Kali Linux Wifi - Aircrack

I have jumped through the hoops to get WIFI enabled in Kali Linux, but for some reason, it keeps dropping my wireless connection. It will stay connected for about a minute or two, then it keeps asking for my WIFI password again.

I am connecting to the interwebs from a WIFI USB Adapter as required by Kali Linux. I am running Kali in VirtualBox. I wonder if it is simply that my USB Adapter is just getting too hot? It does feel very hot to the touch. I am trying to learn how to use Aircrack.

Would it just be easier to burn Kali to a DVD and boot into it that way? It seems like if I did that, I wouldn't need this USB Adapter; I could just use my laptop's wireless card.

Thanks!

why cant kali linux us the onboard wifi?

First of all, I assume you're referring to the aircrack suite of tools, not just the aircrack-ng handshake cracking tool, correct?

You can't use the laptop's card because it almost certainly doesn't support packet injection. What USB wifi adapter are you using? You'll have zero luck if it's also one that doesn't support packet injection. A popular choice for WLAN hacking is the Alpha AWUS036NH.

You may also run into issues with the Kali VM recognizing your USB wifi adapter, like I have, so you may be better off burning to a DVD and live booting, or even installing Kali in a dual boot configuration. Here's a video I came across after a quick search though which may provide a solution to the USB interface problem within the VM, but I haven't gone through it yet to see if it solved my problem.

http://www.diy-review.com/4sBQRHowToeBTE1K/Connect-USB-Wireless-Adapter-to-Kali-Linux-in-Virtualbox.html

 

My preferred setup is installing Kali to the hard drive. I'd like to dual boot it on my laptop, but my problem with that is I use Linux Mint as my main OS and use my laptop for school, and I do full disk encryption. I haven't figured out away to fully encrypt the disk with a dual booting configuration, so for the time being I'm not dual booting. It's not a big deal to me though because I'm currently not working on WLAN hacking, and I do all my hacking in VMs on my desktop.

Finally, here is a very good video series on WLAN hacking.

http://www.securitytube.net/groups?operation=view&groupId=9

I'm running Kali through VirtualBox. It sounds like the onboard wireless isn't recognized through the VB, so I have to use a USB adapter. I'm not sure what the technical reasoning is behind why VB can't recognize the onboard WIFI.

I am using just Aircrack suite of tools through the terminal.

The strange thing is that the adapter connects to the internet just fine for a little while, maybe about two or three minutes. Then, everything seems to crash as it keeps asking for the password for the SSID that I am currently connected to.

This crash happens in the middle of the command: airodump-ng rausb0. It will find clients and everything, but the adapter just seems to crash for no reason.

I think I will do what you suggested, and just burn Kali to a DVD and boot off of that.

Thanks for your very thorough reply!

 

Well it might be coming down to what adapter you're using. It may have inadequate driver support, but it may also be that you're too far away from the access point (AP), and the broadcast power (PWR) isn't strong enough (higher numbe is better, lower is worse [numbers are negative numbers]), or you have poor receive quality (RXQ - higher number is better, lower is worse), meaning there is interference.

The Alpha cards have built in driver support in Kali, and they're very reliable, so I'd recommend one of them.

Regarding the rausb0 command, I'm not familiar with it. After looking at this

http://www.aircrack-ng.org/doku.php?id=newbie_guide

 

Does it just display your interface as rausb0 rather than wlan0? As far as finding access points and connected clients, I use and recommend these standard commands.

These will put your wireless interface into monitor mode, and then start monitoring the "air" for traffic from any and all near access points and clients.

aircrack-ng start wlan0

airodump-ng mon0

 

After you zero in on an AP you wish to monitor, (CTRL+C to stop monitor) you should focus on its channel and BSSID so you can see the RXQ (receive quality) so you can see if there is a lot of interference in the signal. X = variable obviously

airodump-ng -c X --bssid XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX mon0

 

This will show you both the broadcast strength of the XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX access point, as well as the RXQ, and it will show any clients (STATION) on that WLAN, and their status, whether associated, or not associated and probing for the AP. 

So I'm not entirely sure what your issue is and the purpose of the rausbX command or display you mentioned, but I would suggest picking up an Alpha card if you don't have one, and using these commands to find APs and clients. Let me know if that helps, or if you need further assistance once you've gotten to the point of finding APs and clients and want to continue on towards hacking WEP or WPA2 or WPS.

Yeah, I meant to say that I was using the airodump-ng mon0 command. That link that you posted is the exact guide that I was working off of.

If I burn Kali to a DVD, I can just use the built-in WIFI card in my laptop, correct? If not, I will look into that Alpha card as you had suggested.

Thanks!

The short answer is no, you really can't use just your built in adapter. You can try, but you probably won't be able to do much with it because it almost certainly doesn't support packet injection. You'll need to do packet injection for things like DOSing WLAN clients to force WPA2 handshakes, or injecting ARP packets to speed up collecting WEP data packets to crack WEP. You might not even be able to put it in monitor mode, which is necessary for capturing packets from APs you're not associated to. Furthermore, you'll need two adapters for a wireless man in the middle attack, using your built in via ethernet for an internet connection, and bridging a USB adapter to create a fake AP with. Here's a couple things worth reading.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monitor_mode

http://null-byte.wonderhowto.com/how-to/hack-wi-fi-choosing-wireless-adapter-for-hacking-0157057/