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hostapd in a VM for device testing

Posted November 27, 2016 By Landis V

While working with my Chamberlain MyQ Garage Door Opener the other day, I ran into issues getting hostapd to work on Kali with the chap ass Netis WP2120 nano USB adapter I had (based on the RTL8192cu chipset/driver).  I need to clear off a few browser tabs and eventually see if I can get hostapd working with this adapter on a different box (VM) for testing.  A few of the links I worked with unsuccessfully, but provide some useful information.

 

More notes

Installed usbutils for lsusb
Installed hostapd
Installed iw
Installed lshw
Ran through steps at https://adamscheller.com/systems-administration/rtl8192cu-fix-wifi/, minor issue with “linux-headers-generic”, skipped it for now.

Did receive a modprobe error, “could not insert ‘8192cu’: Device or resource busy”. lsmod shows the old rtl8192cu drivers active. Did a reboot. Correct driver modules now listed, though no device listing in ‘iw list’. Does appear in ‘lshw -c network’, and appears as wlan0 in ‘ip link list’.

Started in with hostapd steps from http://sarumait.blogspot.com/2013/11/ubuntu-wireless-hotspot-using-edimax-ew.html and from my previous testing on the Chamberlain page.

Attempted to start hostapd service which seemed to work, but didn’t see my SSID. Ran it interactive debug and got an “invalid/unknown driver ‘8192cu'”.

Instructions at https://github.com/pritambaral/hostapd-rtl871xdrv
Git cloned the above repository and the w1.fi repository listed. Got hostapd to build after installing dependencies (below).

apt-get install apt-file libnl-3-dev libnl-genl-3-dev pkg-config libssl-dev
apt-file not needed, but handy for looking up files that resulted in failures during make.

Ran the patch process noted at https://github.com/pritambaral/hostapd-rtl871xdrv

Ended up having some success after doing a ‘make dkms’ in the rt8192cu directory cloned from https://github.com/dz0ny/rt8192cu and setting the driver in my hostapd.conf to the rtl871xdrv

Pages helpful in getting it to work

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Chamberlain MyQ Garage Door Opener Testing

Posted November 27, 2016 By Landis V

Got a great deal on some Chamberlain MyQ wifi garage door openers recently.  As I’m setting them up, I really want to see what kind of conversations they have, so I’ll be making a few notes.  As usual, I’ll be working with my VM setup, using Kali in this case.

I have a Netis WF2120 USB wireless adapter that I’ll be using under Kali.  The vendor/product code is 0bda:8176.  Planning to use Kali as an AP.  I installed hostapd on Kali with ‘apt-get install hostapd’.  Added a USB filter to pass the Netis through to the guest with ‘vboxmanage usbfilter add 2 –target kali –name NetisWIFI –vendorid 0x0bda –productid 0x8176’.  After shutting down and restarting the VM, my wireless adapter was available as wlan0.

Enabled root login for SSH on my Kali box as VRDE… sucked.  Slow and very unresponsive.

Created /etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf with approximately the following contents:
ssid=TheSSIDOfYourChoiceWillEndYourLifeTonight
wpa_passphrase=YeahPostThat
ctrl_interface=/var/run/hostapd
interface=wlan0
driver=rtl8192cu
channel=1
wpa=2
wpa_key_mgmt=WPA-PSK

Edited /etc/default/hostapd and configured ‘DAEMON_CONF=”/etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf”‘.

Attempted to start the hostapd service, got “Line 5: invalid/unknown driver ‘rtl8192cu'”.

Tried editing NetworkManager.conf and adding a keyfile configuration to exclude the MAC of the device, followed by restarting /etc/init.d/network-manager, without much success.  Yielded same error.

Ran a ‘modprobe -r rtl8192cu’ and attempted to restart the hostapd service with the same error.  Tried changing the “driver=” line to ‘driver=rtl871xdrv’ with the same results as well.

Remarked the “driver=” line in hostapd.conf and attempted to restart the service; got a little further, but still did not seem to start.

Went back to the instructions at https://bogeskov.dk/UsbAccessPoint.html.  The ‘apt-get install linux-headers’ was not successful on my platform, so ran ‘apt-get install linux-headers-4.6.0-kali1-amd64’ instead, which was already installed in my case.  Created and cd’ed to an rtl directory, then ran ‘git clone https://github.com/dz0ny/rt8192cu.git’.  Attempt to make drivers failed.

Ran an ‘apt-get update’ and ‘apt-get upgrade’ to see if I could get around the issue.  Seem to be issues with the 4.8.x kernel on Kali as well; system fails to boot using that kernel.  Have to come back to this one later, will create another post for hostapd with the rtl8192cu and see if I can come up with a better way to work around that problem.

Might be useful to take a look for the referenced article on burp from http://cybergibbons.com/security-2/quick-and-easy-fake-wifi-access-point-in-kali/ once I get hostapd on solid footing on its own (which is getting closer).

Additional Links

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Folding rolling work table

Posted November 22, 2016 By Landis V

Definitely need to build something like this.

AW Extra 4/5/12 – Folding Table Base

 

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Useful/relevant Arduino tutorial for programming an ATTiny85

Posted October 31, 2016 By Landis V

Bought an Arduino kit recently and have done just a little bit with it, but not much.  One of the projects I’m looking at uses an ATTiny85 to reduce CPU for a 433MHz receiver (https://github.com/pilight/pilight_firmware), so I bought some ATTiny85’s and will need to program them.  That can be done using Arduino 1.6 – reference article here.

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Remote power switches for rebooting cablemodem and router

Posted August 20, 2016 By Landis V

I hate it when I’m away from home and either the ISP or some of my equipment glitches, necessitating a reboot or two.  I have enough systems in place that I should be able to automate this process.  To do so, I need to get some remotely controllable equipment, create the state diagram (not good if I power cycle one of the network components required to reach the remote switch and it doesn’t come back up!), and write the scripts to run the logic.

I’d also like to have easily accessible power switches in my data closet so I can power cycle the devices without having to pull them down and unplug the power from the back of them.

Hardware components I’ve looked at

SainSmart 16 channel web relay – at Amazon.  This could work if installed between the transformer block and the switches.

Ethernet relay on eBay, claims to be AC250V @ 10A, though that would probably be pushing it.  Would have to look up the specs on the relays they used.  For the watt draw on the AC, depending upon the size, might be able to install it inside a large surge protector housing and wire the outlets through it.

Controllable Four Outlet Power Relay Module – at Adafruit.  Not network connected, and would require some other device to control it.  But most likely UL listed and designed to handle AC.

Ended up finding a Digital Loggers LPC-3 on eBay for $57 shipped that should do the job nicely.  Manual is here.

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More 434MHz stuff to look at later

Posted August 20, 2016 By Landis V

Acurite #0899 self emptying rain gauge – at Amazon

Blog post on reversing the signal from Acurite temperature sensors; may be similar for the rain gauges.  Also mentions the RTL SDR.  Probably wouldn’t be bad to have.

Another blog post regarding reading the Acurite 5n1 station.  Possible that part of this will already cover the rain gauge.  Also discusses SDR and mentions the rtl_433 tool.

This blog post looks like rtl_433 supports the Acurite 896 decode natively, so if the protocol is similar or the same it may be simple.

RTL Software Defined Radio – at Amazon – seems like it’s probably a decent model, some good reviews.  Looks like there’s a little more to it than just “buy this and set up the software”.

Bought a cheap receiver off of eBay from Hong Kong for $7.31 (original listing).

Also, here was an Instructable about making a cheap combination RF/Bluetooth/433 MHz remote using an Arduino.

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Stellar garage organization

Posted July 3, 2016 By Landis V

This guy has the best garage organization I have ever seen.  Definitely will be taking some ideas from this page for tool and garage organization.

http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=174553&showall=1

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