IMPORTANT NOTE: This page is deprecated, updated documentation can be found here

This page only deals with the net80211 version of the madwifi-ng driver. For the mac80211 ath5k version see the mac80211 page. To understand the differences, see mac80211 versus ieee80211 stacks write-up.

IMPORTANT
If you have a new kernel that supports mac80211 and includes the new ath5k driver then you MUST blacklist it otherwise the net80211 version of the module below will not work. See blacklisting mac80211 driver version below.

 ifconfig ath0 down
 ifconfig wifi0 down
 svn -r 4073 checkout http://svn.madwifi-project.org/madwifi/trunk/ madwifi-ng
 cd madwifi-ng
 wget http://patches.aircrack-ng.org/madwifi-ng-r4073.patch
 patch -N -p 1 -i madwifi-ng-r4073.patch
 ./scripts/madwifi-unload
 make
 make install
 depmod -ae
 modprobe ath_pci

Notes:

• The patch is designed to eliminate invalid retries.
• At “make install”, you may be asked if you want to remove old modules, type 'r' to do it.
• To determine which version of the madwifi-ng drivers you are currently using, enter “modinfo ath_pci”. This will provide the version number plus other information.
• When using airmon-ng, specify wifiX as interface (or you can create manually a VAP in monitor mode with wlanconfig) and athX interface when you have to destroy it.
• You should delete all existing VAP before before creating a VAP in monitor mode, using airmon-ng stop athX (replacing X with the interface number to delete).

Support for Atheros chipID 0x0024 (rev 01) 802.11b/g/n cards (AR5008).

The new cards are now (experimentally) supported in trunk. The above code will cause them to work!

NOTE: 11n rates are not supported yet.

NOTE: This section is included for historical purposes. The AR5007EG is now supported by the base driver instructions above.

To determine the PCI ID under linux, enter “lspci -nn”. The output should look similar to this:

03:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Atheros Communications Inc. AR242x 802.11abg Wireless PCI Express Adapter [168c:001c] (rev 01)

Notice the “168c:001c” at the end. This is the PCI ID.

These are relevant links on the madwifi-project.org site:

• Compatibility
• Hardware Support: AR5007EG
• Support for AR2425 (AR5007EG) chipset

The following links are tarballs already containing everything needed:

• This is a combined r3366 plus AR5007EG patch As well, see the next entry.
• Combined r3406, karma and AR5007EG patch

The following link is a tarball oriented towards BackTrack but may be of value to people with an eeepc.

• http://metasploit.com/users/hdm/tools/madwifi-r3726-061708-03-hdm.tar.gz

The new official HAL (0.10.5.6) supports AR5007EG (and AR5006EG) on 32 and 64 bit systems. Use the instructions above but checkout http://svn.madwifi-project.org/madwifi/branches/madwifi-hal-0.10.5.6/ instead of http://svn.madwifi-project.org/madwifi/trunk/.

Very important, prior to applying the madwifi-ng-4073.patch patch, you must edit this file. This is because the madwifi-hal source code is slightly different from the standard madwifi-ng source code.

Comment out the following lines like this by adding “#” in front of each line or just delete the lines.

 #diff -dru madwifi-ng/ath_hal/ar5211/ar5211_reset.c madwifi-ng-fixed/ath_hal/ar5211/ar5211_reset.c
 #--- madwifi-ng/ath_hal/ar5211/ar5211_reset.c   2009-07-10 01:46:38.000000000 +0200
 #+++ madwifi-ng-fixed/ath_hal/ar5211/ar5211_reset.c     2009-07-10 01:52:18.000000000 +0200
 #@@ -987,7 +987,7 @@
 #       if (AH_PRIVATE(ah)->ah_macVersion < AR_SREV_VERSION_OAHU &&
 #           ath_hal_getnfcheckrequired(ah, (HAL_CHANNEL *) chan)) {
 #               static const uint8_t runtime[3] = { 0, 2, 7 };
 #-              int16_t nf, nfThresh;
 #+              int16_t nf, nfThresh = 0;
 #               int i;
 #
 #               if (!getNoiseFloorThresh(ah, chan, &nfThresh))
 #diff -dru madwifi-ng/ath_hal/ar5212/ar5212_reset.c madwifi-ng-fixed/ath_hal/ar5212/ar5212_reset.c
 #--- madwifi-ng/ath_hal/ar5212/ar5212_reset.c   2009-07-10 01:46:41.000000000 +0200
 #+++ madwifi-ng-fixed/ath_hal/ar5212/ar5212_reset.c     2009-07-10 01:53:24.000000000 +0200
 #@@ -1264,7 +1264,7 @@
 # {
 #       struct ath_hal_5212 *ahp = AH5212(ah);
 #       struct ar5212NfCalHist *h = &ahp->ah_nfCalHist;
 #-      int16_t nf, nfThresh;
 #+      int16_t nf, nfThresh = 0;
 #       int32_t val;
 #
 #       if (OS_REG_READ(ah, AR_PHY_AGC_CONTROL) & AR_PHY_AGC_CONTROL_NF) {

If you have the file ath5k.ko or ath9k.ko in the /lib/modules directory tree then you have two options to blacklist it. Failure to do this will mean that the ieee80211 madwifi-ng module described on this page will fail to work properly. Here are the options:

• Move the file to another area on your system as follows then do “depmod -ae”. Move

/lib/modules/$(uname -r)/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/ath5k/ath5k.ko to a safe place. Some parts of the path may be different on your distribution/system. Use “locate ath5k.ko” or “find /lib/modules -name *ath5k*” to find the full path. After moving it, do “depmod -ae”.

• Edit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist and add “blacklist ath5k” as a new line.

In both cases, reboot your system afterwards. If present, do the same for ath9k.

If you change the rate while capturing packets, airodump-ng will stall. There are two possible workarounds:

• Set injecting before starting airodump-ng
• Restart airodump-ng

If you system contains a mini-PCI wireless card, there are some known issues and solutions. See the Madwifi-ng Mini-PCI page for a description of the known problems and solutions.