How can I help the Mk V be more reliable

[lunokhod]

Hi Everybody,

I've been getting back into playing with my Wifi Pineapple Mk V in recent weeks.

I'd like some ideas on how I can improve the reliability of the Mk V for unattended use... in particular the "access point" running on wlan0. Also wondering if others have experienced my symptoms.

At the moment my Mk V is out in my car and it's connected to my works WiFi access point for internet connectivity using wlan2 (external Alfa radio), around 30 feet away.

I have MK V Karma and Pine AP running... as well as URL Snarf on br-lan... just to see what people are doing with the "Free WiFi" service they find. I'm using my Nexus 5 as a guinea pig too... it too is connected to "Free WiFi".

I get random devices connecting and I can see the log file in URL Snarf being updated.

But from time to time I see no updates in the URL Snarf log file. I check my phone and I find it's connected to the work WiFi, instead of "Free WiFi". I can see "Free WiFi" in the list of available access points on my Nexus 5 and it's plenty strong... but when I try to connect, it immediately fails. Other WiFi devices I have at work also fail when trying to connect.

A power reset seems to fix it... as does disabling/enabling radio0... but the fix does not "stick". It might work for a few hours... sometimes only 15 minutes. Today it's happened two times in the last three hours. I think a five hour stretch of "uptime" a few days ago was the record.

What can I do to make the Mk 5 access point more reliable?? I'd like the confidence to be able to leave it all day... "gathering information".

Lunokhod.

Edited November 18, 2014 by lunokhod

[newbi3]

Are you sure your connected to your work wifi or is your pineapple and you just think its your work wifi?

[lunokhod]

Are you sure your connected to your work wifi or is your pineapple and you just think its your work wifi?

Oh yes. It's connected to my work WiFi access point. I can access the WiFi Pineapple from a computer inside the network on the IP address assigned by the main routers DHCP server.

I don't have an issue with the wlan2 radio and it's connection to work.. it's the WiFi Pineapples own access point on wlan0/radio0 that seems to act up.

[dvarapala]

I'm seeing similar issues. For unknown reasons the Karma AP on wlan0 will vector off into la-la land after some apparently random period of time (could be minutes, could be hours). Once it goes south, probes are no longer reported in the Karma log and devices can no longer connect to the AP. Rebooting the Pineapple restores normal functionality for another variable period of time until the next failure occurs. Generally my Pineapple sits in my office running 24/7, but I also take it out for a WarWalk about once per day, so the power cycles associated with that activity help to avoid the issue. However, as things currently stand, my Mark V is unusable for long-term unattended deployments.

[lunokhod]

OK... time for an update.

I've updated to v2.1.1 and am having a mostly successful time with Karma/PineAP/etc.

I am still experiencing issues with wlan0 not accepting connections after some hours of continual PineAP operation. Once again at work with the MkV in my car, connected to the work WiFi for connectivity.

I see the Auto Harvester doing it's thing, Dogma is advertising fake hotspots, I see clients connecting, I see traffic in URL Snarf... and then after some time (maybe a couple of hours), things go quiet.

I can see the Dogma created "honeypot" access points on my Nexus 5 phone... but when I try to connect, it doesn't work... the connection fails. I also cannot connect to the fixed Open Access Point or Secure Management Access Point

As before a power cycle or a disable/enable wlan0 will fix the problem.

I've tried a minimalist Mk V setup, removing all extraneous infusions but this does not seem to help. I wouldn't have thought that the amount of WiFi traffic around where I work would be stressing out the Mk V's resources.

Any others seen this behavior?