Phoenix Network Forums

Hey guys, I am a debian user, and II got me a nice atheros DLink PCMCIA card that was on the madwifi compatibility list so I know it works, but my question is, what is a good app to use if I want to roam and select wifi networks to connect to the way you do in windows? A command line app would be good since I refuse to install a GUI on my comp for obvious reasons Any help would be appreciated.

I use for list the networks

iwlist eth1 scan

well if it doesn't work is maybe 'cause your network chip don't work's in scan mode, but any way you can use a a scanner like SWscanner I think it will work
well if you have a debian you can get it with

# apt-get install swscanner

or you can get if from

http://www.swscanner.org/

well that it's only for list the networks up, so when you have the name of the network you can set it with

# iwconfig wlan0 (or eth0)(or eth1) essid (and the name of network)

for example I have mine its name is NetBase and my device is a eth1 so I put:

# iwconfig eth1 essid NetBase

well now you set a network the next step you need to do is restart the network in debian it's:

# /etc/init.d/networking restart

then it must be working, but if you need to use a wep key well read the

man iwconfig

'cause I have to go and eat see U.

There are many different wifi apps available for linux, some of which will automate everything, just like the windows one. I'd suggest a google search to start. That should give you some options.

ultramancool wrote:There are many different wifi apps available for linux, some of which will automate everything, just like the windows one. I'd suggest a google search to start. That should give you some options.

I was actually looking that up myself, lately. If you're using KDE, you may have an app called KWifiManager. If not, you can download it. And like ultracoolman said, there's plenty out there. Check SourceForge.

Why do you want to WARdrive? Or perhaps you are just troubleshooting your own wifi connection...

Of course nobody would ask something like that on an open forum if their intentions were nefarious....

Yes, but from what I've been able to find, there aren't many good wifi apps that work on the command line which is what I use for linux as I am blind and what's the point of wasting system resources on a GUI I can hardly use or appreciate? Anyway, I figured out how to use IWList and config, however now my problem is connecting to WPA-PSK protected networks. I found WPA_Supplicant that will do the job for me, trouble is that the latest version under etch doesn't have any howtos explaining it's use. For example, the program doesn't use a /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf file anymore? Now I'm stumped... any help would be appreciated.

i dont have it sory

bat wrote:Yes, but from what I've been able to find, there aren't many good wifi apps that work on the command line which is what I use for linux as I am blind and what's the point of wasting system resources on a GUI I can hardly use or appreciate? Anyway, I figured out how to use IWList and config, however now my problem is connecting to WPA-PSK protected networks. I found WPA_Supplicant that will do the job for me, trouble is that the latest version under etch doesn't have any howtos explaining it's use. For example, the program doesn't use a /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf file anymore? Now I'm stumped... any help would be appreciated.

This command :
wpa_supplicant -i<interface> -c<config_file> -B
doesn't works?

example of config file (may be useless?) :
#ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant
network={
ssid="mySSID"
psk="aaffbbaa1122334455aabbeeaa"
key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
proto=WPA
}

Not in direct relation with the subject :
There is a new exploit derived from aircrack based on the fragmentation packets method & using LLC/SNAP headers. It can in theory crack a WEP key in 2 sec (a MTU turn...). The exploit works on atheros chipset cards (i see you have one).
Exploit source code : http://www.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/a.bittau/frag-0.1.tgz

Another big hole for WEP encryption. WEP encryption is useless, forget it... And don't speak me about MAC address filtering (ifconfig <interface> hw ether <new_mac_address>)...

bugalinux wrote:

bat wrote:Yes, but from what I've been able to find, there aren't many good wifi apps that work on the command line which is what I use for linux as I am blind and what's the point of wasting system resources on a GUI I can hardly use or appreciate? Anyway, I figured out how to use IWList and config, however now my problem is connecting to WPA-PSK protected networks. I found WPA_Supplicant that will do the job for me, trouble is that the latest version under etch doesn't have any howtos explaining it's use. For example, the program doesn't use a /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf file anymore? Now I'm stumped... any help would be appreciated.

This command :
wpa_supplicant -i<interface> -c<config_file> -B
doesn't works?

example of config file (may be useless?) :
#ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant
network={
ssid="mySSID"
psk="aaffbbaa1122334455aabbeeaa"
key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
proto=WPA
}

Not in direct relation with the subject :
There is a new exploit derived from aircrack based on the fragmentation packets method & using LLC/SNAP headers. It can in theory crack a WEP key in 2 sec (a MTU turn...). The exploit works on atheros chipset cards (i see you have one).
Exploit source code : http://www.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/a.bittau/frag-0.1.tgz

Another big hole for WEP encryption. WEP encryption is useless, forget it... And don't speak me about MAC address filtering (ifconfig <interface> hw ether <new_mac_address>)...

OOO, nice exploit... very nifty, thanks for that. As for WPA_supplicant, after spending 20 odd hours on google and irc, I found out that the new version takes it's config info streight from /etc/network/interfaces. Now, this is quite alot more convenient than having everything in a seperate config file, only problem is that it's impossible to select from multiple ssids you have programmed in without either deleting your config and inputing the info for just the network you want to access at any given time, or, using a mapping script that will load up any ssid you choose. In any case, thanks for your help and I hope that some noob in the future will find this thread useful

You can use the command

apt-cache search wireless

to see what packages are available and to see the information for a particular package use

apt-cache show <package-name>

Hope this is helpful.

I can understand why you wouldn't want to use Windows, but why are you against Xwin (ie, GUI) apps?

bbadwolf wrote:I can understand why you wouldn't want to use Windows, but why are you against Xwin (ie, GUI) apps?

How's a blind guy supposed to use those? Gnopernicus isn't that good yet so I am left with no good usable GUI under linux.

bugalinux wrote:Not in direct relation with the subject :
There is a new exploit derived from aircrack based on the fragmentation packets method & using LLC/SNAP headers. It can in theory crack a WEP key in 2 sec (a MTU turn...). The exploit works on atheros chipset cards (i see you have one).
Exploit source code : http://www.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/a.bittau/frag-0.1.tgz

Another big hole for WEP encryption. WEP encryption is useless, forget it... And don't speak me about MAC address filtering (ifconfig <interface> hw ether <new_mac_address>)...

I <3 U

iv never understood people that dont like GUI's, the dumbie windows point-n-click method has always been my preference.

bat wrote:Hey guys, I am a debian user, and II got me a nice atheros DLink PCMCIA card that was on the madwifi compatibility list so I know it works, but my question is, what is a good app to use if I want to roam and select wifi networks to connect to the way you do in windows? A command line app would be good since I refuse to install a GUI on my comp for obvious reasons :) Any help would be appreciated.

Google for Kismet and look it up. You are sure to like it.