How to write a wireless sniffer?

NTDEV
1

Hello All,
I am new to wireless technology in windows.
I have to develope a wireless LAN (802.11.4) sniffer for windows.

To say accurately, I am trying to develope a ZIgbee protocol sniffer.
I don’t know how to start with it and what kind of driver should I go for.
As of now I know that I should go for a USB device and a client driver that
reads the raw data from the device.
I have prior experience in developing TDI drivers and little NDIS drivers
but don’t have experience in USB drivers.

Please suggest me which kind of driver should I go for and some information
about them.

Thanks,
Venkat.

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2

Mr. Venkat wrote:

I am new to wireless technology in windows.
I have to develope a wireless LAN (802.11.4) sniffer for windows.

Venkat,

If your hardware connects to the PC using USB, you will need
to write an NDIS-WDM driver - an NDIS driver that talks to the
Windows USB drivers on its lower edge. You shouldn’t need to
write any USB drivers.

Look at the ‘netvmini’ sample (in src\network\ndis\netvmini) in the DDK
for an example.

To say accurately, I am trying to develope a ZIgbee protocol sniffer.

Your device will have to pass all the control and management frames
to the host PC if you want to analyze them. This may need a firmware
change.

Regards,

  • Harshal
3

If you are going to write an ndis wdm driver I would strongly recommend
using KMDF. there is a sample in the KMDF 1.0 package that shows you
how to write one. It will greatly simplify your life in terms of
IRP/URB synchronization.

d

– I can spell, I just can’t type.

-----Original Message-----
From: xxxxx@lists.osr.com
[mailto:xxxxx@lists.osr.com] On Behalf Of Harshal Chhaya
Sent: Wednesday, April 26, 2006 8:58 AM
To: Windows System Software Devs Interest List
Subject: Re: [ntdev] How to write a wireless sniffer?

Mr. Venkat wrote:

I am new to wireless technology in windows.
I have to develope a wireless LAN (802.11.4) sniffer for windows.

Venkat,

If your hardware connects to the PC using USB, you will need
to write an NDIS-WDM driver - an NDIS driver that talks to the
Windows USB drivers on its lower edge. You shouldn’t need to
write any USB drivers.

Look at the ‘netvmini’ sample (in src\network\ndis\netvmini) in the DDK
for an example.

To say accurately, I am trying to develope a ZIgbee protocol sniffer.

Your device will have to pass all the control and management frames
to the host PC if you want to analyze them. This may need a firmware
change.

Regards,

  • Harshal

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4

“Mr. venkat” wrote in message news:xxxxx@ntdev…
> Hello All,
> I am new to wireless technology in windows.
> I have to develope a wireless LAN (802.11.4) sniffer for windows.

Well to begin with, Zigbee is 802.15.4.

Your next steps depend on what hardware you have.
If this is an “open” device or eval board that outputs raw packets, you don’t
need NDIS at all; make a usermode plugin for Ethereal.

All this, including USB part, can get too complex to finish the task in a reasonable time :frowning:

Good luck.
–PA