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[WIFI] Can I capture more that one channel per wifi Device

Hi Guys,

I would like to capture traffic in monitor mode on all wifi channels but when I try to do this with just one wifi device by creating new capture filters, I only get duplicate channel data when I select teh channel from the drop down menu.

Is this a physical limitation of the device and would I essentially need an array of wifi devices to capture each channel? This sounds expensive!

Thanks in advance.

ASGR's avatar
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ASGR
asked 2021-03-20 18:47:31 +0000
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2 Answers

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One radio == one channel, so no, you cannot capture more than one channel per device at the same time.

You would need one device for each channel you want to capture on, in general, so you could end up with an array that looks like a porcupine of antennas. But do you really need to capture on all channels at the same time? There are other constraints or strategies that come in to play or can be used to limit the problem. If you can get away with only sampling the channels, cycle through the channels as you capture. If you need all traffic to troubleshoot problems, maybe the device is only 2.4GHz, so in FCC region you would only need to capture 3 channels: 1,6, and 11. If you are on 5GHz with no DFS, that could be 9 channels. Hopefully, you can find some other ways to limit the amount of work to do. Note also that WiFi does not go that far; so for a given capture system to see ALL these channels at the same time, in close proximity with high signal strength of devices, would be unusual.

Bob Jones's avatar
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Bob Jones
answered 2021-03-21 11:58:21 +0000
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There is some discussion of channel hopping in this Wireshark question.

Or maybe a #WiFiCactus?

Chuckc's avatar Chuckc (2021-03-21 15:32:09 +0000) edit

Damn, Something like that but smaller! As Bob mentioned, can I just get away with 3 radio devices? I'd like to capture the highest resolution for a Big Data project.

ASGR's avatar ASGR (2021-08-04 22:53:24 +0000) edit
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Thanks for your reply Bob,

I'm trying to track the activity of DOS wireless attackers in my neighbourhood. I've been monitoring channel 6 in the 2.4 frequency for the last few months but activity has jumped between channels. I've seen (wireshark) hundreds of deauth packets flooding the channel in a quiet neighbourhood with minimal traffic so it's beyond reasonable doubt!

I'd like to scan as many channels simultaneously at the highest resolution. I'd like to know the exact source and destination of the packets as well as the content.

Is this possible with a few adaptors or do I need a full channel spread?

Thanks.

ASGR's avatar
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ASGR
answered 2021-07-22 00:36:10 +0000
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