KisMAC Manual - Getting started with KisMAC

Before you can begin using KisMAC you must open the preferences and select a driver to use for your specific wireless card.

  1. Open the preferences from the KisMAC menu and click on the Driver icon.
    Driver Preference Pane
    Note: Each of these drivers will prevent you from using your wireless
    card to access a network while KisMAC is running, however KisMAC
    must use one of these drivers to scan for networks. For more information
    about driver capabilities, see the expanded driver section later in this manual.


  2. There are three different drivers to choose from.
    1. The first is the Viha-Driver. This is the driver you want to use if you have an Apple branded Airport card.
    2. If you have an Orinoco Hermes or PrismII PCMCIA card you will need to select the MacJack-Driver.
    3. The AiroJack-Driver is for use with Cisco Aironet cards. (There are rumors, that Xircom cards work as well)
    Note: if you do not know which driver to use, you can refer to the table of common card brands at the end of this chapter.

  3. Your password will be asked for each time you start KisMAC because the drivers must be loaded and unloaded. If you would like KisMAC to load the drivers without asking for your password, check the Make scripts SUID root checkbox. You can also use the KisMAC Driver Tool, installed with KisMAC, to start or stop the drivers.

After selecting a driver, you can now use KisMAC to scan for networks by clicking on the scan button in the main window. It is recommended however, that you go through all of the preferences in order to get the best KisMAC experience.

Scanning Preferences

  1. WI-FI networks have 11 possible channels (14 non-us, 13 in Europe). A typical access point will be available on 3 channels a time, since these channels actually overlap. In order to detect all networks, KisMAC will make the wireless card "hop" between all selected channels. The frequency field changes how often KisMAC changes channels. Before you select channel 12-14 please make sure your card can use this channels, otherwise strange side effects might occur.
    Scanning Preference Pane

  2. Once you find a network that you want to monitor, it is recommended that you only select the channel the network uses in order to capture more data from that network. Note: Cisco Aironet cards perform hopping internally and the settings will be disabled when using one of these cards.

  3. If you would like KisMAC to automatically scan for networks as soon as it starts, check the scan at startup checkbox. Note: Unless you have an alternative network connection, selecting this option will prevent you from downloading maps from the Internet. See the GPS chapter for more information.

  4. The dump filter settings will tell KisMAC to create a PCAP file with the following filtering options:
    1. The default setting is no dumping, KisMAC simply discards the data.
    2. Keep everything - All intercepted traffic is written to the log file.
    3. Data only - Only packets containing data are written to the log file; empty, "I'm here," traffic is ignored, but any packets with weak initialization vectors (IVs) will be logged.
    4. Weak frames only - only packets with weak initialization vectors will be written to the log file.
    Please note: Dumping traffic is only useful if you want to make the captured data available for third party tools. Such as ethereal, dsniff or ettercap.

Sound Preferences

  1. KisMAC can be set to play different sounds when different types of networks have been detected. This can be helpful for war driving when you might not be able to look at the computer screen.
    1. WEP enabled network: play the selected sound when an encrypted network is detected.
    2. WEP disabled network: play this sound when an open network is detected
    3. Play every x packets: This option is useful when to gathering data to attempt to crack a network. Alerts you when a certain amount of data has been collected. See the cracking chapter later in this manual.
    4. Optionally, KisMAC can speak the names (SSID) of detected networks, also useful while war driving.

These are the basic preferences needed, in order to get started with KisMAC. There are many more advanced features that are covered in depth in their own chapters of the manual.

Table of common card brands:

ManufacturerModel Chipset Compatibility
3Com 3CRWE154G72 PrismGT
Addtron AWP-100 PrismII
AWP-101 PrismII
Apple Airport Hermes Verified
Airport ExtremeBroadcom works in active mode
AsantŽ AL1011 PrismII
Belkin F5D6020 (old) PrismII
F5D7010 Broadcom
Buffalo WLI-CB-G54 Broadcom
Cisco AIR-PCM35x Aironet Verified
AIR-LMC35x Aironet
Compaq WL-100 PrismII Verified
D-Link DWL-650 (old) PrismII Verified
DWL-G520 Atheros
LinkSys WPC11 PrismII
WPC54G Broadcom
Proxim Orinoco 11b/g Atheros Verified
Lucent Orinoco Silver 11Mbit Hermes Verified
Orinoco Silver 2Mbit Hermes Verified
Orinoco Gold 11Mbit Hermes
Netgear MA401 PrismII
WG511 PrismGT
WG511T Atheros
SMC SMC2632W (old) PrismII
ZCOMAX XI-300 PrismII
XI-815 PrismII
Zoom 4105 PrismII
The Aironet, Atheros, PrismII and Hermes chips are natively supported by KisMAC.
The Broadcom chipset is supported over the Airport Extreme driver only in limited mode.
All other chipsets are currently unsupported.

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