WIFI6 Testing and Analysis

IEEE 802.11 or also called WFI defines several operation modes: Access Point, and Ad-hoc. The PCI or USB networks cards can also operate in two ways “Managed” or create an ad-hoc network or connect to a base station, (connect to an SSID)  or Monitor Modes to listen to all packets in a particular frequency.

Monitor mode, or RFMON (Radio Frequency MONitor) mode, allows a computer with a wireless network interface controller (WNIC) to monitor all traffic received on a wireless channel. Unlike promiscuous mode, which is also used for packet sniffing, monitor mode allows packets to be captured without having to associate with an access point or ad hoc network first. Monitor mode only applies to wireless networks, while promiscuous mode can be used on both wired and wireless networks. Monitor mode is one of the eight modes that 802.11 wireless adapter can operate in: Master (acting as an access point), Managed (client, also known as station), Ad hoc, Repeater, Mesh, Wi-Fi Direct, TDLS and Monitor mode.  Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monitor_mode 

In Monitor mode, since tye network card “listens” to all packets in the network, for security reasons  is not available in many USB Cards. However, this method is used for penetration testing, analysis, and debugging of WIFI networks. As indicated in my previous post,  this publication shows how to create a “monitor mode” station that will need several components:

• WIFI Antenna (If range is needed)
• AX210 WIFI6E/Bluetooth Name Card with E.Key Port
• PCIe adapter with E.key Port for Raspberry Pi 5
• Power supply (27W for RPI5)
• A monitor that can handle the interference

As shown in this setup, the SD Card I used was a 16GB card, but I had issues with different LG Monitors with HDMI, as well as DELL. However, an ACER Monitor worked ok .

The software should be Ubuntu 24.04 created using the Raspberry Imager, the PCI card will start without any hiccups., and recognized the PCI board with the Intel AX210 chipset without any issues.

Here is our setup:

USB WIFI6 Cards Tested

The USB Cards we tested were: that did not support “Monitor Mode,” specially on Linux as it is best to test on Linux-based platforms.
These cards have many issues with drivers and activating monitor mode.

TX20U-Realtek 8832AU

TX21UH -Realtek RTL8126

AX-55 Nano – Realtek RTL8852BU

Although, a Raspberry PI 5 comes with dual-band 802.11ac with Bluetooth 5.0,  the main idea is to use an AX210 Intel chipset instead with an NVme 2230 format, as shown here instead. The port is a E.key or A.key, adapter.

The Raspberry PI needs an adapter of PCIe interface to NVMe format  to load the card with “:OKN AX210 Brings wifi into 6GHz, Update your wifi to Tri-Band. Max Speed up to 574Mbps @2.4GHz + 2400Mbps @5GHz +2400Mbps @6GHz. 2.4GHz for the long range, 5GHz for the high speed, 6GHz for the higher speed, Interference free and Ultra-low Latency”

The board is a PCIe with M.2Key HAT interface for RPI 5 (Raspberry Pi 5), where the AX210 board will sit in, and a small PCI interface connects the RPI 5 with the “GeekPi” board.

The Software

I suggest you installl the SSU script from INTEL AX210 to get the Monitor Mode ON to work:

wget https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/download/18895/intel-system-support-utility-for-the-linux-operating-system.html#:~:text=ssu_3.0.0.2_tar.-,gz,-Linux*

wget https://download.aircrack-ng.org/aircrack-ng-1.7.tar.gz

~$ sudo lshw -C network,
[sudo] password for …..your_user_:
-network description: Wireless interface product: Wi-Fi 6E(802.11ax) AX210/AX1675 2×2 [Typhoon Peak]
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: 0
bus info: pci@0000:01:00.0
logical name: wlp1s0mon
version: 1a
serial: 38:bd:8b:7d:ef:h1:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm msi pciexpress msix bus_master cap_list logical wireless
configuration: broadcast=yes driver=iwlwifi driverversion=6.11.0-1004-raspi firmware=89.202a2f7b.0 ty-a0-gf-a0-89.uc latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11

Oservet hat the Intel AX210 board is recognized as part of the PCIe devices.

Now, you can proceed to install the essentials, automate and other packages that are needed for Aircrack to work.

sudo apt-get install build-essential autoconf automake libtool pkg-config libnl-3-dev libnl-genl-3-dev libssl-dev ethtool shtool rfkill zlib1g-dev libpcap-dev libsqlite3-dev libpcre3-dev libhwloc-dev libcmocka-dev hostapd wpasupplicant tcpdump screen iw usbutils

cd aircrack-ng-1.7/
autoreconf -i
./configure
make
make install
sudo make install

Also install, shark, wireshark, for additional monitoring tools.  You an start the monitoring tool on your WLAN interface:

$aircrack-ng
$aircrack-ng wlp1s0
$aircrack-ng start wlp1s0

a New Interface will be created called wlp1s0mon, and that’s the one you will use for monitoring.

Simply tune to:

$iw dev wlpsls0mon set channel N  or :
$iw dev wlpsls0mon set channel N  80MHz

for example to tune the radio of your monitor to any of the channels and operate in any of the frequencies.

• 2.4GHz channels – Channels 1, 3, 6… for example
• 5GHz channels  –  Channels 36,149, etc

From another laptop you may want to check that all Access Points and devices around you, specially MAC Addresses.

Another option is to use “tshark” and load:

$tshark -i wlp1s0mon -w Arris_data.pcap

The unit may need an external antenna to increase gain and capture more packets with the Intel AX210 chipset board.