RE: Data-Packets in monitor-mode

Dear Jannis,

I'm sorry to disappoint you but what you're attempting to do with the
adapter is actually not possible with the current driver & firmware.

I actually wanted the adapter to work with such applications as Kismet and
Ethereal, hence the 'monitor-mode' patch. In a way this is a misnomer, which
is why I refer to it as 'quasi-monitor-mode' instead.

The closed-source firmware that ATMEL released does not support the real
monitor-mode that other cards (like most decent PCMCIA ones) do. So I
thought I'd try to get it half-way there by having the driver emulate one
that does (my other being a Avaya-rebadged-Orinoco) and sending through the
management frames (beacon packets, etc) to the user-mode application. These
management frames are all you can see of the outside world (apart from the
data when you're connected to a network) using this adapter.

In the end (for my purposes) it works nicely in that Kismet still lists the
APs the adapter can see (as you have discovered), where in fact the adapter
is just performing its normal AP scan routine - nothing special.

So if you want the other (data) packets you'll have to acquire a 'real' WiFi
card (my Avaya PCMCIA card works like magic for me). Or if you're really
keen, you could reverse engineer the firmware for the USB adapter and see if
real monitor-mode could be supported ;)

Good luck,
Balint

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email protected] [mailto:at76c503a-user-
> [email protected]] On Behalf Of Jannis Achstetter
> Sent: Friday, 16 September 2005 9:06 PM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: [at76c503a-user] Data-Packets in monitor-mode
> 
> Hello list,
> can someone please tell me, why I can't recieve any data-packets when
> I'm in monitor-mode (for example with kismet)?
> I have a Belkin FD6050 and the driver works perfect but when I use
> kismet, I only get the BEACON-Packets but I don't get any data-packets
> (as mentioned in the Kismet-Readme).
> Does anyone why or how I can change it?
> 
> Jannis Achstetter
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