Enabling monitor mode in Kali 6.0 VM on TP-Link TP-WN821N V6

Question

I'm trying to setup my TP-Link adapter into monitor mode in my Kali VM. I've tried multiple RTL8192 drivers (Mange/clnhub) on github, with only Mange getting me an actual Wi-Fi connection. I've followed many of the older threads available online without any results.

The adapter is recognized by iwconfig:

└─$ iwconfig                                       
lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

wlan0     unassociated  Nickname:"<WIFI@REALTEK>"
          Mode:Managed  Frequency=2.412 GHz  Access Point: Not-Associated   
          Sensitivity:0/0  
          Retry:off   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality:0  Signal level:0  Noise level:0
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

I have also verified the adapter supports monitor mode:

└─$ iw list | grep "Supported interface modes" -A10 
        Supported interface modes:
                 * IBSS
                 * managed
                 * AP
                 * monitor
                 * P2P-client
                 * P2P-GO
        Band 1:
                Capabilities: 0x1962
                        HT20/HT40
                        Static SM Power Save

I can connect to my home WiFi when in managed mode without any issues.

When I run Airmon-NG start after running check kill I get the following output:

└─$ sudo airmon-ng start wlan0


PHY     Interface       Driver          Chipset

phy0    wlan0           rtl8192eu       TP-Link TL-WN821N v5/v6 [RTL8192EU]
                (monitor mode enabled)

Indicating that monitor mode is enabled, when I run iwconfig and airodump however:

└─$ iwconfig
lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

wlan0     unassociated  Nickname:"<WIFI@REALTEK>"
          Mode:Managed  Frequency=2.412 GHz  Access Point: Not-Associated   
          Sensitivity:0/0  
          Retry:off   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality:0  Signal level:0  Noise level:0
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

                                                                                                                                                 
┌──(kali㉿kali)-[~]
└─$ sudo airodump-ng wlan0    
ioctl(SIOCSIWMODE) failed: Operation not permitted
ioctl(SIOCSIWMODE) failed: Operation not permitted
Error setting monitor mode on wlan0
Failed initializing wireless card(s): wlan0

After restarting the network manager and enabling the wlan0 adapter, trying to set it to monitor mode using iwconfig gives me:

└─$ sudo iwconfig wlan0 mode monitor
Error for wireless request "Set Mode" (8B06) :
    SET failed on device wlan0 ; Operation not permitted.

I am at a loss here, as a last resort I installed the slightly older 5.18 kernel because I read in a forum post there might be a change to 6.0 that caused issues, but I ran into the same walls.

Thanks in advance for anyone who can give me some insight!

Answer 1

I'm not too familiar with Kali but since you're using airmon-ng you could try:

airmon-ng check kill
iwconfig wlan0 mode monitor

Hope this helps you