Broadcom wl driver Monitor mode support?

[mxweas]

I've finally got the broadcom wl driver working, but iwconfig shows that it does not support monitor mode. I have one of the new macbook pros that has the unibody and the wireless card is a bcm4322 I believe. Is there any way to get monitor mode support? I hear ubuntu intrepid ibex will have the wl driver built in, does anyone know if it has monitor mode support?

Thanks,
Max

[primski]

don't know, but i am also interested in this feature.

any news ?

[rjr162]

NOTE> I'm using a broadcom in a Dell Inspiron E1505

I got monitor mode working under Ubuntu 8.10 Ibex. After I ran into the same issue you guys hit, and reading a bit online, it looked as if the "wl" driver is what was killing it. I simply blacklisted the "wl" driver and things are working fine for me. In fact, it's working better now than it had under 8.04.

Under 8.04 I was unable to be connected to an AP and be in monitor mode, the wireless manager would show no wireless card or something of the sort. In 8.10 Ibex, I am able to stay associated with an access point as well as run monitor mode!

I just added "blacklist wl" to the end of my blacklist file and it's working good.

blacklist bcm43xx
blacklist wl

are the last two lines of my blacklist file.

The only wireless module that's running in b43, and everything seems to be well. It even seems after opening my laptop lid, the wireless becomes active and goes on-line quicker.

[smalldog]

I am also using dell computer, but my model is vostro 1400 which wireless interface using BCM4312.
Under Ubuntu 8.04, I can't using b43 to connect AP with any security. I had tried using ndiswrapper to using Windows driver once but failed. Lastly, I deploy wl. It works fine but cannot create any virtual interface for monitoring.
Would you mind share your experience step by step. Many thanks:D

[c0bra]

I am also using dell computer, but my model is vostro 1400 which wireless interface using BCM4312.
Under Ubuntu 8.04, I can't using b43 to connect AP with any security. I had tried using ndiswrapper to using Windows driver once but failed. Lastly, I deploy wl. It works fine but cannot create any virtual interface for monitoring.
Would you mind share your experience step by step. Many thanks:D

I'm in the same situation. Blacklisting the wl driver made it so eth1 isn't available anymore.

[rjr162]

When I was using 8.04 and the b43xx driver (which was the older one) I had some snags getting the wireless to work.

What I posted above was what I did to get 8.10 working in monitor mode. Now I can't say I've tried to connect to a wireless AP that had any sort of encryption turned on, maybe I'll try that later. My eth0 still shows up in wireless manager.

Here's a post of ifconfig

rjr162@rjr162-laptop:~$ ifconfig
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:15:c5:cb:46:2e
UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)
Interrupt:17

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:116 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:116 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:7862 (7.8 KB) TX bytes:7862 (7.8 KB)

wlan1 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:18:f3:f7:2b:dd
inet addr:192.168.1.47 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::218:f3ff:fef7:2bdd/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:124049 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:89983 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:141789312 (141.7 MB) TX bytes:13846524 (13.8 MB)

wmaster0 Link encap:UNSPEC HWaddr 00-18-F3-F7-2B-DD-62-64-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)

I don't have an ethernet cable plugged in right now. Haven't used a wired link in a few weeks lol, so I'm not sure how that works with the blacklisting. If I get a chance tonight or tomorrow I'll WEP/WPA the wireless as well as try using eth0 to make sure everything is working.

Like I said I've been on open wireless connections, and that all has been working great for me.

rjr162@rjr162-laptop:~$ sudo airmon-ng start wlan1


Interface Chipset Driver

wlan1 Broadcom 43xx b43 - [phy0]
(monitor mode enabled on mon0)

rjr162@rjr162-laptop:~$ sudo airmon-ng check


Found 3 processes that could cause trouble.
If airodump-ng, aireplay-ng or airtun-ng stops working after
a short period of time, you may want to kill (some of) them!

PID\tName
5652 NetworkManager
5664 wpa_supplicant
18504 dhclient
Process with PID 18504 (dhclient) is running on interface wlan1
rjr162@rjr162-laptop:~$ sudo airmon-ng


Interface Chipset Driver

wlan1 Broadcom 43xx b43 - [phy0]
mon0 Broadcom 43xx b43 - [phy0]

On a side note, kismet is working fine as well, picking up the packets from a WEP'ed AP that's apparently in my range. Will post more later

[shadesofevil]

I've been trying to get monitor mode to work on my card as well. I used ndiswrapper before this and it worked fine, but with the new b43 driver it is being quite stubborn.

I tried with wl driver but it does not appear to support this mode yet, so I'm trying with b43 for now.

my card is a BCM4311 rev 02 on a compaq presario v3000

my card seems to go into promiscuous mode quite happily, but i can only capture my own packets and nobody elses.

here is the output of dmesg after just after I ran dsniff (tcpkill) followed by wireshark afterwards. (and closed it apparently)

I removed the wl module just before doing so



[16331.776675] wlan0: authenticate with AP 00:08:5c:7c:31:77
[16331.778162] wlan0: authenticated
[16331.778172] wlan0: associate with AP 00:08:5c:7c:31:77
[16331.780314] wlan0: RX ReassocResp from 00:08:5c:7c:31:77 (capab=0x451 status=0 aid=1)
[16331.780330] wlan0: associated
[17900.560532] ieee80211_crypt: unregistered algorithm 'NULL'
[17921.252112] device wlan0 entered promiscuous mode
[17943.760105] device wlan0 left promiscuous mode
[18020.041098] device wlan0 entered promiscuous mode
[18128.368092] device wlan0 left promiscuous mode


can somebody tell me the difference between rmmod and modprobe -r?

[rjr162]

an update: I enabled WPA on my router and on the dell, I was still able to connect even with wl blacklisted. I haven't tried a wired connection yet, but I'm figuring that would work fine too.

I did notice a few nights ago with some update, everything was listed twice in my wirelessmanager, including the wired section. Weird. Everything was also listed as "eth0" even though it was a wireless AP, but everything still worked fine. It's fixed now (maybe the laptop just needed rebooted)

I still haven't hit any snags yet...

[Micro_s]

Is there any way how to get b43 working on 8.04?

My card:
0c:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11b/g [14e4:4315] (rev 01)

[Plumtreed]

Is there any way how to get b43 working on 8.04?

My card:
0c:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11b/g [14e4:4315] (rev 01)


I have bcm4312 working in 8.04 but I have the NetworkManager 0.7.1 loaded, which is included with 8.10.

Broadcom provide a linux driver for bcm4312 (&others). See their web page.

[Micro_s]

I have bcm4312 working in 8.04 but I have the NetworkManager 0.7.1 loaded, which is included with 8.10.

Broadcom provide a linux driver for bcm4312 (&others). See their web page.

I can make Broadcom STA driver work too (and with better signal than with ndiswrapper driver), but I can connect only via knetworkmanager. Using Konsole I can't even scan networks. And it does not support Monitor mode. So that's why I'm looking for B43 driver.

[Diabolis]

can somebody tell me the difference between rmmod and modprobe -r?

There is no difference, is just a matter of preference. Some people think that if you have a command that inserts modules, then is more consistent to have another one that removes modules.

I'm trying to get the BCM4312 NIC to work in monitor mode too. I'll post back if I achieve it.

[binwiederweg]

So? Did you find out anything? -- Having the same problem.

[chrisfu]

There is no difference, is just a matter of preference. Some people think that if you have a command that inserts modules, then is more consistent to have another one that removes modules.


That's not entirely accurate. rmmod is much less gracious in it's approach to unloading modules. You should always try modprobe -r before resorting to rmmod, as it works more intelligently and is less likely to cause any problems.

[kevdog]

I thought rmmod was an alias for modprobe -r -- so I thought there was no difference.

As far as monitor mode, wl and ndiswrapper can not be put in monitor mode.

b43 or openfwwf drivers for broadcom (which only support certain chipsets -- not all broadcom cards) can be put into monitor mode.

[opipa]

My solution(although been noticed above, where requires a step-by-step. My NIC is broadcom4312, ubuntu 10.04, current driver: wl):
1. blacklist wl :
add "blacklist wl" to the last line in the file /etc/modprobe.d/broadcom-sta-common.conf
to do so, you may need

sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/broadcom-sta-common.confcomment out the "install wl..." line using "#"(in case it has)
2. remove running module "wl" from kernel:

sudo modprobe -r wl add new module which support monitor mode(b43):

sudo modprobe -a b433. now enjoy, if you cannot change it to monitor mode because it is busy, try the following before:

sudo ifconfig wlan0 downnotice that while you switched your driver, your interface name is being changed from eth-x to wlan-x.
p.s. It is a solved issue. Two ways to tackle with, 1) patch injection when using wl(which I didn't test on mine) or 2) use b43 only.
More info for injection(if you find it works, plz give us the detail):
specific for broadcom NDIS-compliant driver
http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2008/Nov/506
injection as general
http://aircrack-ng.org/doku.php?id=patching

[josephmills]

If you are using a b43 driver please post the following
lspci -vnn | grep 14e4 thanks
@ Micro_s
you need have to make sure you blacklist the “wl” driver before you utilize b43, otherwise they will collide and your card will stop functioning altogether, let alone hope for injection. The “wl” driver does not support aircrack-ng.

source http://www.aircrack-ng.org/doku.php?id=b43&DokuWiki=63084470778633e231f902d1db3c12d8

[BrandonBan6]

Did the .conf file "broadcom-sta-common.conf" get replaced with something else in 11.04?

I don't have that file. (and I am using the STA driver)

lscpi output:

0c:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11b/g LP-PHY [14e4:4315] (rev 01)

[BrandonBan6]

Did the .conf file "broadcom-sta-common.conf" get replaced with something else in 11.04?

I don't have that file. (and I am using the STA driver)

lscpi output:

0c:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11b/g LP-PHY [14e4:4315] (rev 01)


Never mind, I generated the file. I'm working now with B43 (and monitor mode supported) W00T! :guitar: