I’ve just replaced my XBMCbuntu media PC (an Acer Revo 3700) with a newer machine, and I was rebuilding the old one for my neighbour. I’m not sure if he has a wired connection where his TV is so I wanted to use Network Manager to setup the wireless connection. But when I tried to add it, this happened;
XBMC 13.0 (Compiled May 4 2014)
Solution
1. To get round this you need to install the add-on from a .zip file, so download the following file and put it on a USB drive.
If you have a machine setup and working on your wireless network, sometimes it’s easier to set other machines up by simply migrating the settings. Either because you don’t want your child to try and type in a 64 bit WPA key, or you might simply have forgotten the WEP/WPA key,and don’t want to go through all the hassle of setting it up again.
In a small business environment you can give your colleagues their wireless settings in an XML file, or on a USB thumb drive. When using XML files you can even script the deployment of wireless settings to your users.
Solution
Option 1: Export/Import wireless Networks to XML File.
This is quick and easy, and if you are feeling adventurous enough, could be used to script the deployment of wireless networks.
1. On your working wireless machine, open a command window, the following command will list all the wireless profiles that are installed on this machine, )in the example below there is just one).
[box]netsh wlan show profiles[/box]
2. Now we know the name of the profile (Note: Typically it will be the SSID), we can export it to a folder. Be aware if the folder does not exist, the process is liable to fail.
Option 2: Export/Transfer/Import wireless Settings via USB.
1. On the source machine open ‘Control Panel’.
2. Select ‘Network and Sharing Center’.
3. Select ‘Manage wireless networks.
4. Locate the wireless profile you want to migrate, (in the example below there is just one), double click it > select ‘copy this network profile to a USB flash drive’.
5. Assuming you already have a USB drive plugged in, the wizard will detect it > Next.
6. Close.
7. Take the drive to a destination machine, and plug it in, Windows 7 has autorun disabled, with older versions of Windows you can simply choose ‘Connect to wireless network” from the autorun menu. If not open the drive and run the setupSNK.exe file.
8. Yes to confirm.
9. OK to close.
10. Your network is setup and ready to go.
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If you need to connect to your wireless network with a new machine and have forgotten the key, you can view the WEP or WPA key in cleartext using the following procedure on a machine that has connected before.
2. To show all the wireless profiles stored on this machine, issue the following command;
[box]
netsh wlan show profiles
[/box]
3. From the output above, the wireless profile I want the key for, is called SMOGGYNINJA-N. Note: This is the same as the Wireless networks SSID. To view the wireless key in clear text use the following command;
[box]netsh wlan show profiles name=”SMOGGYNINJA-N” key=clear[/box]
You can also export the profile from one PC to another one, (so you don’t have to enter the key on the new PC), with the following two commands.
Copy the WiFi folder you created in the step above, to the new PC/Laptop. Then execute the following command. Note: Change the section in red to match the path to your XML file.
If you have a corporate wireless network, you can send the settings out to your clients, rather than have them all ask you what the wireless settings are, and how do they connect.
Here I’m going to use Domain group policies, but the procedure is the same for local policies (just run gpedit.msc instead). And the dialog boxes are exactly the same as if you were configuring them on the client machine. (You can import the settings form a working client if you like).
Solution
1. On a Domain Controller > Administrative Tools > Group Policy Management Console > Navigate to an OU that contains your computer objects and either create a new GPO, or edit an existing one.
2. Navigate to;
[box]
Computer Configuration >
Policies > Window Settings > Security Settings > Wireless Network (IEEE 802.11) Policies > Create A New Wireless Network Policy for Windows Vista and Later Releases
[/box]
3. Give the policy a name and add in an ‘Infrastructure’ type network profile.
4. Name the profile > Add in the SSID of the wireless network > Security Tab.
5. Set your authentication type, here I’m using WPA2/AES.
Optional
6. Here I want my client computers to see the wireless network, before the users log on (so that their logon scripts will run and their drives get mapped) Advanced > Enable Single Sign On > OK.
7. Properties > Remove the tick from ‘Validate server certificate’ > OK.
Note: I’m configuring for use with an HP MSM controller, if I leave this option ticked, I will have to upload the CA Cert from my domain, into the controller, or clients cannot join the wireless network.
8. I’m not making any changes to the Network Permissions tab > Apply > OK.
9. Now either wait a couple of hours, run gpupdate /force on a client, (or reboot it).
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You can still right click the networking icon in your task tray and manually join a wireless network, but with the new UI there is a much more user friendly way.
Solution
1. Bring up the Settings menu (Press Windows Key+I, or swipe in form the left on a tablet/tablet) > Select the available networks icon.
2. Select the wireless network you want to connect to.
3. If you want to always connect to this network tick the box and select ‘Connect’.
4. If your router has a PIN number for access (check its documentation) then you can enter that here, and follow the instructions. The PIN number is usually shown on the router/access point on a sticker. However if you use a WEP or WPA password, then select ‘Connect using security key instead’.
Note: The system for joining a wireless netork using a PIN number, is very insecure! just to a Google search for “hacking wireless with reaver”, I suggest you disable this feature if you can.
5. Type in your WEP/WPA Key > Next.
6. All being well, you should now be connected.
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Disclaimer: This article is for educational purposes only. Having the ability to pick a lock does not make you a thief. The main thing to take away from this article is, “DONT secure your wireless network with WEP“.
WEP, has been around for a long time now, its limited to an alpha numeric password, 0-9 and A-F (because its in hexadecimal), the password can be 40, 64 or 126 bits long. The flaw is, each bit of information is encrypted with the SAME key, If you can get enough packets (24 bit long packets called IV’s), you can mathematically work out what the key is.
Solution
To do this I’m going to use BackTrack 5 (R1) installed in a Virtual machine, the Network card I’m using is an ALFA AWUS036NH USB wireless card, I’m using this card because the Ralink RT2878/3078 chipset that’s inside it just works with airmon-ng, without the need to patch drivers or mess about.
Note: If your wireless card does not work please do not email me go the the Aircrack-ng forums.
1. After I’ve plugged the wireless card into the host machine, I’m going to present it to the virtual machine. VM > Removable Devices > Ralink 802.11 n WLAN > Connect.
2. To make sure BackTrack can see the card issue the following command;
[box] airmon-ng [/box]
Take note of the interface name (in the example below it’s wlan0). Then to change the MAC address of the card we are going to ‘spoof’ a false MAC address of 00:11:22:33:44:55 with the following commands. (Note: Your interface may not be wlan0, change accordingly);
Then to scan and see what networks the card can see issue the following command
[box] airodump-ng wlan0 [/box]
3. Airodump will continue to scan until you press CTRL+C. When you see the target network, take a note of its BSSID and its channel number. My target below is called PeteNetLive and the bssid is 00:16:B6:B4:66:46 and its on channel 1).
4. Now scan the target network with the following command;
Note: ‘-3’ denotes a client attack, if your data packets do not rise (you will understand in a minute), then try with ‘-4’ instead.
7. Back in the original terminal window the Data count should start to rise, do nothing further until its over 10,000 (that’s 10,000 IVs captured).
Reality Check!: In most tutorials (including my video above) this is a nice painless process, it relies on there being a decent quality signal, the router/access point not crashing because you are ‘battering’ it, and there being lots of healthy traffic around. You can get enough data packets without the ‘aireplay-ng -3’ command, but it will take a lot longer. You can stop and start the forcing of traffic by pressing CTRL+C, and then executing the command again (it just appends the data to the capture file). In this example I used about five attempts (the router froze and needed to be rebooted). So this is not a quick process. Someone passively attacking your wireless will need lot of patience. This took about an hour and I was right next to the router, and I rebooted it every time it locked up, (which I saw because the Data figure suddenly stopped rising).
8. In the example below I’m now over 10,000 IV’s captured, and I’ve stopped forcing traffic (CTRL+C).
9. By default your capture will be in your home folder, and it will be called filename-01.cap (where filename is the name you used in step 4).
10. To crack the key execute the following command;
