Hi everyone,

Hope I could find my answer in here.
I'm using Kali linux distribution on a regular PC with wired interface (eth0) and USB ports.

Lately, I tried to use my alfa card (awus036nh), using eth0 as my internet access and USB to my ALFA card as my AP. I used airbase-ng and airmon-n in gbridge mode, but it failed. I read about this and found out some problems with the ALFA cards and handling layer two Control frames.

Anyway, I'm looking for your advice in buying an appropriate new card with the following features:

1. supported by Kali linux

2. works with airbase-ng, airmon-ng, aircrack-ng (soft AP).

3. can be used as fake AP (enables configuration of SSID and BSSID)

4. handling Control Frame (in layer 2) -> Very important since its not being cared by software (airbase-ng).

5. enables simultaneously AP and monitoring mode - scanning for wireless networks/devices during functioning as AP.

6. preference for USB adapter (not critic)

Best regards,
Arik

Hi!

I'm not sure about point 4 and 5, but generally I found that realtek usb chipsets do not support master modes. Sure they can be used with airbase, but if you're going to create a fake access point, why not use a card that supports master mode directly instead of airbase? I'd recomment you get a TP-Link TL-WN722N. It's a USB dongle with an Atheros chipset (ath9k) that supports master mode, and it has a RP-SMA connector for external antennas. Not to mention they're cheap.

~dis

Hi displace,

Thanks alot for your reply.

I'll do check your suggestion using TP-Link TL-WN722N, but I guess all USB dongles, supporting "master mode", can use as fake AP (correct me if I'm wrong).
If so, for my needs, there is no advantage for using TP-Link TL-WN722N instead of any other card.

About the airbase-ng package,
I've decided to use it because of its proposed abilities:
--> enables to run softAP on dummy wireless card which allows me to monitor all the traffic.
--> enables scanning for wireless networks using airmon-ng (simultaneously).
--> enables to inject transmissions initiated by me (such as de-authentication transmissions), using airplay-ng.
I might be wrong when assuming airplay-ng and airmon-ng can be operated only when airbase-ng is running as the softAP.


I can focus my question by dividing it into two options:
1. Is there any other softAP package (beside aircrack-ng), supporting my features list?
2. Is there any wireless card, which handling Control frames and can work with airbase-ng?

Anyway, I'll let you know if your suggestion solved my problem.

Thanks again

Any card with injection support can be used to run SoftAP (via airbase-ng), but only cards that support 'master mode' can be used as a real AP (via hostap). Now you have a choice of either using airbase to run a software-based access point which is slower and doesn't always work well or you can use a piece of hardware that natively supports running an access point in master mode, and have that act as a rogue access point.

Personally I would go for the latter because it gives you the option to use both setups. Please be aware that by using airbase and some other program simultaneously on a wireless network card will cause it to not work so well. Airbase will continuously emit beacon frames on a specified channel, and if a client is connected to it, he expects the access point to appear on a certain frequency that is advertised by the AP. Now if you run a scan in the background or fire up aireplay-ng injection on another channel, that will in turn change the frequency that the AP is running on and cause the clients to lose connection.

You can always use two or more network cards simultaneously. Use one to run a rogue access point and another to do scanning + injection/deauth.

~dis