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txpower dBm rate

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Hey I am interested in sniffing packets and monitoring their tx power dBm rate on linux. How do i do that? I tried many things: - I right click on the columns tool bar and click "edit columns Details" select "ieee802.11 Tx rate" - the column does not show me anything - no information. - I tried to filter the packets by a certain tx power using radiotap.txpower >/< 0 etc and it shows me zero packets, as if none of them have a positive or negative tx power

Does anyone know what am i doing wrong?

Thanks Matt

asked 09 Jun '13, 21:06

mattigot's gravatar image

mattigot
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accept rate: 0%

edited 09 Jun '13, 21:21


One Answer:

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Hey I am interested in sniffing packets and monitoring their tx power dBm rate on linux. How do i do that?

You do it by capturing in monitor mode. If you're not capturing in monitor mode, the capture mechanism that libpcap, and thus Wireshark, uses will not supply radio information such as transmit power.

Some Linux drivers may not use radiotap, in which case radiotap.txpower won't work, but most modern drivers do (if you're capturing in monitor mode).

Note also that packets received by the host, rather than transmitted by the host, probably won't have transmit power, as the host won't be able to determine the power level at the transmitting antenna used when transmitting the packet, it'll only be able to determine the power at the receiving antenna when the packet was received.

answered 09 Jun '13, 23:25

Guy%20Harris's gravatar image

Guy Harris ♦♦
17.4k335196
accept rate: 19%

I am not able to set it to monitor mode. under capture options, monitor mode is greyd out. is there another way?

(09 Jun '13, 23:58) mattigot

Try using the airmon-ng script.

(10 Jun '13, 01:47) Guy Harris ♦♦