release does not have the /usr/src/drivers folder, but hey no biggie... mind sharing which compat-wireless drivers you are using (date would work fine).

thanks for such a great OS!

UPDATE: compat-wireless-2010-07-24 + mac80211_2.6.32.2-wl_frag+ack_radiotap.patch is working for me

so for those on the back|track 4 R1 blackhat release, do the following ::

mkdir /usr/src/drivers
cd /usr/src/drivers
wget http://wireless.kernel.org/download/compat-wireless-2.6/compat-wireless-2010-04-20.tar.bz2
 tar jxvf compat-wireless-2010-04-20.tar.bz2
cd compat-wireless-2010-04-20
wget http://patches.aircrack-ng.org/mac80...radiotap.patch
cat mac80211_2.6.32.2-wl_frag+ack_radiotap.patch | patch -p1
make
make install
make unload
modprobe rt2800usb

btw, I am using an ALFA AWUS036NH USB adapter with this setup =)

[diwrr]

currently Im on bt4 R1 blackhat release, and notice the same thing u mention above = no scan results. it appears that this release does not have the /usr/src/drivers folder, but hey no biggie... mind sharing which compat-wireless drivers you are using (date would work fine).

thanks for such a great OS!

UPDATE: compat-wireless-2010-07-25 + mac80211_2.6.32.2-wl_frag+ack_radiotap.patch is working for me

so for those on the back|track 4 R1 blackhat release, do the following ::


btw, I am using an ALFA AWUS036NH USB adapter with this setup =)

Did almost the same steps with him on IRC and my DLink DWA-125 is working like a charm now. The only difference s that I had to download rt2870.bin to /lib/firmware manually after kernel upgrade. []'s

[muts]

or you could have done a:

apt-get update && apt-get install firmware-ralink

[Rafter]

Thank you for your guide and help. It did work, kinda..
Airodump runs fine with mon0, but found NO wifi-networks. And that is wrong. I have one myself currently running and my neighbours have several too.

I tried to restart my BT4-R1 VMWare, but then I was back to scratch with a wlan0 not working and drivers not compatible again

When doing your guide I would get wlan1 and wlan2 too. Created a Monitor Mode enabled mon0 by doing: Airmon-ng start wlan1
Btw. I am using a Alfa AWUS036H and not AWUS050NH..

When doing a: dmesg I get a lot of:
rtl8187: wireless radio switch turned off
rtl8187: wireless radio switch turned on

Did an: apt-get update && apt-get install firmware-ralink
But it is already newest update..

Please help :-[

[FullOn]

Thanks this fixed my EDIMAX EW-7711USN USB 2.0 Wireless Adapter.

I'd like to add that the compat-wireless drivers have created a problem that will not allow me to stay fixed on a channel in airodump. (fixed channel mon0: -1). The card works, and airodump will work fine while channel hoping, but I can not use aireplay because there is a conflict between the channel the card is on, and the channel aireplay wants to be on. As far as I can tell there is no fix for this yet. Ticket is here: http://trac.aircrack-ng.org/ticket/742

[fnord0]

well, here's what seems to be the deal with the compat-wireless & the 'fixed channel mon0: -1' troubles... compat-wireless as we all know

"[aims to always support kernel compatibility] ... kernel compatibility may be done but it should not be something that is expected."[1]

from what I have witnessed; newer versions of compat-wireless appear to cause an issue with aircrack-ng, I am not sure the exact reasons but later/more recent versions of compat-wireless rt2x00 drivers seem to introduce that weird issue of 'fixed channel mon0: -1' when combined with aircrack-ng (airodump + aireplay-ng from what I've noticed). I've found that by simply using an older version of compat-wireless rt2x00 drivers = right now I am on compat-wireless-2010-04-20 . diwr and myself wrestled with the same ''fixed channel mon0: -1' issue the other day. take a stab at an older version of compat-wireless and let us know if this corrects the issue?

does the bt4-r1.iso's /usr/src/compat* work properly? I'm on blackhat edition so chose to go the compat-wireless route.

btw, muts I tried apt-get update && apt-get install firmware-ralink and did not recieve a /usr/src/compat* directory, I have a suspcion you were referring to the rt2860/2870(.bin) firmware files...

[1] >>> http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/...kernel_support

[FullOn]

does the bt4-r1.iso's /usr/src/compat* work properly? I'm on blackhat edition so chose to go the compat-wireless route.

Negative, the ones in the /usr/src/compat* are (I believe) the newest version out right now and do NOT work with aircrack-ng suite. So I'd recommend anyone doing the above fix grab an older version.

I will be trying the earlier versions of compat-wireless at some point today to see if it works with BT R1.

[lordplagueis]

issue of 'fixed channel mon0: -1' in Bt4R1 was a pain in the @$$ I need my AWUS036H to function properly so I installed bt4-final and upgraded manually to 2.6.34 everything is good now although my /etc/motd indicates i'm using final instead of Bt4R1

[chalo]

There is a good write up on the awus036nh and bt4r1. There is a patch that fixes the issue with mon0 is on channel x and the ap is on channel z. i have tried the patch with the awus036nh usb it and association and injection is now ok.
The only problem i seem to have is that the packet injection is going ok (500pps) on but the iv`s are not increasing.Kindly give feedback

Read the blog here hXXp://blog.rootshell.be/2010/08/09/backtrack4-r1-awus036nh-win/

Credits to /dev/random for the good write up, DomInat3 for the patch and muts for the great os.