Setting the wifi interface in monitor mode

[Luca Bianchi]

Hi guys,
I am trying to set the embedded wifi interface of the Onion Omega 2+ in monitor mode.
The only reference I found is https://community.onion.io/topic/248/iwconfig-and-tcpdump-for-omega but it's quite old and does not apply to the latest firmware version (b186).
In detail iw phy phy0 interface add mon0 type monitor does not work because the embedded wifi interface is not recognized by iw (e.g. when running iw list).
Does anybody have a suggestion?
Thanks for helping
Luca

[Loïc Cotonéa]

Hi,

Sorry for this necro post, but since 3 days I tried to specialized my Omega2+ for wifi scanning/attack (research).

As you can see in this post (https://community.onion.io/topic/2247/demo-wifi-ap-sniffer/6?_=1589203829729) , @tommaso-tani has tried unsuccessfully to enabled the monitor mode.
Furthermore, as you can see on mediatek (https://docs.labs.mediatek.com/resource/linkit-smart-7688/en/limitations-and-known-issues), the official driver does not support monitor mode.
I'm afraid to have to say that Omega2+ is not a good candidate device for wifi security research

Loïc

[bill]

@Loïc-Cotonéa

I've seen this before, MediaTek chips not supported monitor mode. You will have better luck with an Atheros chip. If you have an Onion v1 you might want to give it a try, it ought to work, although I've not tried it. Alternatively there are other products with Atheros chips that that either run OpenWRT out of the box or which can be flashed with OpenWRT.

[luz]

@Loïc-Cotonéa AFAIK monitor mode works fine with the open source mt76 driver, which also fully supports the iw command. This is the driver you get when building stock OpenWrt for Omega2. I've done a WiFi probe request sniffer this way (just using tcpdump on /moni0 interface).

As I use Omega2 hardware only with self-built OpenWrt images, I can't tell how feasible installing mt76 on top of the Onion FW image is.

[crispyoz]

It's become a necro thread.

[bill]

@luz

Last time I checked the MT open source drivers were not stable. But a very quick google suggests from OpenWRT 18 to 19 there has been significant improvement.

Thanks for correcting me, so the thread can close with accurate info for future readers.

[luz]

mt76 has taken huge steps in reliability and stability since the early Omega2 days. I‘d say for at least 2 years now it is as good as any of the proprietary drivers and it fully supports the official Linux wifi architecture (mac80211/cfg80211)

So, by 2018 and onwards, „unstable mt76“ is an outdated story.