Setting monitor mode on Orinoco 0.15 drivers
 

Hi all,

I'm using an Orinoco Gold card with the 0.15 drivers. My box is a Slackware 10.2 with 2.6.18.5 kernel.

I downloaded the 0.15 driver as I couldn't get the 0.13e driver to compile (it came up with errors about integer casts).

However, I cannot seem to get the driver into monitor mode. Kismet and Airocrack-ng both report this, and iwpriv says the same.

Can the 0.15 driver go into monitor mode? Like I said, the 0.13 driver wouldn't compile so I'm stuck otherwise..

Any ideas,


Mark.

Hi,

I think I've found the problem. When the card is detected, I think it is using the drivers (lord knows which version) from the pcmcia-cs package.

I think I need to uninstall pcmcia-cs, and find a way to use the 0.15 drivers I've installed.

Can anyone share any light on how to do this.

Many thanks,


M.

I've uninstalled pcmcia-cs and now the card isn't found (which means it was the drivers in pcmcia-cs, not the 0.15 ones that were being used).

I can:

whch loads the modules correctly (as shown by lsmod and dmesg), but doesn't add another network interface.

I have yenta support enabled in my kernel, but still cannot see the card.

Any ideas on what I'm doing wrong?



M.

I haven't tried to run a machine without card services, so can't speak to that part. I'd reinstall under the assumption that you're missing a critical component like pcmcia_core.

The orinoco_cs driver used should be in /lib/modules/kernel_version/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/

Move or remove any other instances of that module to verify your suspicion about the wrong one loading.

Hi 2Gnu,

I have reinstalled card services and can now see the card. I can't use it until I re-install my 0.15 drivers, which then appear in /lib/modules/2.6.18.5/kernel/drivers/net/wireless.

Okay, so despite my original thoughts - the card is using the 0.15 drivers and nothing else.

This now takes me back to my original problem... which is why can't I make the 0.13 drivers, or get the 0.15 drivers into monitor mode... :-(

Does anyone have an idea what I might be missing?



M.

I think I know the answer, after doing some reading and playing with several cards this morning. It's the card firmware. Read the notes from the orinoco_cs driver page:

http://www.nongnu.org/orinoco/news/

Orinoco 0.15 final released
Changes compared with the latest release candidate (rc4):

* Update for the new PCMCIA API in the kernel.
* Add support for dBm quality on Intersil firmware 1.3.1 and newer.
* Use a better formula for signal/noise for other firmwares.
* Disallow compilation for kernels with Orinoco driver already enabled.

Changes compared with the latest stable release (0.13e):

* Scanning support.
* Monitor mode support (except Agere firmware 7.xx and 8.xx).
* Support for Symbol Spectrum Trilogy V3 cards.
* Support for Nortel emobility, Symbol LA-4113 and Symbol LA-4123.
* Countless updates for the kernel API.
* Countless bug fixes.
* Many minor improvements.

And this from the Seattle Wireless page:

http://www.seattlewireless.net/index.cgi/OrinocoDriver

Firmware

To update firmware under XP go to propeties on the exe file and select "Run as Win2000". [WWW] 6.06
* 6.16 (Winter 2001) Under Windows XP you cannot upgrade to this version
* 7.28 (Spring 2001) Under Windows XP you cannot upgrade to this version
* 7.52 (Summer 2001) Under Windows XP you cannot upgrade to this version
* 8.10 (Winter 2002) Added WEP Weak Key Avoidance, Monitor mode disabled on Agere 8.xx firmware in orinoco driver
* 8.10 OutdoorRouter This firmware is flashable under Windows XP (see also this page)
* 8.42 Monitor mode disabled on Agere 8.xx firmware in orinoco driver
* 8.72 (November 2002) Monitor mode disabled on Agere 8.xx firmware in orinoco driver

Using a 2.6.18 kernel with the released 0.15 drivers, I tried a RangeLAN-DS (Prism2), ZyXEL B-101 & SMC 2532B-W (Prism 2.5), a ZyXEL B-100 (Prism 3) and an ORiNOCO Gold Card. The iwpriv command shows no monitor mode for any of the cards. Only the Prism2.5 cards work with Kismet.

Using the firmware descriptions from Seattle Wireless, I dug up some old ORiNOCO firmware, drivers and utilities and booted into Win2K. I can't get the client or flash utility to work properly. They don't see the card. I'll have to tinker more with that later. So, I can't prove that flashing the Gold card to 8.10 firmware fixes anything ... for all I know, that's what's on the card, although I recall it being more current than that.

I went back to the patched 0.13e driver and got compile errors. Same with 0.15rc1 & rc2. Don't know what that's all about. It all worked under 2.4.33.

Hi 2Gnu,

Thanks for your quick reply.

I pretty much came to that conclusion myself, and have spent the last hour or so trying to download some old (v6.06+) firmware. I can't seem to find any though.

Do you have a link to some older firmware?

Many thanks,


M.

Duh!

Scratch that... I've just found it on Seattle Wireless.

Thanks again, I'll give that a try.


M.

Double-duh! The links are dead :-(


M.

I don't have links, just stuff I saved over the years. Proxim hid all of the downloads. If you google hard enough, you'll find some. If I get time to test specific versions, I'll post results.

edit: Try this - http://www.seattlewireless.net/piper...e/WSU10810.exe

Thanks 2Gnu, much appreciated.


M.

Got it! (This has been driving me nuts all day. Good thing I'm not in medicine or air traffic control.) Here's the deal:

Patched 0.13e drivers with a 2.6-friendly Makefile as explained and hosted here. http://www.kismetwireless.net/download.shtml

These drivers compiled fine and Kismet is now working with the ORiNOCO Gold, f/w 8.72. iwpriv lists monitor mode and Airsnort runs without errors.

The only trouble I had was the make install step. The Makefile couldn't parse the hermes.conf file, so I copied all of the .ko files (2.6 modules) manually to /lib/modules/2.6.18/kernel/drivers/net/wireless, removed the card/driver, reinserted and it works.

So, for those of you following along at home,

1. Patched 0.13e or 0.15 final with 2.4 kernels = working
2. Dragorn-patched source code as linked above, compiled against 2.6 = working
3. I tested Prism 2.5, 3 and ORiNOCO Gold and all work equally well.
4. If you upgrade your kernel after doing this, you'll need to repeat the installation of the modules.
5. There are many copies of the ORiNOCO card firmware/flash utility out there if you search for it, although you need an XP or W2K machine to flash the card firmware.
6. Persistence is a virtue.

Hiya,

I found the same problem - but I was trying to compile the orinoco-0.13-dragorn-2.6.17.tar.gz drivers.

I unpacked the hermes.conf file from the 0.13 drivers and copied this into the directory I was trying to make my drivers - that solved the problem!

I've had to downgrade my kernel to 2.6.17 though which is a bit of a pain.

I now have Orinoco 0.13 drivers installed and working with monitor mode... wahoo!


M.