Hi,
I'm trying, and failing to get any WEP cracking software working on Ubuntu.

I've downloaded pretty much every kind of software there is, but not one of them is working.

I'm a newbie to Linux, and as such, I'm having trouble with the whole 'run a c compiler to generate your install gizmo' thing. I'll learn how to program in C if it comes to it, but I don't want to go to the trouble if I can avoid it.

All I really want is any WEP cracking software to run on my machine running Ubuntu, with my Wireless NIC (Netcomm NP5420). Preferably a GUI based one, but I'm happy to use the command line, if the instructions don't assume you're a programmer.

Any help would be gratefully received.

It's probably bad form to reply to your own posts, but I wanted to add that Kismet was one of the applications I downloaded, by searching the download library.

After installing it (and failing to find an icon anywhere) I opened a terminal and typed Kismet, which returned the following:

steve@ubuntu:~$ kismet
Server options: none
Client options: none
Starting server...
Waiting for server to start before starting UI...
Suid priv-dropping disabled. This may not be secure.
FATAL: Unable to set up pidfile /var/run//kismet_server.pid, couldn't open for steve@ubuntu:~$

Am I missing something here?

Even more info...

Ok, me again, trying Airsnort, this program gives me:

steve@ubuntu:~$ aircrack -d
aircrack: option requires an argument -- d

aircrack 2.1 - (C) 2004 Christophe Devine

usage: aircrack [options] <pcap file> <pcap file> ...

-d <start> : debug - specify beginning of the key
-f <fudge> : bruteforce fudge factor (default: 2)
-m <maddr> : MAC address to filter usable packets
-n <nbits> : WEP key length: 64 / 128 / 256 / 512
-p <nfork> : SMP support: # of processes to start

steve@ubuntu:~$ aircrack -d start

aircrack 2.1 - (C) 2004 Christophe Devine

usage: aircrack [options] <pcap file> <pcap file> ...

-d <start> : debug - specify beginning of the key
-f <fudge> : bruteforce fudge factor (default: 2)
-m <maddr> : MAC address to filter usable packets
-n <nbits> : WEP key length: 64 / 128 / 256 / 512
-p <nfork> : SMP support: # of processes to start

steve@ubuntu:~$ aircrack -d <start>
bash: syntax error near unexpected token `newline'
steve@ubuntu:~$ aircrack -d <fudge>
bash: syntax error near unexpected token `newline'
steve@ubuntu:~$ aircrack -d fudge

aircrack 2.1 - (C) 2004 Christophe Devine

usage: aircrack [options] <pcap file> <pcap file> ...

-d <start> : debug - specify beginning of the key
-f <fudge> : bruteforce fudge factor (default: 2)
-m <maddr> : MAC address to filter usable packets
-n <nbits> : WEP key length: 64 / 128 / 256 / 512
-p <nfork> : SMP support: # of processes to start

steve@ubuntu:~$ aircrack -f fudge

aircrack 2.1 - (C) 2004 Christophe Devine

usage: aircrack [options] <pcap file> <pcap file> ...

-d <start> : debug - specify beginning of the key
-f <fudge> : bruteforce fudge factor (default: 2)
-m <maddr> : MAC address to filter usable packets
-n <nbits> : WEP key length: 64 / 128 / 256 / 512
-p <nfork> : SMP support: # of processes to start

steve@ubuntu:~$ aircrack -f 2

aircrack 2.1 - (C) 2004 Christophe Devine

usage: aircrack [options] <pcap file> <pcap file> ...

-d <start> : debug - specify beginning of the key
-f <fudge> : bruteforce fudge factor (default: 2)
-m <maddr> : MAC address to filter usable packets
-n <nbits> : WEP key length: 64 / 128 / 256 / 512
-p <nfork> : SMP support: # of processes to start

steve@ubuntu:~$ aircrack -f <2>
bash: syntax error near unexpected token `2'

I must be missing something, usually the word in the < > is individual, and the actual pointy brackets are left off. Doesn't seem to be the case here though... any pointers..

last post .. promise!