red light not coming on

[flonkyplonk]

Guys,

I'm calling this as I see it - the pineapple is not fit for purpose?

We had some penetration testers in. They just sat there looking like idiots for an hour, trying again and again to get a simple Mitm attack going. I'd bought mine nearly a year before that and thrown it in a cupboard because after days of trying to get it working I just ran into too many issues, and too little guidance.

So I get it out two days ago, finally get it on the latest firmware (Three attempts, three factory resets required).

Wow, it looks like it's working - I have airodump on ssh FINALLY listening to beacons (Which is all I want it do do) I go to bed and it falls over within minutes (it found two MAC addresses as I went to bed - eight hours later, it's clearly locked up within minutes of me leaving it, still showing only two mac addresses, but the SSH tunnel has hung.

Now, an hour into my sunday morning, three reboots, and the red light has yet to come on. Yep, that happens

pretty much every other time - the wifi adapter wont even start. EVERY.OTHER.TIME.

So, why aren't my problems on this forum, is this place just acres of astroturf?

OK, I'll try and calm down, but5 seriously hak5 wtf is wrong with this thing?

[flonkyplonk]

OK, Have calmed down somewhat :-) (not much)

It's obvious Hak5 do care about their customers, and the support is generally excellent (eg, there was an issue with my battery charger combination as shipped - Hak5 sent me all new stuff free of charge to the UK within a few days. That was seriously impressive care.)

Also, the posts on this forum are great.

Anyway, I can only post twice a day(!) so I just wanted to use this to expand upon my rage post earlier and ask if there is a way to reset the mark v without taking it back to factory rom (1.20?). What's killing me is that after twelve hours hell yesterday just getting the system rom up to date, if it turns out the ONLY way to get this thing reset is to drag it ALLLLLL the way back to 1.20 and then update it every time I have an issue, then I'm going to give up on this hardware altogether. I so don't want to have to do that.

So, (TLDR lol) can I use the dip switches to reset to the current ROM, without having to go back to 1.20?

Thanks in advance guys.

[Primz]

Ok il bite. I agree and disagree some what with your post. Yes the Mark V does have some set backs I agree but I would not say it's not fit for purpose at all. Anything done on a pineapple you can do in Kali so why your pentesters are sitting there with a wifi pineapple trying to laugh a MITM attack is a bit silly IMO but again is more than capable with a wifi pineapple but wouldn't have picked it for a pentest tool myself.

Also what ever issues your having with the pineapple just search the forums or google and of still not got an answer then post a thread about your issue and I'm sure someone here will be able to help or point you in the right direction.

If all else fails go onto the IRC chat room and ask questions (in the appropriate room of course)

Personally my 2 cents I think the pineapple is a funky piece of kit and yeah while the infusion bar is lacking somewhat in updated infusions I still think the pineapple has some lead in it's pencil yet.

Bottom line mate just speak to the community about the issues your having with the pineapple and if any of us can help we will or if there is a internal or software fault on the pineapple the Hak5 team will replace it.

Together we stand strong - alone we stand confused

Hope it works out for you dude

[Primz]

Also try to reflash and unbrick the pineapple.

https://www.wifipineapple.com/?flashing

Hopefully might work after that. Let us know how u get on

[flonkyplonk]

Primz, Thanks man for the instructions on unbricking to the latest firmware. I hadn't noticed that guidance online before. Useful info. Sorts my issue with rolling back to factory ROM every time this thing screws up (pretty much every time I try to do ANYTHING)

I'm gonna fill in some blanks so anyone searching against this issue has a bit more intel...

So, I'm trying to attach it in client mode to an apple airport wifi AP (2.4ghz, 802.11b compatible setting) the AP is working in Bridge mode, I guess that may be causing issues because the Mark5 is utterly unreachable (have nmaped the network segment and nothing shows up on port 1471. I'm guessing it is still set to 147.etc even though I set it to take DHCP off my server on the wire. The sad thing is, even as I did this and rebooted, I knew already that the effing thing was gonna disappear off the wire. Because, y'know, thirty times bitten.... It's now unreachable. Again. And needs to be 'unbricked' Again.

I'll be honest here, this thing has never done anything for more than five minutes or so. On a good day, if it's just running, it will stay up. If I try and run an infusion, or something on the CLI, it's been 100 pc failure rate. EVERY time I come back to check the results it's either mute or hung.

I'm using a macbook pro without an ethernet adapter, which is a major ballache as every time this thing F's up I can't just attach it and config on the wire. The MBP means I have to re-subnet my entire home network and attach this thing to a switch.

I honestly think I've had enough. I'm boxing it and will see what happens. I have a wifi card in an Ubuntu Server that I use for network monitoring with Bro-IDS, It's had five nines availability since day one. This thing? .... five 1's... I'll work with Linux and forget I ever bought this thing. Going forwards I will be building a Snoopy drone instead for my mobile needs.

For future reference, the guidance online for this is atrocious. The FAQ needs to be substantially enlarged. The pineapple desperately needs a manual and perhaps a little more focus on the CLI. This is a shame as the community and online support for this thing are otherwise God-tier.

Nah, had enough. You guys all rock, sorry to be so negative, but I've poured weeks of my life into this thing and feel a sucker. If anyone has any actually useful troubleshooting steps, or pointers for optimum reliability, I'm all ears, and will reply.

[Primz]

Mate to be fair your trying to do all at once brake it back to basics.

I'm not a Mac user at all and never will be so I can't help or offer any advice there but if you have a Linux box or windows box then try set it up there and see if you have better luck as for windows it's pretty much out the box, insert SD, allow network sharing and the set up your pineapple password and your off.

Same with Linux really although you have to run the wp5 script but that's pretty straight forward.

Also always connect to the pineapple in Ethernet and make sure your in classic mode not client mode.

Again to give it another shot follow the unbricking wiki link and if that don't work try the guys in IRC and I'm sure they will be able to help.

If all else fails turn it into a war driver ;)

[flonkyplonk]

Thanks for the response mate,

So, (sorry couldnt post for a while)

OK, So things have improved alot. I have had it running airodump for around 7 hours now and it's solid as a rock.

TBH, most of the issues I was coming up against were my own! (You might have guessed that from the tone) I have little experience recently with subnetting and routing and the WiPi (I just invented that name, put a cheque in the post, Hak5) so that's where I came unstuck. I'm still struggling with dropping it into my network but I can't seriously cliam thats a problem with the device at all!

Yeah, I'll say this thing is pretty great. It's brilliant that it has the web interface but I would definitely urge anyone in similar position to me to just try and run stuff from the terminal over SSH.

Also, I put in a new Type 10 SD card, that is definitely an essential step.

Also, I OPKG installed tmux terminal emulation, which allows me to set up a virtual terminal and not lose CMD line tools whenever the SSH connection drops.

[Primz]

Glad to hear you got it to where it needs to be in the end mate.

Remember any more issues, don't be a stranger.