Ethereal-users: Re: [Ethereal-users] wireless sniffing

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From: Guy Harris <guy@xxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2001 23:46:10 -0700 (PDT)
> I am using a wirless d-link pcmcia card.  When I use a sniifer with it I see 
> plenty of traffic but it dies not recognize the 802.11.

What do you mean by "recognize the 802.11"?  Do you mean the traffic
shows up as, for example, Ethernet traffic rather than 802.11 traffic?

> I am also using ethereal 8.18.  

I.e., you're using both Ethereal and some other sniffing software (e.g.,
Network Associates's Sniffer software)?

> Am I missing somthing or does the card not support  sniffing 802.11?

If by "does not recognize the 802.11" you mean that the traffic appears
as Ethernet traffic, not 802.11 traffic, then it could either be that
the card itself can't be configured to show raw 802.11 traffic (i.e., it
pretends to be an Ethernet card) or that the driver doesn't support
configuring it to do so.  (I don't know what, if anything, you can do to
make drivers provide raw 802.11 traffic on Windows; there exist patches
for, I think, the Linux and FreeBSD drivers for some of the Cisco
Aironet cards, which I think allow you to configure them to show raw
802.11 traffic.)