Need sysfs attribute for 'adminstratively created' interfaces

Please do not set a milestone unless you know what you're doing.

That's not related to madwifi at all, that's an aircrack-ng issue (using airodump-ng with ath135 [ath followed by more than 1 figure] or any other interface name not beginning with ath).

As a workaround, you can always create an interface beginning with "ath" and one figure after it.

I have same problem with Kismet(everything looks fine, but no AP shown).

And, I have no way to create an "interface beginning with "ath" and one figure after it." The figure just keep increasing...seems that all the integers between 1-135 have been occupied during my previous tests and kernel doesnt release them.

Just to be sure: you destroyed the interfaces with wlanconfig <iface> destroy? I can not remember that I had similar problems (related to not being able to reuse the name of a previously destroyed VAP) while I was working on some madwifi-related scripts lately.

Please give an exact chain of commands that allows to reproduce the interface naming issues.

Thanks for the reply. I've searched alot before posting here and cant find any similar case. :( So this might be a rare problem and might not reproducible on all systems.

Here is the complete command list/output after a system boot

fancyworld ~ # iwconfig
lo        no wireless extensions.

wifi0     no wireless extensions.

ath0      IEEE 802.11g  ESSID:"NetGear"
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.422 GHz  Access Point: 00:14:6C:90:4B:F8
          Bit Rate:12 Mb/s   Tx-Power:18 dBm   Sensitivity=0/3
          Retry:off   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:FF03-58BF-F871-EC78-9C60-DB84-6F2F-EF6B   Security mode:restricted
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality=27/94  Signal level=-69 dBm  Noise level=-96 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:63  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

fancyworld ~ # lspci | grep Atheros
01:06.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications, Inc. AR5005G 802.11abg NIC (rev 01)
fancyworld ~ # uptime
 20:49:48 up 5 min,  3 users,  load average: 0.73, 0.45, 0.21
fancyworld ~ # wlanconfig ath1 create wlandev wifi0 wlanmode monitor
ath1
fancyworld ~ # iwconfig
lo        no wireless extensions.

wifi0     no wireless extensions.

ath0      IEEE 802.11g  ESSID:"NetGear"
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.422 GHz  Access Point: 00:14:6C:90:4B:F8
          Bit Rate:24 Mb/s   Tx-Power:18 dBm   Sensitivity=0/3
          Retry:off   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:FF03-58BF-F871-EC78-9C60-DB84-6F2F-EF6B   Security mode:restricted
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality=14/94  Signal level=-82 dBm  Noise level=-96 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:67  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

ath138    IEEE 802.11g  ESSID:""
          Mode:Monitor  Channel:0  Access Point: Not-Associated
          Bit Rate:0 kb/s   Tx-Power:18 dBm   Sensitivity=0/3
          Retry:off   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality=14/94  Signal level=-82 dBm  Noise level=-96 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

fancyworld ~ # wlanconfig ath1 destroy
wlanconfig: ioctl: No such device
fancyworld ~ # wlanconfig ath138 destroy
fancyworld ~ # iwconfig
lo        no wireless extensions.

wifi0     no wireless extensions.

ath0      IEEE 802.11g  ESSID:"NetGear"
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.422 GHz  Access Point: 00:14:6C:90:4B:F8
          Bit Rate:24 Mb/s   Tx-Power:18 dBm   Sensitivity=0/3
          Retry:off   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:FF03-58BF-F871-EC78-9C60-DB84-6F2F-EF6B   Security mode:restricted
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality=29/94  Signal level=-67 dBm  Noise level=-96 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:75  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

fancyworld ~ # wlanconfig ath1 create wlandev wifi0 wlanmode monitor
ath1
fancyworld ~ # iwconfig
lo        no wireless extensions.

wifi0     no wireless extensions.

ath0      IEEE 802.11g  ESSID:"NetGear"
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.422 GHz  Access Point: 00:14:6C:90:4B:F8
          Bit Rate:24 Mb/s   Tx-Power:18 dBm   Sensitivity=0/3
          Retry:off   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:FF03-58BF-F871-EC78-9C60-DB84-6F2F-EF6B   Security mode:restricted
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality=14/94  Signal level=-82 dBm  Noise level=-96 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:75  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

ath139    IEEE 802.11g  ESSID:""
          Mode:Monitor  Channel:0  Access Point: Not-Associated
          Bit Rate:0 kb/s   Tx-Power:18 dBm   Sensitivity=0/3
          Retry:off   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality=14/94  Signal level=-82 dBm  Noise level=-96 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

fancyworld ~ # wlanconfig ath139 destroy
fancyworld ~ # iwconfig
lo        no wireless extensions.

wifi0     no wireless extensions.

ath0      IEEE 802.11g  ESSID:"NetGear"
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.422 GHz  Access Point: 00:14:6C:90:4B:F8
          Bit Rate:18 Mb/s   Tx-Power:18 dBm   Sensitivity=0/3
          Retry:off   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:FF03-58BF-F871-EC78-9C60-DB84-6F2F-EF6B   Security mode:restricted
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality=29/94  Signal level=-67 dBm  Noise level=-96 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:78  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

fancyworld ~ # dmesg | grep wifi
wifi0: 11b rates: 1Mbps 2Mbps 5.5Mbps 11Mbps
wifi0: 11g rates: 1Mbps 2Mbps 5.5Mbps 11Mbps 6Mbps 9Mbps 12Mbps 18Mbps 24Mbps 36Mbps 48Mbps 54Mbps
wifi0: H/W encryption support: WEP AES AES_CCM TKIP
wifi0: mac 7.8 phy 4.5 radio 5.6
wifi0: Use hw queue 1 for WME_AC_BE traffic
wifi0: Use hw queue 0 for WME_AC_BK traffic
wifi0: Use hw queue 2 for WME_AC_VI traffic
wifi0: Use hw queue 3 for WME_AC_VO traffic
wifi0: Use hw queue 8 for CAB traffic
wifi0: Use hw queue 9 for beacons
wifi0: Atheros 5212: mem=0xfdfe0000, irq=21

fancyworld ~ # lsmod
Module                  Size  Used by
wlan_tkip              11456  2
fuse                   38868  8
it87                   18468  0
hwmon_vid               2752  1 it87
i2c_isa                 3648  1 it87
wlan_scan_sta          12288  1
joydev                  8128  0
nvidia               4707060  22
ath_pci                89376  0
ath_rate_sample        13440  1 ath_pci
wlan                  191292  5 wlan_tkip,wlan_scan_sta,ath_pci,ath_rate_sample
snd_intel8x0           28508  1
ath_hal               189968  3 ath_pci,ath_rate_sample
snd_ac97_codec         91808  1 snd_intel8x0
i2c_nforce2             6272  0
snd_ac97_bus            2048  1 snd_ac97_codec
i2c_core               17472  4 it87,i2c_isa,nvidia,i2c_nforce2
usb_storage            79488  0

I'm using wpa_supplicant and the conf. file is

fancyworld ~ # cat /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf
ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant
ctrl_interface_group=10
update_config=1

network={
        ssid="NetGear"
        psk="password"
        proto=WPA
        key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
        pairwise=TKIP
}

The kernel is compiled with SMP, big ram and preempt enabled, does this matter? Below is the configuration file for reference.

hxxp://lucida.googlepages.com/2.6.18-r1.config.gz

Thanks!

Hi
The number increasing thing is caused by udev, after hacking gentoo's default udev rule, problem solved.

For the monitor mode, it seems that airodump-ng/kismet are having problem with wpa_supplicant, I still cant capture any packets even after stop wpa_supplicant. But when I use iwconfig, everything just works as expected.

madwifi-ng doesnt support iwconfig+WPA-PSK, so I switch to iwconfig+WEP as a workaround atm. Will this be added in the future release?

Do you have a link regarding "iwconfig+WPA-PSK"? Personally, I didn't know that iwconfig allowed to configure WPA-PSK out of the box in any version.

The only driver supports this is ralink, just search "iwconfig wpa ralink". It use iwpriv to set the WPA things. I tried the lastest wireless-tools(29_pre10) with madwifi-ng, "iwpriv ath0 wpa 1" seems to work and put the card into wpa mode but there is no way to specified key and encryption mode.

And, can I get sta and monitor modes work at the same time, I mean, keep internet connection while sniffing. My sta interface always gets deassociated when I start airodump/kismet and will reconnect automatically after program exits.

Hi The number increasing thing is caused by udev, after hacking gentoo's default udev rule, problem solved.

---

How did you exactly solve the increasing thing???

I have the same problem with the increasing... but on debian... how can i solve this problem?

thx

Got a new ASUS MB w/builtin WiFi(RTL8187), so I might not use madwifi anymore, anyway, let me finish this thread :)

1. number increasing
Caused by udev, goto /etc/udev/rules.d/(gentoo) and find 75-persistent-net-generator.rules
Find line

KERNEL=="eth*|ath*|wlan*|ra*|sta*", IMPORT{program}="write_net_rules $attr{address}"

change to

KERNEL=="eth*|Ath*|wlan*|ra*|sta*", IMPORT{program}="write_net_rules $attr{address}"

and then delete 70-persistent-net.rules in same directory

---

2. Monitor while surfing
This is quite simple but takes me sometime to figure it out. Just disable hop fuction in kismet/airodump-ng and set my own AP to the same channel of the target AP.

I still have the problem with increasing ond debian /etc

How can i solve this problem?

Replying to rantapplan:

I still have the problem with increasing ond debian /etc How can i solve this problem?

Debian:
- Delete ath* related entries in /etc/udev/rules.d/z25_persistent-net.rules
- Edit /etc/udev/persistent-net-generator.rules:

13c13
< KERNEL=="ath*", ATTRS{type}=="802", GOTO="persistent_net_generator_end"
---
> KERNEL=="ath*", GOTO="persistent_net_generator_end"

- Execute # /etc/init.d/udev reload

The problem in default config is that ATTRS{TYPE}=="802" doesn't match every link type of madwifi-ng's VAPs. Link types can be shown with $ ip link show

I still have the problem with increasing on Ubuntu (Feisty 7.04) too. Any ideas how can i solve it?

Please see: UserDocs/Distro/Debian/TroubleshootingInstallation for information about disabling udev persistent naming rules for Madwifi devices. At the moment this is only a workaround; there needs to be some flag somewhere to show administratively created interfaces.

Also, there are restrictions on how and the number of VAPs that one may create. Please see UserDocs/MultipleInterfaces for information on this.

I am going to leave this open as an enhancement, but nothing will change until someone gets around to writing the appropriate code, so please only add relevant information.

r2611