Determine the chipset of a wireless card
Each year we make a list of the top Kali Linux compatible USB adapters an usually there are big changes.
This can always change of course at any time and we will update this post with any new information but 2016 has the same problems 2015 had.
The first problem is the 802.11ac protocol and a compatible USB adapter that will work with Kali.
802.11ac 5GHz USB dongles that will work with Kali are slow to come and hopefully will happen soon.
Introduction
IMPORTANT:
- Please read and understand the following prior to using this page: Tutorial: Is My Wireless Card Compatible?
- Microsoft Windows is only supported by Airpcap for now. See this section for more details.
- See this FAQ entry if your question is “What is the best wireless card to buy?”.
This section deals with a three related areas:
- Determine the chipset of a wireless card
- Determine the driver for a wireless card
Determine the chipset
There are two manufacturers involved with wireless cards. The first is the brand of the card itself. Examples of card manufacturers are Netgear, Ubiquiti , Linksys and D-Link. There are many, many manufacturers beyond the examples give here.
The second manufacturer is who makes the wireless chipset within the card. This is the most important company to know. Unfortunately, it is sometimes the hardest to determine. This is because card manufacturers generally don't want to reveal what they use inside their card. However, for our purposes, it is critical to know the wireless chipset manufacturer. Knowing the wireless chipset manufacturer allows you to determine which operating systems are supported, software drivers you need and what limitations are associated with them. The next section describes the operating systems supported and limitations by chipset.
You first need to determine what wireless chipset your card uses. This can be done by one or more of these techniques:
- Search the internet for “<your card model> chipset” or “<your card model> linux”. Quite often you can find references to what chipset your card uses and/or other people's experiences.
- Search the Forum
- You may also have a look at windows driver file names, it's often the name of the chipset or the driver to use.
- Check the card manufacturers page. Sometimes they say what chipset they use.
- Have a look at lsusb -vv output for descriptions, USB id and kernel modules used. If the card is internal, do the same with lspci -vv.
- Locate the FCC ID of your device. Enter the information into FCC Website and then browse the internal photos of the device.
Here are some other resources to assist you in determine what chipset you have:
- Linux-wireless has a list of drivers in Linux
- Wireless Adapter Chipset Directory nearly the best resource for this kind of information
- Atheros chipsets based wireless 802.11a/b/g devices only Atheros-based cards
- Overview and details about wireless adapters
| Chipset | Supported by airodump for Windows | Supported by airodump for Linux | Supported by aireplay for Linux |
|---|---|---|---|
| Atheros | CardBus: YES PCI: NO (see CommView) | PCI, PCI-E: YES Cardbus/PCMCIA/Expresscard:YES USB: YES(b/g/n) | New mac80211 Atheros drivers have native injection and monitoring support |
| Atmel | UNTESTED | 802.11b YES 802.11g UNTESTED | UNTESTED |
| Broadcom bcm43xx | Old models only (BRCM driver) | YES | MOSTLY (Forum thread) No fragmentation attack support. Recommend to use b43, see below. |
| Broadcom b43 | NO | Yes (1.0-beta2 and up, check here) | Yes, check here |
| Centrino b | NO | PARTIAL (ipw2100 driver doesn't discard corrupted packets) | NO |
| Centrino b/g | NO | YES | NO (firmware drops most packets) ipw2200inject No fragmentation attack support. |
| Centrino a/b/g | NO | YES | YES (use ipwraw or iwl3945) |
| Centrino a/g/n (4965) | NO | YES | MOSTLY, see iwlagn. Fakeauth is currently broken. |
| Centrino a/g/n (5xxx) | NO | YES | YES |
| Cisco Aironet | YES? | Yes, but very problematic | NO (firmware issue) |
| Hermes I | YES | Only with airodump not airodump-ng and only with a specific firmware | NO (firmware corrupts the MAC header) |
| NdisWrapper | N/A | Never | Never |
| Prism2/3 | NO | old kernels only ⇐2.6.20 | YES (PCI and CardBus only: driver patching required) NOTE: Prism2/3 does not support shared key authentication and the fragmentation attack. There is a critical bug and this chipset is not currently recommended. It may even affect other kernel versions. Also you must use old kernel ⇐2.6.20 USB: Only old kernel ⇐2.6.20 with linux-wlan-ng |
| PrismGT FullMAC | YES | YES | YES (driver patching recommended) |
| PrismGT SoftMAC | YES | YES (requires p54 >=2.6.30) | YES (requires p54 >=2.6.30) |
| Ralink | NO | YES | YES, see rt2x00, rt2500, rt2570, rt61 and rt73. Also see Ralink chipset comments later on this pager for important concerns. |
| RTL8180 | YES | YES | UNSTABLE (driver patching required) |
| RTL8185 | NO | YES | YES (mac80211 driver untested) |
| RTL8187B/RTL8197 | NO | YES | YES (2.6.27+, use the mac80211 driver with this patch) |
| RTL8187L | UNTESTED | YES (driver patching required to view power levels) | YES (driver patching recommended for injection and required to view power levels) |
| TI (ACX100/ACX111) | NO | YES | YES (driver patching required) No fragmentation attack support. Please re-test fragmentation with the mac80211 driver + mac80211 frag patch! |
| ZyDAS 1201 | NO | YES | Partially but NOT RECOMMENDED (See patch for details) |
| ZyDAS 1211(B) softmac | NO | YES | Partially but NOT RECOMMENDED (See patch for details). Atheros has acquired Zydas and renamed this chipset to AR5007UG. |
| ZyDAS 1211(B) mac80211 | NO | YES (patching recommended) | YES, but no fragmentation attack support yet. |
| Other mac80211 (ADMtek…) | NO | UNTESTED, but likely YES | UNTESTED (YES for drivers with AP mode support) |
| Other legacy (Marvel…) | NO | UNKNOWN | NO |
Determine the driver
Once you have determined the chipset, check the driver section for which software driver you need. Software drivers connect the operating system to the hardware. The drivers are different for each operating system. There are also notes regarding limitations.
If you are deciding on which card to purchase, check the “Which is the best card to buy?” section on this page. There are many considerations that should go into your purchase decision:
- Hardware compatibility with your existing equipment.
- Price and availability of the card.
- Availability of software drivers for your particular operating system and intended use of the software.
- How active is development for the software drivers you need.
- How much peer support and documentation is available for the card and software drivers.
It is not an easy decision to make. By considering these factors, it will help you make a more informed decision on what to purchase.
| Chipset | Windows driver (monitor mode) | Linux Drivers | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Atheros | v4.2 or v3.0.1.12 or AR5000 (see this pagefor more information) | Madwifi, ath5k ath9k, ath9k_htc and ar9170/carl9170 | Atheros and Zydas USB 802.11n cards. The rest of atheros chipsets excluding the ones mentioned and MIMO series as well as fullMAC (these are rare, only found in embedded devices) should be supported. |
| Atheros | ath6kl | Third generation Atheros driver for mobile devices (AR6003) Currently does not support injection | |
| Atmel | Atmel AT76c503a | AT76C503/505A based USB WLAN adapters | |
| Atmel | Atmel AT76 USB | AT76C503/505A based USB WLAN adapters, mac80211 driver | |
| Broadcom | Broadcom peek driver | bcm43xx | Windows: Old models only Linux: always use latest -rc kernel |
| Broadcom with b43 driver | b43 | b43 - An excellent and fully supported driver | |
| Broadcom 802.11n | brcm80211 | FOSS wireless driver for BCM4313, BCM43224, BCM43225 chipsets Currently does not support monitor/injection | |
| Centrino b | ipw2100 | 802.11b only | |
| Centrino b/g | ipw2200 | See IPW2200 and RF-Mon. See more recent update info here See this thread for how to do injection. | |
| Centrino a/b/g | ipw2915 ipw3945 iwl3945 | ipw2915 uses ipw2200 driver (See this thread for alpha injection support.) For ipw3945 you can use the ipwraw-ng driver, iwl3945 recommended on >=2.6.26, or see Live Distros for WifiWay which includes patches for injection. | |
| Centrino a/g/n | iwlwifi | 4965AGN under development. | |
| Cisco/Aironet | Cisco PCX500/PCX504 peek driver | airo-linux | 4500/4800/340/350 series, Firmware 4.25.30 recommended (see thisfor more info) |
| Hermes I | Agere peek driver | Orinoco Orinoco Monitor Mode Patch | 802.11b only and only with specific firmware (7.52) |
| Ndiswrapper | N/A | ndiswrapper | Using windows drivers in linux. It will never work with aircrack-ng |
| cx3110x (Nokia 770/800) | cx3110x | Supports monitor mode (flaky) but not injection | |
| prism2/2.5 | LinkFerret or aerosol | HostAP wlan-ng | Use STA firmware >=1.5.6 (see Prism2 flashing)802.11b only, and only on old kernels ⇐2.6.20. See this forum entry regarding windows support. |
| prismGT | PrismGT by 500brabus | prism54 | only FullMAC cards works with aircrack on Linux. Deprecated driver, refer to p54. |
| prismGT (alternative) | p54 | mac80211 based, requires >=2.6.30 for better softMAC support. Also supports PrismGT FullMAC and PrismGT USB based chipsets. | |
| Ralink | rt2x00 or RaLink RT2570USB Enhanced Driver or RaLink RT73 USB Enhanced Driver | The entire rt2x00 family: rt2400pci, rt2500pci, rt2500usb, rt2800pci and rt2800usb can inject and monitor. Including PCI and USB chips on b/g/n. | |
| Realtek 8180 | Realtek peek driver | rtl8180-sa2400 | 802.11b only |
| Realtek 8187L | r8187 rtl8187 | ||
| Realtek 8187B | rtl8187 (2.6.27+) or r8187b (beta) | ||
| TI | ACX100/ACX111/ACX100USB | ||
| ZyDAS 1201 | zd1201 | 802.11b only | |
| ZyDAS 1211 | zd1211rw plus patch | Excellent USB chip with reliable aircrack-ng and general support |
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