Feeding The Pineapple Wireless Internet

[yesman]

Greetings Fellow Fans,

It's Christmas Break time, and I have some spare cycles to burn. Let's talk about freeing our Pineapples from the restrictive confines of network cables. If I were a Pineapple, I surely wouldn't want to be chained to my user's laptop. I would want to be out in the wild, roaming free!

Given an Internet source is available via WiFi from a broadband device, or from another source, I have two main questions to start the discussion:

1) Is this even possible, given only the hardware within the Fon? More specifically, I've followed the below client setup instructions, and have not been able to get a second, virtual wireless interface to act as a client to my wireless broadband hockey puck.

2) If #1 is not possible, what would be the smallest, easiest addition to the Pineapple's hardware party, which would feed yummy Internet packets to our hungry fruit? What about another Fon brethren?

http://wiki.openwrt.org/oldwiki/openwrtdocs/whiterussian/clientmode

Keep it real!

-yesman

[digininja]

It is possible to get the wifi to run as both a client and an AP but not recommended as the card will be switching about a lot and so start to become unreliable. The best way I see to do it is with two devices, have one as an AP, one as a client. Connect them via the wired ports and run them off a battery. That would give you a fully self contained brick you could leave anywhere.

The other option is to use a Fon2 and put a 3G dongle on the USB port.

[yesman]

Hi,

Thanks for the quick reply! Are you talking about Fonera 2.0N, the router? Since it has two antennas, would this device be able to be an AP and client without having to switch all the time?

https://shop.fon.com/FonShop/shop/US/ShopController?view=product&product=PRD-022

-cheers

yesman

[digininja]

Technically the 2N does have two radios in it because it needs them for N as it is MIMO but I don't think you can control them individually.

I was talking about the basic Fon2 which has two wired NICs and a single USB port.

[yesman]

I see. I assume the chipset in the Fon2 is still highly compatable with our project.

Any recommendations on where to find one?

-yesman

[Mr-Protocol]

Been stated a few times on threads, but ebay is a place to start. They are harder to find because they are rolling out new models.

[Darren Kitchen]

The original Fon2 is quite difficult to find. The newer Fons with USB ports don't have Atheros chipsets. There are a few Micro-ITX boards around that sport mini-pci slots. An Atheros chip, 3G USB dongle and OpenWRT / Jasager, however battery powering an x86 box isn't easy.

[Fixtrix]

I know that I'm late to this dance but, are you saying it's not possible to have a fully self contained fon, pineapple, serving wifi to the mark?

I just got it working sharing internet connection in ubuntu 10.4 and my next move was to work on total self containment.

:-(

[zyrax]

I have configured my Asus EEE701 7" netbook to do the job for me. Pinapple connected to the ethernet of the 701, internal wifi connects to the internet, and then another wifi-dongle acting like an accesspoint for me to control it via ssh with my laptop, iPhone or iPad. Everything batterypowered and fits easily in a quite small bag. And no wires at all connected to my computer that might look suspicious. :) Dumps and other stuff are saved on a SD-card. And the 701 also has quite good batterytime so right now it would be good to find a bigger batterypack for the Pineapple.

Works for me.

[Fixtrix]

I have configured my Asus EEE701 7" netbook to do the job for me. Pinapple connected to the ethernet of the 701, internal wifi connects to the internet, and then another wifi-dongle acting like an accesspoint for me to control it via ssh with my laptop, iPhone or iPad. Everything batterypowered and fits easily in a quite small bag. And no wires at all connected to my computer that might look suspicious. :) Dumps and other stuff are saved on a SD-card. And the 701 also has quite good batterytime so right now it would be good to find a bigger batterypack for the Pineapple.

Works for me.

so, you're doing this with a router connected to a netbook. The netbook is using one Ethernet cable and two wireless NICs. You are also using an Iphone to connect to the router thru ssh? Are you using Windows or Linux?

[zyrax]

I am using ArchLinux on the Asus eee701. My favourite lightweight distro without loosing functions.

Internal wifi (wifi0) connects to internet.

USB-wifi zd1211 (wifi1) is set up as an accesspoint.

Internal ETH0 connects to Pinapple with static IP.

The computer is setup to share internet from wifi0 to wifi1 and eth0/pineapple.

I connect my computer, iPhone or iPad to the accesspoint on my netbook and login via ssh. Then I can configure manually wifi0 to connect to the present wireless network at my location.

While logged in I start screen and run everything there so I can reconnect to it later...

I also added my USB-GPS and another wireless nano-stick (wifi2) to enable some wardriving with Kismet. :)

I have used cpufreq-utils to set the 701 to a lower CPU-frequency to preserve battery and avoid running the computer too hot.

To know when the battery runs low I have made a script that runs in cron that sends a push-message to my iPhone/iPad via Prowl whenever the battery goes down 10%. And before it runs out completely of battery the computer automatically shuts down to avoid disk-errors.

Still work in progress, but it has worked good so far...

[Fixtrix]

I am using ArchLinux on the Asus eee701. My favourite lightweight distro without loosing functions.

Internal wifi (wifi0) connects to internet.

USB-wifi zd1211 (wifi1) is set up as an accesspoint.

Internal ETH0 connects to Pinapple with static IP.

The computer is setup to share internet from wifi0 to wifi1 and eth0/pineapple.

I connect my computer, iPhone or iPad to the accesspoint on my netbook and login via ssh. Then I can configure manually wifi0 to connect to the present wireless network at my location.

While logged in I start screen and run everything there so I can reconnect to it later...

I also added my USB-GPS and another wireless nano-stick (wifi2) to enable some wardriving with Kismet. :)

I have used cpufreq-utils to set the 701 to a lower CPU-frequency to preserve battery and avoid running the computer too hot.

To know when the battery runs low I have made a script that runs in cron that sends a push-message to my iPhone/iPad via Prowl whenever the battery goes down 10%. And before it runs out completely of battery the computer automatically shuts down to avoid disk-errors.

Still work in progress, but it has worked good so far...

Nice

if you have a picture of your gear, you should post it.

My setup is a eeepc 900HD running Backtrack5 with a DroidX serving internet using easytether, easytether0,

and eth0 connected to router.

I was planning on putting all this in a coffee cup and demonstrate finding this device using VisiWave next month for a security conference in NM. I thought the self containment would push the added fear for my talk. Now it looks like I will fall back to a RickRoll. My talk is about finding rouge access points in our environment. But playing with this device did bring up a very interesting issue that I haven't seen covered yet. Devices that have wifi enabled while they are plugged into the LAN. During my quest to get this working, I had several systems in my building, at work, connect to me. I was able to use Nessus and Metasploit to find vulnerbilities and exploit them. This I will cover in my talk.

I am a security consultant for IHS and I did get permission to run my test.

[Fixtrix]

Is anyone using two pineapples?

[Mr-Protocol]

Is anyone using two pineapples?

using two pineapples within close proximity of eachother would be a stupid thing to do.

[Fixtrix]

using two pineapples within close proximity of eachother would be a stupid thing to do.

Why?

One as the ap and one as the client. I think you would have to remove some of the functionality of one but...

Maybe a cheaper device. What is your thought?

[yesman]

Might be nice to have one Internet relay FON and one pineapple FON patched together for a complete package.

Who want's to put together a how-to, or software package for the Internet relay FON? This would nicely complete the project, as the Internet source is the only 'missing' part to the already awesome pineapple.

Thanks for your support!

[Fixtrix]

Might be nice to have one Internet relay FON and one pineapple FON patched together for a complete package.

Who want's to put together a how-to, or software package for the Internet relay FON? This would nicely complete the project, as the Internet source is the only 'missing' part to the already awesome pineapple.

Thanks for your support!

that is just what I thought. Something I thought I would start working on.

[zyrax]

Nice

if you have a picture of your gear, you should post it.

My setup is a eeepc 900HD running Backtrack5 with a DroidX serving internet using easytether, easytether0,

and eth0 connected to router.

I was planning on putting all this in a coffee cup and demonstrate finding this device using VisiWave next month for a security conference in NM. I thought the self containment would push the added fear for my talk. Now it looks like I will fall back to a RickRoll. My talk is about finding rouge access points in our environment. But playing with this device did bring up a very interesting issue that I haven't seen covered yet. Devices that have wifi enabled while they are plugged into the LAN. During my quest to get this working, I had several systems in my building, at work, connect to me. I was able to use Nessus and Metasploit to find vulnerbilities and exploit them. This I will cover in my talk.

I am a security consultant for IHS and I did get permission to run my test.

Pics of my gear...

[sam2332]

Pics of my gear...

lol on suspicious at all xD

[zyrax]

lol on suspicious at all xD

Well.. I could have posted a pic of my plain black bag that everything fits into. ;) But I figured that everyone understood that it will be in a bag. ;)

[unixmito]

I hate to dredge up such an old post, but it has to be said that I haven't seen a bit of code to suggest how to properly create a wifi to wifi relay with the pineapple. Yes, I did use the search function, and no after reading about 11 posts nothing definitive. Sure, I can hack together and iptables script, I'd rather not fudge the configuration and have to reset the whole thing should I end up not being able to SSH into the pineapple.

Thanks.

[Isc]

Unixmito, I just got working a few nights back via iptables IPv4 packet forwarding from a second USB wireless adaptor. This allows me to associate the second USB wifi with an existing internet enabled access point and then have clients on the pineapple access the internet via this connection. Think of the 3G internet sharing, except with wireless instead.

I'm sure you could tweek the pineapple's configuration to instead of running Hostapd having it be an accesspoint you could have the internal wlan0 associate with your own access point then it would essentially be a wifi range extending bridge.

I'll post up some directions a little later tonight (another 8 hours time) along with a quick shell script to get it going. Once thing I noticed though is after running my script I wasn't able to bring up Karma, though I'll see if I can get that going tonight. Maybe by starting Karma first. I hope to whip the script into a pineapple infusion once I've got some spare time.

Internet on Wireless AP -> Pineapple USB wifi -> Pineapple -> Pineapple AP now has internet access.

Edited July 31, 2012 by Isc

[unixmito]

I can see that happening, however the problem is that upon trying to run iwconfig or ifconfig to search for the card (I've used the Alfa card sent to me with the Pineapple and several other Atheros based cards) and it simply doesn't show up.

If anyone else has figured this out, it be most appreciated.

[PineDominator]

I can see that happening, however the problem is that upon trying to run iwconfig or ifconfig to search for the card (I've used the Alfa card sent to me with the Pineapple and several other Atheros based cards) and it simply doesn't show up.

If anyone else has figured this out, it be most appreciated.

I think I have been having this same issue since firmware 2.6.x, no one else has said anything the problem is not there when I go back to 2.5? I can unplug the alfa NHA and then plug back in for it to show up in iwconfig. does that work for you?

[unixmito]

Unfortunately it doesn't. I used the alfa, compile a usbreset program to renitialize the hardware.. went through lsusb out put.. used a Netgear WG11v2 and a TP-Link all with compatible chipsets. None of the decide to show up in any of the config options, nor do they show up as a device under /dev.

I will probably go to 2.5 if that's what it will take. I mean, they said wifi relay and I want my relay darnit! :o

Thank you very much for you input! If you find anything else please don't hesitate.