Kismet Compatible USB 802.11g?

[DrDeke]

Greetings,

Are there any USB 802.11g adapters that are compatible with Kismet under Linux? I thought I had found a list that included a couple such adapters some time ago but now I can't find it.

At present, I have been using the built-in Airport Extreme antenna on my mac laptop sitting in the passenger seat, but I am working on setting up a permanent in-car computer (so I can scan more or less everywhere I drive with a minimum of hassle), and I would really like to use USB wifi adapters for this.

I have two reasons for this: I will be starting out with one adapter for cost reasons, but I would like to end up having four adapters all running in Kismet at the same time. My strategy for this would be to have three of the adapters dedicated to channels 1, 6, and 11, since they are the most frequently used channels, and the fourth adapter hopping between 2,3,4,5,7,8,9,10 to pick up those who have strayed from the 1-6-11 bandplan. Since the old (PC/Linux) laptop I will be using for this project only has 2 PCMCIA slots, it seems that USB will be the only way to pull this off.

Also, initially, I am probably just going to place the usb adapter(s) in the rear window area, but eventually, I would like to hook up some external antennas. I am handy with the soldering iron and I have seen that most USB adapters are (relatively) easily modifiable to include an external antenna pigtail. It is my understanding that even good-quality RF cable has significant loss in the 2.4GHz band, so another advantage of using USB adapters will be that I can position the adapters very close to wherever I end up having the antenna cables enter the vehicle, which will allow me to minimize the RF cable length.

So, any ideas?

Thanks,
DrDeke

[themacuser]

Greetings,

Are there any USB 802.11g adapters that are compatible with Kismet under Linux? I thought I had found a list that included a couple such adapters some time ago but now I can't find it.

See point 12 here: http://kismetwireless.net/documentation.shtml.

At present, I have been using the built-in Airport Extreme antenna on my mac laptop sitting in the passenger seat, but I am working on setting up a permanent in-car computer (so I can scan more or less everywhere I drive with a minimum of hassle), and I would really like to use USB wifi adapters for this.

I have two reasons for this: I will be starting out with one adapter for cost reasons, but I would like to end up having four adapters all running in Kismet at the same time. My strategy for this would be to have three of the adapters dedicated to channels 1, 6, and 11, since they are the most frequently used channels, and the fourth adapter hopping between 2,3,4,5,7,8,9,10 to pick up those who have strayed from the 1-6-11 bandplan. Since the old (PC/Linux) laptop I will be using for this project only has 2 PCMCIA slots, it seems that USB will be the only way to pull this off.

You could use PCMCIA cards and USB cards.

Also, initially, I am probably just going to place the usb adapter(s) in the rear window area, but eventually, I would like to hook up some external antennas. I am handy with the soldering iron and I have seen that most USB adapters are (relatively) easily modifiable to include an external antenna pigtail. It is my understanding that even good-quality RF cable has significant loss in the 2.4GHz band, so another advantage of using USB adapters will be that I can position the adapters very close to wherever I end up having the antenna cables enter the vehicle, which will allow me to minimize the RF cable length.

Good idea - but use good coax as well.


There's also kismet drones, and you could buy another old laptop to run more cards

Last time I went, I had two R100s, a WRAP, a USB Prism2 card, and two internal broadcom cards all scanning. If it wasn't for one of the laptop's batteries dying, I would've found a few more.

[AShulman]

I'm going to try a couple. One D-Link Wireless AirExtremeG and Netgear.

[jforster]

I am running the Belkin F5D7050B under BackTrack 2.0 without any issues. (Best Buy Reg. Price: $39.99) It's seen as rausb0. And yep, Kismet, AirCrack-ng, etc.. all work without any issues.
Side note: Stick a pringles can on it (3.5 inches from the bottom of the can) and place the led on the stick about center.. really helps when you need a little boost.

Hope that helps!

[brittman]

Check the MadWifi site. They have a Compatability list with many cards listed. I run a Netgear WG511U on a Thinkpad T40 running Debian. Also look into the linux-wlan-ng drivers (PCMCIA & USB), I have a ZyDas 1211 USB module mounted on a 23dbi Yagi running with the linux-wlan-ng modules. Google is your friend.

brittman