Kismet - How to Install and configure

From SecurityForest

Table of contents

1 What is Kismet? 2 Add support for the PCMCIA wireless card in the kernel 3 Download the patch 4 Compile the kernel 5 Add wiretap support to the system 6 Installing and configuring Kismet 7 Configuring kismet.conf 8 Kismet should be installed – just fire it up ! 9 BONUS – Configuring sound and speech support 9.1 Install speech support (festival and all its dependencies) 9.2 Configuring sound and speech in kismet_ui.conf

What is Kismet?

Kismet is an 802.11 layer2 wireless network detector, sniffer, and intrusion detection 
system. Kismet will work with any wireless card which supports raw monitoring (rfmon) mode, 
and can sniff 802.11b, 802.11a, and 802.11g traffic. 
Kismet identifies networks by passively collecting packets and detecting standard named 
networks, detecting (and given time, decloaking) hidden networks, and infering the presence
of nonbeaconing networks via data traffic.

General Note: I may have ripped some of this information from other sources written on the subject. One of the main reasons for writing this is so I have documentation of how I managed to get it to work on my system.

Usual security/hacking disclaimer applies.

Some sections of this tutorial are Gentoo Linux (http://www.gentoo.org) specific as it is the distribution of choice in my eyes.

Add support for the PCMCIA wireless card in the kernel

Device Drivers --> Networking Support --> Wireless LAN (non ham radio)-->
[*] wireless LAN drivers (non-hamradios) & wireless extensions
<M> Hermes chipset
<M> Prism 2.5 PCI
<M> Hermes PCMCIA
<M> Intersil Prism

I have a few different cards so I added support for multiple cards.

Download the patch

I found a lot of links on the net that recommends using the Orinoco / pcmcia-cs patch found at http://airsnort.shmoo.com/orinocoinfo.html .

I personally used the patch found at http://www.kismetwireless.net/code/orinoco-0.13e-rfmon-dragorn3.diff .

# cd /usr/src/<kernel>/drivers/net/wireless

# wget http://www.kismetwireless.net/code/orinoco-0.13e-rfmon-dragorn3.diff

# patch –p1 < orinoco-0.13e-rfmon-dragorn3.diff

Compile the kernel

I recommend following the instructions in the Gentoo_Installation_Handbook if you are not 100% sure.

Add wiretap support to the system

Download ethereal 0.9.12 and compile wiretap support.

# wget http://www.ethereal.com/distribution/all-versions/ethereal-0.9.12.tar.gz

untar ethereal in /usr/src

# cd /usr/src/ethereal-0.9.12/wiretap

# ./configure && make (DO NOT RUN make install)

Installing and configuring Kismet

Download latest kismet sources, compile and install.

# wget http://www.kismetwireless.net/code/kismet-2004-04-R1.tar.gz

# ./configure && make && make install

Configuring kismet.conf

/usr/local/etc/kismet.conf

suiduser=loni
source=orinoco,eth1,kismet
gps=false - I dont have a GPS :(

Kismet should be installed – just fire it up !

# /etc/init.d/pcmcia start
# cd /home/loni
# kismet

BONUS – Configuring sound and speech support

Install speech support (festival and all its dependencies)

In Gentoo just type the following and go have a cup of coffee

# emerge festival

Configuring sound and speech in kismet_ui.conf

/usr/local/etc/kismet_ui.conf

soundplay=/usr/bin/aplay
apm=false
speech=true
speech_type=speech

uncomment:
sound_junktraffic=...
sound_traffic=...

Thats it! Enjoy
Loni - Just Loni