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Aircrack-ng: WiFi security Auditing Tools Suite

,   and  Dark Web Informer
10 min read

GitHub Link: https://github.com/aircrack-ng/aircrack-ng
Website: https://aircrack-ng.org/
Last Commit: August 22nd, 2024

Description

Aircrack-ng is a complete suite of tools to assess WiFi network security.

It focuses on different areas of WiFi security:

  • Monitoring: Packet capture and export of data to text files for further processing by third party tools.
  • Attacking: Replay attacks, deauthentication, fake access points and others via packet injection.
  • Testing: Checking WiFi cards and driver capabilities (capture and injection).
  • Cracking: WEP and WPA PSK (WPA 1 and 2).

All tools are command line which allows for heavy scripting. A lot of GUIs have taken advantage of this feature. It works primarily on Linux but also Windows, macOS, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, as well as Solaris and even eComStation 2.

Building

Requirements

  • Autoconf
  • Automake
  • Libtool
  • shtool
  • OpenSSL development package or libgcrypt development package.
  • Airmon-ng (Linux) requires ethtool, usbutils, and often pciutils.
  • On Windows, cygwin has to be used and it also requires w32api package.
  • On Windows, if using clang, libiconv and libiconv-devel
  • Linux: LibNetlink 1 or 3. It can be disabled by passing --disable-libnl to configure.
  • pkg-config (pkgconf on FreeBSD, DragonFlyBSD, OpenBSD and NetBSD)
  • FreeBSD, DragonFlyBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, Solaris and OS X with Macports: gmake
  • Linux/Cygwin: make and Standard C++ Library development package (Debian: libstdc++-dev)

Note: Airmon-ng only requires pciutils if the system has a PCI/PCIe bus and it is populated. Such bus can be present even if not physically visible. For example, it is present, and populated on the Raspberry Pi 4, therefore pciutils is required on that device.

Optional stuff

  • If you want SSID filtering with regular expression in airodump-ng (--essid-regex) PCRE or PCRE2 development package is required.
  • If you want to use airolib-ng and '-r' option in aircrack-ng, SQLite development package >= 3.3.17 (3.6.X version or better is recommended)
  • If you want to use Airpcap, the 'developer' directory from the CD/ISO/SDK is required.
  • In order to build besside-ng, besside-ng-crawler, easside-ng, tkiptun-ng and wesside-ng, libpcap development package is required (on Cygwin, use the Airpcap SDK instead; see above)
  • rfkill
  • If you want Airodump-ng to log GPS coordinates, gpsd is needed
  • For best performance on SMP machines, ensure the hwloc library and headers are installed. It is strongly recommended on high core count systems, it may give a serious speed boost
  • CMocka and expect for testing
  • For integration testing on Linux only: tcpdump, HostAPd, WPA Supplicant and screen

Installing required and optional dependencies

Below are instructions for installing the basic requirements to build aircrack-ng for a number of operating systems.

Note: CMocka, tcpdump, screen, HostAPd and WPA Supplicant should not be dependencies when packaging Aircrack-ng.

Linux

Arch Linux

sudo pacman -Sy base-devel libnl openssl ethtool util-linux zlib libpcap sqlite pcre2 hwloc cmocka hostapd wpa_supplicant tcpdump screen iw usbutils pciutils expect

Debian/Ubuntu

sudo apt-get install build-essential autoconf automake libtool pkg-config libnl-3-dev libnl-genl-3-dev libssl-dev ethtool shtool rfkill zlib1g-dev libpcap-dev libsqlite3-dev libpcre2-dev libhwloc-dev libcmocka-dev hostapd wpasupplicant tcpdump screen iw usbutils expect

Fedora

sudo yum install libtool pkgconfig sqlite-devel autoconf automake openssl-devel libpcap-devel pcre2-devel rfkill libnl3-devel gcc gcc-c++ ethtool hwloc-devel libcmocka-devel make file expect hostapd wpa_supplicant iw usbutils tcpdump screen zlib-devel expect

CentOS/RHEL 7

sudo yum install epel-release
sudo ./centos_autotools.sh
# Remove older installation of automake/autoconf
sudo yum remove autoconf automake
sudo yum install sqlite-devel openssl-devel libpcap-devel pcre2-devel rfkill libnl3-devel ethtool hwloc-devel libcmocka-devel make file expect hostapd wpa_supplicant iw usbutils tcpdump screen zlib-devel

Note: autoconf, automake, libtool, and pkgconfig in the repositories are too old. The script centos_autotools.sh automatically installs dependencies to compile then install the tools.

CentOS/RHEL 8

sudo yum config-manager --set-enabled powertools
sudo yum install epel-release
sudo yum install libtool pkgconfig sqlite-devel autoconf automake openssl-devel libpcap-devel pcre2-devel rfkill libnl3-devel gcc gcc-c++ ethtool hwloc-devel libcmocka-devel make file expect hostapd wpa_supplicant iw usbutils tcpdump screen zlib-devel

openSUSE

sudo zypper install autoconf automake libtool pkg-config libnl3-devel libopenssl-1_1-devel zlib-devel libpcap-devel sqlite3-devel pcre2-devel hwloc-devel libcmocka-devel hostapd wpa_supplicant tcpdump screen iw gcc-c++ gcc ethtool pciutils usbutils expect

Mageia

sudo urpmi autoconf automake libtool pkgconfig libnl3-devel libopenssl-devel zlib-devel libpcap-devel sqlite3-devel pcre2-devel hwloc-devel libcmocka-devel hostapd wpa_supplicant tcpdump screen iw gcc-c++ gcc make expect

Alpine

sudo apk add gcc g++ make autoconf automake libtool libnl3-dev openssl-dev ethtool libpcap-dev cmocka-dev hostapd wpa_supplicant tcpdump screen iw pkgconf util-linux sqlite-dev pcre2-dev linux-headers zlib-dev pciutils usbutils expect

Note: Community repository needs to be enabled for iw

Clear Linux

sudo swupd bundle-add c-basic devpkg-openssl devpkg-libgcrypt devpkg-libnl devpkg-hwloc devpkg-libpcap devpkg-pcre2 devpkg-sqlite-autoconf ethtool wget network-basic software-testing sysadmin-basic wpa_supplicant os-testsuite

Note: hostapd must be compiled manually, it is not present in the repository

BSD

FreeBSD

pkg install pkgconf shtool libtool gcc9 automake autoconf pcre2 sqlite3 openssl gmake hwloc cmocka

DragonflyBSD

pkg install pkgconf shtool libtool gcc8 automake autoconf pcre2 sqlite3 libgcrypt gmake cmocka

OpenBSD

pkg_add pkgconf shtool libtool gcc automake autoconf pcre2 sqlite3 openssl gmake cmocka

NetBSD

pkg_add pkgconf libtool gcc7 automake autoconf pcre2 sqlite3 openssl gmake cmocka

macOS

XCode, Xcode command line tools and HomeBrew are required.

brew install autoconf automake libtool openssl shtool pkg-config hwloc pcre2 sqlite3 libpcap cmocka

Windows

Cygwin

Cygwin requires the full path to the setup.exe utility, in order to automate the installation of the necessary packages. In addition, it requires the location of your installation, a path to the cached packages download location, and a mirror URL.

An example of automatically installing all the dependencies is as follows:

c:\cygwin\setup-x86.exe -qnNdO -R C:/cygwin -s http://cygwin.mirror.constant.com -l C:/cygwin/var/cache/setup -P autoconf -P automake -P bison -P gcc-core -P gcc-g++ -P mingw-runtime -P mingw-binutils -P mingw-gcc-core -P mingw-gcc-g++ -P mingw-pthreads -P mingw-w32api -P libtool -P make -P python -P gettext-devel -P gettext -P intltool -P libiconv -P pkg-config -P git -P wget -P curl -P libpcre2-devel -P libssl-devel -P libsqlite3-devel

MSYS2

pacman -Sy autoconf automake-wrapper libtool msys2-w32api-headers msys2-w32api-runtime gcc pkg-config git python openssl-devel openssl libopenssl msys2-runtime-devel gcc binutils make pcre2-devel libsqlite-devel

GNU/Hurd

Debian

apt-get install build-essential autoconf automake libtool pkg-config libssl-dev shtool zlib1g-dev libpcap-dev libsqlite3-dev libpcre2-dev libhwloc-dev libcmocka-dev screen expect libbsd-dev

Docker containers

We have two repositories on DockerHub:

Base command for the git version:

sudo docker run --rm -it aircrackng/git

Available platforms/CPU architectures:

  • linux/386 (base image: debian:unstable-slim)
  • linux/amd64 (base image: debian:unstable-slim)
  • linux/arm/v5 (base image: debian:unstable-slim)
  • linux/arm/v6 (base image: alpine:3)
  • linux/arm/v7 (base image: debian:unstable-slim)
  • linux/arm64/v8 (base image: debian:unstable-slim)
  • linux/mips64le (base image: debian:unstable-slim)
  • linux/ppc64le (base image: debian:unstable-slim)
  • linux/riscv64 (base image: debian:unstable-slim)
  • linux/s390x (base image: debian:unstable-slim)

Compiling

To build aircrack-ng, the Autotools build system is utilized. Autotools replaces the older method of compilation.

NOTE: If utilizing a developer version, eg: one checked out from source control, you will need to run a pre-configure script. The script to use is one of the following: autoreconf -i or env NOCONFIGURE=1 ./autogen.sh.

First, ./configure the project for building with the appropriate options specified for your environment:

./configure <options>

TIP: If the above fails, please see above about developer source control versions.

Next, compile the project (respecting if make or gmake is needed):

  • Compilation:make
  • Compilation on *BSD or Solaris:gmake

Finally, the additional targets listed below may be of use in your environment:

  • Execute all unit testing:make check
  • Execute all integration testing (requires root):make integration
  • Installing:make install
  • Uninstall:make uninstall

./configure flags

When configuring, the following flags can be used and combined to adjust the suite to your choosing:

  • with-airpcap=DIR: needed for supporting airpcap devices on Windows (Cygwin or MSYS2 only). Replace DIR above with the absolute location to the root of the extracted source code from the Airpcap CD or downloaded SDK available online. Required on Windows to build besside-ng, besside-ng-crawler, easside-ng, tkiptun-ng and wesside-ng when building experimental tools. The developer pack (Compatible with version 4.1.1 and 4.1.3) can be downloaded at https://support.riverbed.com/content/support/software/steelcentral-npm/airpcap.html
  • with-experimental: needed to compile tkiptun-ng, easside-ng, buddy-ng, buddy-ng-crawler, airventriloquist and wesside-ng. libpcap development package is also required to compile most of the tools. If not present, not all experimental tools will be built. On Cygwin, libpcap is not present and the Airpcap SDK replaces it. See --with-airpcap option above.
  • with-ext-scripts: needed to build airoscript-ng, versuck-ng, airgraph-ng and airdrop-ng. Note: Each script has its own dependencies.
  • with-gcrypt: Use libgcrypt crypto library instead of the default OpenSSL. And also use internal fast sha1 implementation (borrowed from GIT). Dependency (Debian): libgcrypt20-dev
  • with-duma: Compile with DUMA support. DUMA is a library to detect buffer overruns and underruns. Dependency (Debian): duma
  • disable-libnl: Set up the project to be compiled without libnl (1 or 3). Linux option only.
  • without-opt: Do not enable -O3 optimizations.
  • enable-shared: Make OSdep a shared library.
  • disable-shared: When combined with enable-static, it will statically compile Aircrack-ng.
  • with-avx512: On x86, add support for AVX512 instructions in aircrack-ng. Only use it when the current CPU supports AVX512.
  • with-static-simd=: Compile a single optimization in aircrack-ng binary. Useful when compiling statically and/or for space-constrained devices. Valid SIMD options: x86-sse2, x86-avx, x86-avx2, x86-avx512, ppc-altivec, ppc-power8, arm-neon, arm-asimd. Must be used with --enable-static --disable-shared. When using those 2 options, the default is to compile the generic optimization in the binary. --with-static-simd merely allows to choose another one.
  • enable-maintainer-mode: It is important to enable this flag when developing with Aircrack-ng. This flag enables additional compile warnings and safety features.

Examples:

  • Installing:make install
  • Installing (strip binaries):make install-strip

Compiling and debugging aircrack-ng

export CFLAGS='-O0 -g'
export CXXFLAGS='-O0 -g'
./configure --with-experimental --enable-maintainer-mode --without-opt
make
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=.libs gdb --args ./aircrack-ng [PARAMETERS]

Compiling on OpenBSD (with autoconf 2.69 and automake 1.16)

export AUTOCONF_VERSION=2.69
export AUTOMAKE_VERSION=1.16
autoreconf -i
env MAKE=gmake CC=cc CXX=c++ ./configure
gmake

Compiling on DragonflyBSD with gcrypt using GCC 8

autoreconf -i
env CC=gcc8 CXX=g++8 MAKE=gmake ./configure --with-experimental --with-gcrypt
gmake

Compiling on Cygwin with Airpcap (assuming Airpcap devpack is unpacked in Aircrack-ng directory)

cp -vfp Airpcap_Devpack/bin/x86/airpcap.dll src
cp -vfp Airpcap_Devpack/bin/x86/airpcap.dll src/aircrack-osdep
cp -vfp Airpcap_Devpack/bin/x86/airpcap.dll src/aircrack-crypto
cp -vfp Airpcap_Devpack/bin/x86/airpcap.dll src/aircrack-util
dlltool -D Airpcap_Devpack/bin/x86/airpcap.dll -d build/airpcap.dll.def -l Airpcap_Devpack/bin/x86/libairpcap.dll.a
autoreconf -i
./configure --with-experimental --with-airpcap=$(pwd)
make

Compiling on FreeBSD with gcc9

env CC=gcc9 CXX=g++9 MAKE=gmake ./configure
gmake

Compiling on OS X 10.10 with XCode 7.1 and Homebrew:

env CC=gcc-4.9 CXX=g++-4.9 ./configure
make
make check

NOTE: Older XCode ships with a version of LLVM that does not support CPU feature detection; which causes the ./configure to fail. To work around this older LLVM, it is required that a different compile suite is used, such as GCC or a newer LLVM from Homebrew.If you wish to use OpenSSL from Homebrew, you may need to specify the location to its installation. To figure out where OpenSSL lives, run:brew --prefix opensslUse the output above as the DIR for --with-openssl=DIR in the ./configure line:

env CC=gcc-4.9 CXX=g++-4.9 ./configure --with-openssl=DIR
make
make check

Compiling on macOS running on M1/AARCH64 and Homebrew:

autoreconf -vif
env CPPFLAGS="-Wno-deprecated-declarations" ./configure --with-experimental
make
make check

Compiling on OS X with macports (and all options):

./configure --with-experimental
gmake

Testing (with sqlite, experimental and pcre2)

./configure --with-experimental
make
make check

Installing, with external scripts:

./configure --with-experimental --with-ext-scripts
make
make install

Compiling with gcrypt:

./configure --with-gcrypt
make

Configure and compiling:

./configure --with-experimental
make

IDE development

VS Code - devcontainers

A VS Code development environment is provided, as is, for rapid setup of a development environment. This additionally adds support for GitHub Codespaces.

Requirements

The first requirement is a working Docker Engine environment.

Next, an installation of VS Code with the following extension(s):

The "Remote - Containers" extension will refuse to work with OSS Code.

Usage

  1. Clone this repository to your working folder:
$ git clone --recursive https://github.com/aircrack-ng/aircrack-ng.git
$ cd aircrack-ng
  1. After cloning this repository, open the folder inside VS Code.
$ code .
IMPORTANT: You should answer "Yes", if it asks if the folder should be opened inside a remote container. If it does not ask, then press Ctrl+Shift+P and type open in container. This should bring up the correct command, for which pressing enter will run said command.
  1. A number of warnings might appear about a missing compile_commands.json file. These are safe to ignore for a moment, as this file is automatically generated after the initial compilation.
  2. Now build the entire project by pressing Ctrl+R and selecting Build Full from the pop-up menu that appears.
  3. VS Code should detect the compile_commands.json file and ask if it should be used; selecting "Yes, always" will complete the initial setup of a fully working IDE.
IMPORTANT: If it doesn't detect the file, pressing Ctrl+Shift+P and typing reload window will bring up the selection to fully reload the environment.
  1. At this point, nearly all features of VS Code will function; from Intellisense, auto-completion, live documentation, to code formatting. Additionally, there are pre-configured tasks for builds and tests, as well as an example GDB/LLDB configuration for debugging aircrack-ng.

Packaging

Automatic detection of CPU optimization is done at run time. This behavior is desirable when packaging Aircrack-ng (for a Linux or other distribution.)

Also, in some cases it may be desired to provide your own flags completely and not having the suite auto-detect a number of optimizations. To do this, add the additional flag --without-opt to the ./configure line:

./configure --without-opt

Using pre-compiled binaries

Linux/BSD

Aircrack-ng is available in most distributions repositories. However, it is not always up-to-date.

Windows

  • Install the appropriate "monitor" driver for your card; standard drivers don't work for capturing data.
  • Aircrack-ng suite is command line tools. So, you have to open a command-line Start menu -> Run... -> cmd.exe then use them
  • Run the executables without any parameters to have help

Documentation

Some more information is present in the README file.

Documentation, tutorials, ... can be found on https://aircrack-ng.org

Support is available in the GitHub Discussions and on IRC (in #aircrack-ng on Libera Chat).

Every tool has its own manpage. For aircrack-ng, man aircrack-ng

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