Time for action – creating a monitor mode interface

Let's now set our wireless adapter to monitor mode.

Follow these instructions to get started:

1. Boot Kali with your adapter connected. Once you are within the console, enter iwconfig to confirm that your card has been detected and the driver has been loaded properly:
   
2. Use the ifconfig wlan0 up command to bring the card up (where wlan0 is your adapter). Verify whether the card is up by running ifconfig wlan0. You should see the word UP in the first line of the output as shown in the following screenshot:
   
3. To put our card into monitor mode, we will use the airmon-ng utility that is available by default on Kali. First run the airmon-ng command to verify whether it detects the available cards. You should see the wlan0 or wlan1 interface listed in the output:
   
4. Now enter the airmon-ng start wlan0 command to create a monitor mode interface corresponding to the wlan0 device. This new monitor mode interface will be named wlan0mon. (You can verify if it has been created by running airmon-ng without arguments again):
   
5. Also, running ifconfig wlan0mon should now display a new interface called wlan0mon:
   

What just happened?

We have successfully created a monitor mode interface called wlan0mon. This interface will be used to sniff wireless packets off the air. This interface has been created for our wireless adapter.

Have a go hero – creating multiple monitor mode interfaces

It is possible to create multiple monitor mode interfaces using the same physical card. Use the airmon-ng utility to see how you can do this.

Awesome! We have a monitor mode interface just waiting to read some packets off the air. So let's get started.

In the next exercise, we will use Wireshark to sniff packets off the air using the wlan0mon monitor mode interface we just created.