Subject: Re: dstumbler on NetBSD 3.0.1
To: Steven M. Bellovin <smb@cs.columbia.edu>
From: pancake <pancake@phreaker.net>
List: tech-net
Date: 10/31/2006 16:00:30
You can try wistumbler2 or wistumbler3 (in GIT (http://news.nopcode.org/gitweb/gitweb.cgi)).

AFAIK wistumbler works on WI interfaces, so wlan ones (ath f.ex) will probably not work.

I would like to discuss about the NetBSD wireless framework. So i proposed to write a 
ncurses-based stumbler for the NetBSD base few months ago, but i was unable to get
enought free time to achieve that.

So, i wrote a portable wireless library aiming to wrap all the underlaying wireless stuff
on *BSD and Linux. BTW only wi interface is supported on *BSD, and wlan framework is
not yet supported.

I think only one framework is necessary for this stuff. So, (linux's iwlib is the worst api
i saw in years), the wiBSD one is acceptable, but i've not taken a look to the wlan one.

BTW I think that having multiple cmdline programs and APIs to do the same on different
drivers is weird.

I have discussed this stuff on irc and private jabber chats, and looks like the idea is to
join all this stuff on ifconfig, and keep wlanctl for the mandatory wifi stuff. So, imho, iwconfig
must die, and the wi drivers must use the wlan api, and implement the wifi-interface stuff
inside ifconfig.

Maybe one of you could point me about what's the idea of NetBSD on this. So I was also
thinking on use the libdict for a kernel-userland comunication, and f.example list APs or
wifi interfaces in XML.

Maybe growing up the XML stuff on base like implementing't on the firewall api (pf+ipf)
could also be nice. a portable XML interface for firewalls.

--pancake

On Tue, 31 Oct 2006 08:21:26 -0500
"Steven M. Bellovin" <smb@cs.columbia.edu> wrote:

> On Tue, 31 Oct 2006 11:31:41 +0100, Lubomir Sedlacik <salo@Xtrmntr.org>
> wrote:
> 
> > On Mon, Oct 30, 2006 at 03:10:14PM -0500, Xihong Yin wrote:
> > > I am trying to install dstumbler on my NetBSD 3.0.1 on an i386
> > > machine. I have the following questions:
> > > 
> > > 1) I have an Atheros card. Does dstumbler work with it?
> > > 
> > > 2) I got error messages when I applied the source-mod patches. Does
> > >    anybody know how to resolve?
> > > 
> > > 3) After installing the dstumbler, I tried to run by issuing
> > >    "dstumbler ath0", and I got an "ioctl error" on the bottom of the
> > >    screen. Also no ssid, etc showed up on the screen. What was the
> > >    problem?
> > > 
> > > 4) How to use dstumbler? The documentation is very limited, and the
> > >    mailing list has been down for a while.
> > 
> > just use pkgsrc/net/kismet.
> > 
> I've had problems with core dumps from kismet -- has anyone else seen that
> problem?  (I have not figured out what triggers them.)
> 
> 		--Steven M. Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb