That explains it. Yes, I was not using promiscuous mode with nmap, but I was
with Ethereal. Without promiscuous mode, Ethereal works fine now on my wifi.
And thanks for the explanation of libpcap/WinPcap!
----- Original Message -----
From: "Guy Harris" <gharris@xxxxxxxxx>
To: "Ethereal user support" <ethereal-users@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, May 14, 2005 1:14 PM
Subject: Re: [Ethereal-users] Using Ethereal on an Intel Centrino WiFi card
> Keefe Johnson wrote:
> > I have a Dell Inspiron 500m with an Intel 2100 3A MiniPCI WiFi Adapter.
> > I also have a cabled ethernet connection. I can successfully capture
> > packets with Ethereal on my ethernet connection, but when I try to do
> > the same on my wifi, I get no packets. No errors either, it just sits
> > there capturing nothing. I successfully use nmap on both my wifi and
> > ethernet, so I assume that the problem isn't winpcap.
>
> Does nmap require promiscuous mode to work?
>
> A quick look at the source to nmap indicates that it'll use promiscuous
> mode only if the "-S" flag is used.
>
> If you weren't running nmap in promiscuous mode, then the fact that it
> worked on your wifi interface doesn't indicate that the problem isn't
> WinPcap or the driver.
>
> As the FAQ item Ulf referred to notes, wireless drivers on Windows often
> don't handle promiscuous mode very well.
>
> > Maybe Ethereal can't work with Intel Centrino 2100?
>
> Ethereal doesn't directly work with any network adapters - it works with
> libpcap/WinPcap. libpcap doesn't directly work with network adapters
> either, it works with the OS's capture mechanism, and WinPcap's driver
> works with NDIS - i.e., none of that code knows whether it's dealing
> with a particular network adapter - so if there's a problem with a
> wireless interface that doesn't show up with other interfaces, it's
> almost certainly a driver problem.
>
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