2009/01/17

Mac AirPort (WiFi) and "promiscuous mode"

Interesting; I'm not sure when it happened or whether it's due to hardware or software (my money's on the latter), however:

I can now use Wireshark to capture packets over the built-in AirPort in a MacBook!

The Model Identifier is "MacBook4,1"; it's 2.10GHz 13.3" White, Model Number MB402LL/A.

And I'm using Mac os X 10.5.6 now.

Last time I tried, was with a 15" MacBook Pro (I think it was a 2006 model) and an earlier version of 10.5.

Whatever the reason, it's nice that simply attempting to use Wireshark (or, likely, attempting "promiscuous mode" in general) no longer renders the AirPort connection totally deaf, requiring something like switching Locations to recover.

2 comments:

ross said...

hey Marc!
Strange for me to find your site when googling this issue. Did you end up getting a true promiscuous mode? I've been playing with the new release this morning and all I have gotten was seemingly network broadcast traffic. Oh well, back to the mines...

_Ross

Marcantonio Rendino said...

hey, ross! :)

yep; it really works - at least in my config; it may be dependent on the specific AirPort/WiFi chipset and/or the Apple driver - so YMMV. :)