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Alfa AWUS036NH can’t set monitor mode in Mac OS

0

Hello,

I'm using Alfa AWUS036NH, Wireshark 1.8.4 and Mac OS 10.8.2. I can't set monitor mode, that's what I get:

alt text

a disabled checkbox :(

Is there any way to turn on monitor mode with this card and mac os?

best regards, Rorax

asked 19 Dec '12, 12:49

rorax's gravatar image

rorax
1112
accept rate: 0%


One Answer:

1

As far as I know, this only works with AirPort Extreme adapters.

http://wiki.wireshark.org/CaptureSetup/WLAN#Mac_OS_X

You could run BackTrack Linux in a virtual machine and map the USB device to that virtual machine. A lot of people do exactly that.

http://www.backtrack-linux.org/

Regards
Kurt

answered 19 Dec '12, 13:04

Kurt%20Knochner's gravatar image

Kurt Knochner ♦
24.8k1039237
accept rate: 15%

edited 19 Dec '12, 13:35

1

As far as I know, this only works with AirPort Extreme adapters.

Yes. Sadly, the IO80211* classes in IOKit are private, so third-party network drivers have to be Ethernet drivers; this means that third-party 802.11 adapter drivers can't expose any capabilities other than those offered by Ethernet adapters, including monitor mode support (which involves supplying 802.11 headers rather than Ethernet headers - from userland, requesting monitor mode is done by selecting one of the 802.11 DLT_ values with a BIOCSDLT ioctl on the BPF device).

(19 Dec '12, 19:56) Guy Harris ♦♦