Chapter 5: Installing Kismet in Fedora Core 1

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Introduction

Similar to the discussion in Chapter 4, the key to WarDriving using Kismet is being able to put the wireless card into monitor mode. Enabling monitor mode on many cards can be a frustrating, if not difficult, process. This chapter details the process of enabling monitor mode on two of the most common chipsets; Hermes and Prism 2 under the Fedora Core 1 operating system, also known as Yarrow. Both the Hermes and Prism 2 chipsets work by default under the Fedora Yarrow version. This chapter assumes that you already have at least the basic wireless networking operational under Fedora with either a Hermes chipset or Prism 2 chipset.

Because Kismet doesn’t rely on the Service Set Identifier (SSID) broadcast beacon to determine the existence of a wireless access point, more access points can often be discovered. This is useful when WarDriving and when attempting to find rogue access points that a user may have attached to your corporate network.

The stock kernel that ships with Fedora Yarrow is version 2.4.22 and does not need to be upgraded or modified by the user in order to use Kismet. The kernel used in this walkthrough is the 2.4.22 kernel.

Kismet is a robust program. For many WarDrivers, the allure of finding access points that are not broadcasting SSID alone makes Kismet their choice. For others, the ability to WarDrive while using their favorite Linux distribution is the key. Yet another group of users prefer a Kismet/Linux configuration because it allows them more flexibility with scripting and data manipulation. The key point here is that Kismet offers Linux WarDrivers an excellent alternative to NetStumbler and Microsoft Windows.

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