Problems with Netgear WPN311

[circuithead64]

I bought this PCI card: Netgear WPN 311 because it was listed as fully compatible....i am noticing some issues though and am not sure how to proceed.....kismet starts up ok and works for a while then it just stops. At first when it starts it asks which card i want to use wifi0 or ath0 .....well there is only one and when i pick wifi0 it works for a while then fails....picking ath0 doesn't work at all.....if i close kismet and reopen it then my choice of cards is tripled and i can pick wifi0,ath0,ath1,ath2 and kis . This seems very strange to me. If i reboot it works ok for a while then fails , again i start out with two options wifi0 and ath0...then kismet fails and my options triple. Aircrack suite seems to work ok so far but kismet spawns interfaces and screws up the other tools. I have a 64bit CPU , i mention this because i have heard of issues when running bt2 on 64bit hardware, don't know if there is anything to that but i have never used on 64bit CPU before so..........i am running off cd.....don't know at this point what other info may be useful....i have used BT2 before with other cards but either worked or didn't ....this is confusing

[elazar]

ath1 - athX are virtual interfaces(VAPs) created by Kismet(or any other application that can put the card in monitoring mode for that matter, i.e. airmon-ng). Every time you start Kismet, it will create a new virtual interface(athX) and place it in monitoring mode unless you specify an active one. It might be best to start the monitoring interface with airmon-ng and then specifying it when starting Kismet.

airmon-ng start wifi0
kismet options here(I don't remember the syntax offhand)
airmon-ng stop athX(where X is the interface in monitoring mode)

As for your stability issues, I would suggest that you update the MadWifi drivers that come with BT2 out of the box, there should be a module floating around somewhere. One other thing, BIOS level power management can interfere with Kismet(or any other wifi monitoring app for that matter), I would suggest disabling it for troubleshooting purposes...

E

[circuithead64]

Thanks for the info!! I really appreciate it. i have been very busy and have not had time to tinker with it......yet....i will post back any interesting results.

[elazar]

Your welcome. Let me know how it goes...

[virtthemaest]

Hi circuithead64,

Did you manage to get it working?
I had the same problem with my WPN311 too

[circuithead64]

I did manage to get it working the advice i received was very helpful....i found that i could kill the extra interfaces if things got out of hand from the command line, this also helped when i connected a wired interface at the same time i had a wireless interface connected and the two being on and connected at the same time causes no connectivity ( at least on this box) for either .....besides that i have found as stated in the HCL that everything , including injection works(tested against my own access point of course) , though i have not tested all the availiable tools, i know that some seem to need some tweaking but will work with this card.....

[FedorEmelianenko]

Hi circuithead64,
If you don't mind could you post the command you used to get this Nic good to go.

I've basically stuffed around with it for a few days now (I miss my old card!)
I'm constantly having to uninstall and reinstall the card sometimes I cant get ath0 up! That just sounds wrong lol

Any help would be really appreciated

[circuithead64]

I had to learn about the virtual interfaces and get cozy with commands like ifconfig,iwconfig, and wlanconfig. the -h option on all these commands is very useful. There is also a bit of overlap between the commands. There are as usual a number of ways to skin this cat. I never had a problem getting my card recognized nor did i have to reinstall it so i don't know what issues you are having there....with this in mind : I would make sure you don't have one or more wired interfaces connected as i ran into problems with my wireless card automatically connecting to whichever AP was availiable and having a wired and wireless interface connected made both inoperable( for me anyway....i am sure there is a way to get it all working together and i have some ideas but i have not tested them all so i will hold off on that) . A simple : ifconfig [interface] down - to turn off whichever one you don't want or need up should do the trick in this case. The virtual interfaces offer a great amount of flexibility but i have not yet mastered all the nuances.

i would also refer you to :
madwifi.org /wiki/UserDocs

madwifi.org/users-guide/node14.htm

linux.die.net/man/8/wlanconfig

forums.remote-exploit.org/archive/index.php/t-330.html

There was another really good link that condensed the three commands : ifconfig,iwconfig, and wlanconfig onto one page but of course i cannot track it down, so see the manual pages or wait for me to find it ( i have a bad habit of not bookmarking things)

When using the wireless tools they often ask or require you to specify which interface to use. I usually use wifi0 if its the first time i have used any of these tools, this usually creates a virtual interface for you but if you turn these tools on and off all the time like me then sometimes you will end up with many virtual interfaces and this is where i was running into problems. I kept creating new virtual interfaces even though this is not always necessary, they can be reused once created so specify the one you want whenever possible. If the virtual interfaces are getting out of hand try this : wlanconfig [interface] destroy - this kills the virtual interface, eliminates it which it should be noted is very different from using : ifconfig [interface] down - this simply turns it off . See also Elazar's post below or above depending on the order your viewing the posts. I have gotten it working well but i have to be careful how many virtual interfaces are being created. Best way to manipulate all this is from the command line, at least this is what i have found. If you can be more specific about your particular issues or can post the output of ifconfig or iwconfig when you start having problems maybe i can be more helpful. I learned the hard way ( trial,error , and google) Sorry so long a post but i don't know your skill level and do not want to confuse you or steer you wrong . I f none of this makes any sense at all then either i am completely crazy( a good possibility) or you have a) not used the sites referenced above or b)read the Intro to linux at linux.org ( this intro concentrates on the command line as GUI's are so easy a monkey could use one)....no offense to monkeys

[FedorEmelianenko]

Thanks,

I was doing everything fine. What Madwifi didn’t mention is you need a HD install in order to reboot the PC for the commands to work efficiently.

I've had been using Suse for many years before I built a Vista Box and never had to reboot after installing drivers, so it comes as a surprise.

I've been using the live CD so basically after I uninstalled the old modules and updated a reboot was in need.
Because I use Vista for DX10 I have NTFS Volumes, which aren’t compatible with the Linux version of Partition Magic.
So basically I'll have to backup and format a Drive to install BT on it, after I reinstall my PC I can bring the interfaces up and use allot more commands.

PS back to the original fault. Did you ever manage to get the GUI Wireless assistant to connect successfully?

[circuithead64]

The wireless gui interface has not given me any problems.......i can connect to any AP in range as long as i have the proper credentials...though once i have used the wireless tools the virtual interfaces sometimes need to be reigned in or there seems to be some minor issues or perhaps it is my lack of experience but i can work on that.......i had not gotten around to reinstalling on my HD....i am always downloading and getting to know different distros, i am always running out of room, got any cheap hard drives??..... but i have not noticed any deficiency in the tools when running from cd once i started managing my virtual interfaces correctly. Though i discovered that , as mentioned before, when i wasn't managing all (wired and wireless) my interfaces properly, nmap for instance would need to told what interface to use or it would give me an error. I take that back about the deficiencies, i did notice one when using netdiscover over wireless it did not work but the error it gave me made me think it was not designed to work over wireless....something about unrecognized physical media but maybe i am trippin over my interfaces again....time will tell.........i gotta say I LOVE THIS SHIT!!!!!!!!!!I have learned alot in a short amount of time!!!