Testing Compatibility of Wireless Network Adapter

Testing Compatibility of Wireless Network Adapter

      If you already own a USB wireless network adapter, its wise to just give it a little test for its compatibility. It may save some of your money.

       For this, connect your USB adapter to your PC (don't need to do anything for testing the in-built adapters). Then, boot Backtrack 5. After you've booted up Backtrack 5, open a Terminal and type:                                                       
                                                                         iwconfig

      This command lets you see all the interfaces available in your PC, including your wireless network interface. As in the snapshot, the wireless network interface name is wlan0 (Mostly it is wlan0, but it is dependent of network adapter.If a different name appears for your adapter, use that name). Interface name is wlan0 and its currently working in Normal Mode. Inorder to test its capability of packet injection, we need to operate it in Monitor mode.

Type:

airmon-ng

        This command will show all of your wireless network interfaces. As in snapshot above its showing wlan0.

Type:

airmon-ng start wlan0

       This command will put your adapter in Monitor mode.(If your interface name is other than wlan0, type that name instead of wlan0 in above command) Now that your adapter is in Monitor mode, your interface name will now be changed to mon0. From here onwards, you will now use mon0 wherever you will have to put your interface name.

           Now that you have put you adapter in Monitor mode, the final command lets you see the injection capability.

Type:

aireplay-ng -9 mon0

         In the snapshot, it is clearly showing that "Injection is Working". If your adapter does not support injection, it will show some other messages saying "ARP injection not supported" or something like that.

So this is how you test the compatibility of your wireless network adapter. If you have problems regarding anything, feel free to ask in the comment section below. Thanks!