Help With Uber Stumbleing Setup.

Madhadder · 12-26-2002

Hello All,

I was just thinking of a way to setup one hell of a stumbleing
setup for a friends van.

Idealy I would like to have 4 PC's running Kismet, with various
setups possible. such as:

Pc1: 802.11b Patch/Sector Antt. Covering Left Side
Pc2: 802.11b Patch/Sector Antt. Covering Right Side
Pc3: 802.11a/g Patch/Sector Antt. Covering Left Side
Pc4: 802.11a/g Patch/Sector Antt. Covering Right Side
Or some other kinda of Antt/Freq/802.11x setup.

In Addition to the 4 PC's there would be one central server
running GPSMAP/MYSQL for moving map displays and storage
of the AP/GPS location Info from the other 4PC's.

My questions for your Wifi/Kismet Masters are:

1. Would I be able to setup Kismet on the Pc's to access
GPS location data from a central server (This way only
1 GPS Reciever/Antt is required) instead of the local
serial port?

2. Get the 4 Pc's to all log theior date to one central Kismet/SQL
server?

3. When looking through the setup do you see any problems with
it that would cause it not to work. Is this setup even possible??

kleptophobiac · 12-26-2002

1) Yes
2) Yes
3) No, but I could make it better.

1A) You can tell GPSD which port to send its data to, and then you can forward that port on your machine out onto your network. I don't remember the procedure for doing this, but at least now you know what to look for.

2A) Set up a time server, and set all your clients look for their time their upon boot. Go to linux diaries for an entry on how to do this.

3A) Why the hell would you want four computers?

If I were you, I'd mount four omni antennas with 90 brackets behind them, so you get the advantage of the groundplane effect from the metal roof for an extra 3 db of gain, and you save a pretty penny. Then run the outputs to four 10db to 20 db recieve amps (can be built easily and cheaply, the expense comes in when you need to make it bidirectional) and then hook that into a 4:1 divider, and run that all into one computer that does all the sniffing. Use a cisco card so you have hardware channel hopping, and make damn sure its in passive mode, as transmission would kill (or damage severely) the recieve amps unless they hae overload protection.

One computer is all that is necessary for this. Use a dual head video card so you can have a map on one screen that the driver can reference, and the other running to a big monitor or projector with all the wardriving data, such as ethereal, kismet, and airsnort.

Also make sure you bolt everything down good, and it would be ideal if you could make the whole system solid state, so as to avoid damage to things like fans and hard drives. A laptop would be good, because they are already rather shock resistant... but you could mount a laptop HDD into a 5.25" drive bay, using rubber bands for shock absorption. Ideally, you would boot from a high speed, 512MB or 1GB compact flash drive, then bumps wouldn't mean a darn thing. Use a light distro, and you could run it on a C3 or celeron, which you could cool completely passively. Be sure to use a heatsink that won't move around, even if its overkill. The slk-800 or alpha pal8045 would be good, because they have great mounting, but may not work on socket 370. If you need more juice, get a P4 2.0 or less (must be northwood) and put a huge freaking sink on it, and lower the voltage below 1.2v. You could get away with no fan. Your could take a 250 watt supply if your machine is sufficiently low power (which a celery or c3 box would be, especially with no moving parts) and put some big heatsinks on anything that gets warm, and then rip out the PSU fan.

The result would be a totally solid state computer that is also completely silent, and resistant to abuse. Put the whole thing in a high quality steel box, and mount it to the van. Consider building it yourself, as a guarantee of workmanship.

Anyway, hope this post was helpful.

Madhadder · 12-27-2002

Thanks for the info...

The reason for having 4 Pc's + 1Server is to limit the possible
breaking points/problems that are found when using Apms/Splitters..

As for the PC's They are Industral SBC Boards with Notebook
Hd's, already shock/bump protected.

kleptophobiac · 12-27-2002

A passive recieve amp (no switching) would be able to increase your penetration greatly, by pulling signals up past the threshold of your PCMCIA card. You may also want to look into a band pass filter, so you don't overload your cards with crap like FM radio and television.

12-26-2002	#1 (permalink)
Madhadder General "Noob Basher" Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Munich, Germany Posts: 1,620	Help With Uber Stumbleing Setup. Hello All, I was just thinking of a way to setup one hell of a stumbleing setup for a friends van. Idealy I would like to have 4 PC's running Kismet, with various setups possible. such as: Pc1: 802.11b Patch/Sector Antt. Covering Left Side Pc2: 802.11b Patch/Sector Antt. Covering Right Side Pc3: 802.11a/g Patch/Sector Antt. Covering Left Side Pc4: 802.11a/g Patch/Sector Antt. Covering Right Side Or some other kinda of Antt/Freq/802.11x setup. In Addition to the 4 PC's there would be one central server running GPSMAP/MYSQL for moving map displays and storage of the AP/GPS location Info from the other 4PC's. My questions for your Wifi/Kismet Masters are: 1. Would I be able to setup Kismet on the Pc's to access GPS location data from a central server (This way only 1 GPS Reciever/Antt is required) instead of the local serial port? 2. Get the 4 Pc's to all log theior date to one central Kismet/SQL server? 3. When looking through the setup do you see any problems with it that would cause it not to work. Is this setup even possible??

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12-26-2002	#2 (permalink)
kleptophobiac Registered Member Join Date: Sep 2002 Posts: 310	1) Yes 2) Yes 3) No, but I could make it better. 1A) You can tell GPSD which port to send its data to, and then you can forward that port on your machine out onto your network. I don't remember the procedure for doing this, but at least now you know what to look for. 2A) Set up a time server, and set all your clients look for their time their upon boot. Go to linux diaries for an entry on how to do this. 3A) Why the hell would you want four computers? If I were you, I'd mount four omni antennas with 90 brackets behind them, so you get the advantage of the groundplane effect from the metal roof for an extra 3 db of gain, and you save a pretty penny. Then run the outputs to four 10db to 20 db recieve amps (can be built easily and cheaply, the expense comes in when you need to make it bidirectional) and then hook that into a 4:1 divider, and run that all into one computer that does all the sniffing. Use a cisco card so you have hardware channel hopping, and make damn sure its in passive mode, as transmission would kill (or damage severely) the recieve amps unless they hae overload protection. One computer is all that is necessary for this. Use a dual head video card so you can have a map on one screen that the driver can reference, and the other running to a big monitor or projector with all the wardriving data, such as ethereal, kismet, and airsnort. Also make sure you bolt everything down good, and it would be ideal if you could make the whole system solid state, so as to avoid damage to things like fans and hard drives. A laptop would be good, because they are already rather shock resistant... but you could mount a laptop HDD into a 5.25" drive bay, using rubber bands for shock absorption. Ideally, you would boot from a high speed, 512MB or 1GB compact flash drive, then bumps wouldn't mean a darn thing. Use a light distro, and you could run it on a C3 or celeron, which you could cool completely passively. Be sure to use a heatsink that won't move around, even if its overkill. The slk-800 or alpha pal8045 would be good, because they have great mounting, but may not work on socket 370. If you need more juice, get a P4 2.0 or less (must be northwood) and put a huge freaking sink on it, and lower the voltage below 1.2v. You could get away with no fan. Your could take a 250 watt supply if your machine is sufficiently low power (which a celery or c3 box would be, especially with no moving parts) and put some big heatsinks on anything that gets warm, and then rip out the PSU fan. The result would be a totally solid state computer that is also completely silent, and resistant to abuse. Put the whole thing in a high quality steel box, and mount it to the van. Consider building it yourself, as a guarantee of workmanship. Anyway, hope this post was helpful.

12-27-2002	#3 (permalink)
Madhadder General "Noob Basher" Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Munich, Germany Posts: 1,620	Thanks for the info... The reason for having 4 Pc's + 1Server is to limit the possible breaking points/problems that are found when using Apms/Splitters.. As for the PC's They are Industral SBC Boards with Notebook Hd's, already shock/bump protected.

12-27-2002	#4 (permalink)
kleptophobiac Registered Member Join Date: Sep 2002 Posts: 310	A passive recieve amp (no switching) would be able to increase your penetration greatly, by pulling signals up past the threshold of your PCMCIA card. You may also want to look into a band pass filter, so you don't overload your cards with crap like FM radio and television.