Hello, Please suggest us the Adapter to be used along with Wireshark for capturing Wireless packets. If you have the list of supported adapters in your web page please direct us to the link. Also we would like to know if the adapter model D-Link DWA-160 can be used with Wireshark for capturing Wireless packets? Thank you. asked 20 Jan '12, 04:16  urmila edited 26 Feb '12, 20:53  cmaynard ♦♦ |
2 Answers:
If you're talking wireless captures on Windows you'll have to buy AirPCAP adapters, because any other adapter will not show you frames other than your own, and without the physical layer. If you're running Linux you might take a look at cards with Atheros chipsets, which have a good reputation. answered 20 Jan '12, 12:33  Jasper ♦♦ |
Wireshark ultimately depends on the operating system on which it's running and on the drivers for the wireless adapter for monitor mode support, so we don't maintain our own list of supported adapters. For Linux, we have, in the Linux subsection of the CaptureSetup/WLAN page of the Wireshark Wiki links to a number of pages that discuss adapter support on Linux. For *BSD, I think most drivers should support monitor mode if the adapters are supported at all and support monitor mode; if any of the pages that discuss adapter support on Linux discuss the hardware merits or cost of particular adapters, those would apply to *BSD as well. As I noted in my comment on Jasper's answer, if you're running Mac OS X on a Mac, if it has a wireless adapter, monitor mode should work. For all of those OSes, see the CaptureSetup/WLAN page of the Wireshark Wiki for information on how to enable monitor mode. For Windows, we don't support monitor mode on any adapters, and promiscuous mode generally doesn't work very well, so you can only capture in non-promiscuous mode, meaning you'll only see traffic to and from your machine. As Jasper noted, you'd need an AirPcap adapter to capture traffic to and from other machines on the network. answered 20 Jan '12, 16:32  Guy Harris ♦♦ edited 20 Jan '12, 16:32 |
...and if you're running Mac OS X (on a Macintosh, rather than a Hackintosh), the built-in wireless adapters on those Macs that have them should work in monitor mode).
For Linux, at least, there's an item in the aircrack-ng FAQ "What is the best wireless card to buy?".