Tutorial: Getting Started

New tutorial: http://aircrack-ng.org/doku.php?id=getting_started

Many people ask “How do I get started?”. This tutorial is intended to answer that question.

It is not intended to be a detailed “How To” tutorial, rather it is a road map to get you from where you are to the desired destination of using aircrack-ng. Once you get going, there is huge abundance of materials on the wiki describing the tools in great detail and tutorials for various tasks.

This tutorial is focused on linux. Yes, I realize that linux is a problem for many people. Unfortunately Microsoft Windows simply does a poor job supporting the aircrack-ng suite. This is primarily due to the proprietary nature of the operating system and wireless card drivers. See Tutorial: Aircrack-ng Suite under Windows for Dummies for more details. Bottom line, don't use the aircrack-ng suite under Windows. There is little or no support for it.

The basic process consists of three steps:

*
Determine the chipset in your wireless card
*
Determine which of the three options you will use to run the aircrack-ng suite
*
Get started using the aircrack-ng suite

The first step of determining the wireless card chipset is covered in the “Determining the Wireless Card Chipset” section below.

Next, you need to decide which of three options you will use to run the aircrack-ng suite. The three options are:

1.
Linux distribution of your choice plus the aircrack-ng suite
2.
Live CD which contains a version of the aircrack-ng suite
3.
VMWare image which contains a version of the aircrack-ng suite

There is a section below describing each option in more detail plus the advantages and disadvantages of each.

Finally, once you have aircrack-ng running, follow the “Using Aircrack-ng Suite” section below.

If you have problems, see the “Resources” section.

Please send me any constructive feedback, positive or negative.

Have fun!

d.