Skip to content

INTERFACE.md

Latest commit

 

History

History
81 lines (57 loc) · 2.79 KB

INTERFACE.md

File metadata and controls

81 lines (57 loc) · 2.79 KB

Interface

Wireless network interface controller (or just interface) is, simply put, a tool that allows wireless communication with other devices (wiki). Since the main theme of AB is gathering wireless traffic and sending out custom wireless requests, it should be of no surprise that interface is required in almost every part of this application. Therefore, knowing how to manipulate it manually might become vital during development.

Heads up

AB is not the only software that will try to take control of an interface. Usually, interfaces are used by different kinds of programs (such as network managers, to connect to a wi-fi). This means that AB can not have full control of interface while these programs are running, and this may lead to several issues during runtime.

As a work-around, while testing, it is advised to kill all the processes that might be using interface. This can be done using airmon-ng.

sudo airmon-ng check # Lists processes that use interface
sudo airmon-ng check kill # Automatically kills above processes

This command will also turn off NetworkManager service (responsible for connecting to wi-fi). So, to be able to connect to wi-fi again, run the following command.

sudo service NetworkManager start

Interface Management

Most of the interface management can be done using iw and ip commands (same commands that are used by AB).

List Interfaces

sudo iw dev

Display Interface Info

sudo iw dev <iface> info
sudo ip link show <iface>

State

Interface can be in up or down state. Can be thought of as an on/off state for interface.

sudo iw dev set <iface> up
sudo iw dev set <iface> down

Mode

There are eight modes available for interfaces, however we are currently interested in two:

  • Managed (aka client, or station) - The default state of interface. Allows scanning and connecting to APs.
  • Monitor - State that allows interface to monitor all traffic received on a wireless channel. (wiki)
sudo ip link set <iface> down # Need to turn off interface before changing mode
sudo iw dev <iface> set type monitor # Or "managed"
sudo ip link set <iface> up # Turn interface back on

Mac

MAC address is a unique identifier assigned to interface (wiki). It is used as a network address, a way to tell the source and destination of a packet when communicating in local network. MAC address can be changed (called MAC Spoofing) using following commands.

Warning: Make sure to write down original MAC address before spoofing it.



Name(?)