Wireless packet sniffer

#1 Wed, 21 Aug 2002 - 00:59

I just started high school, and there's an unencrypted, Internet-enabled 802.11b network in our science building. However, there isn't a DHCP server automatically allocating me an IP and gateway IP, or the server just doesn't like my MAC address.

Does anybody know of any utility for Mac OS X that could do some sort of packet sniffing to get the "from/to" addresses from packets sent to and from clients to the server?

Thanks for all your help in advance.

#2 Wed, 21 Aug 2002 - 01:05

I forgot to make it clear that I don't need a WEP packet sniffer. It's unencrypted, and I've already checked out AirSnort and other key-cracking programs.

Thanks again!

#3 Wed, 21 Aug 2002 - 04:34

If the network is MAC-locked (i.e. is only accepting traffic from known MAC addresses), you're probably out of luck - it's not going to listen to your machine, anyway (and it's tough to change MAC addresses in Mac OS X)

Having said that, have you tried tcpdump? It's built into Mac OS X and should show you any traffic passing across your NIC:

> sudo tcpdump -i en1

An alternative, wireless scanner is MacStumbler

It'll show you the wireless networks in range.

#4 Wed, 21 Aug 2002 - 14:05

MacStumbler looks great!

Thanks for all your help. Still looking for answers, though...

I need to know where packets are going to from client machines. Eventually, I'll have a chance to get my hands on a Bellarmine 802.11b terminal.