Time for action – creating a monitor mode interface

Let's now set our Alfa card into monitor mode!

Follow these instructions to get started:

1. Boot into BackTrack with your Alfa card 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. Verify the card is up by running ifconfig wlan0. You should see the word UP in the second line of the output as shown:

   

3. To put our card into monitor mode, we will use the airmon-ng utility which is available by default on BackTrack. First run airmon-ng to verify it detects the available cards. You should see the wlan0 interface listed in the output:

   

4. Now enter airmon-ng start wlan0 to create a monitor mode interface corresponding to the wlan0 device. This new monitor mode interface will be named mon0. You can verify it has been created by running airmon-ng without arguments again:

   

5. Also, running ifconfig should now display...