Question about special use case

Installing and Using OpenWrt
1

Hello all!. First post here. I have a project underway and right now what I am using is a tp link archer a7 v5 and a linksys AC1200. I use them by putting the interfaces in monitor mode and performing wireless surveying from my service trucks.

I have them both configured to extroot from a flash drive and running kismet with gps right on the routers. It works well, but the version of kismet that is available in the repos lacks a lot of the functionality that the newer version has. What I would like to do is use a raspberry pi 4 to run the kismet server and use the radios in the routers to do the scanning. in other words, access the wlan0 and wlan1 directly from the pi and just use them as though they were external cards.

I have never set up a virtual lan and I don't even know what method would be appropriate. I have them working pretty well and stable this way using gpsd and most of the time it works fine. But I would like to implement some of the plugins that are available on newer versions, that's why I would like to run it on the pi.

Can anyone tell me how I might go about this? I also have some questions about which packages I can live without so that I could lighten the load on the routers. here is the output from top:

'

2147  2001 root     D    17832  14%  37% kismet_server
 2585  2509 root     R     7448   6%  33% kismet_client
 2009     1 nobody   S<    1480   1%   4% gpsd /dev/ttyUSB0
 1232     1 root     S     2100   2%   3% /sbin/rpcd -s /var/run/ubus.sock -t 30
 4649     2 root     IW       0   0%   1% [kworker/0:1]
 5174     2 root     IW       0   0%   1% [kworker/u2:0]
    7     2 root     SW       0   0%   1% [ksoftirqd/0]
  684     1 root     S     1220   1%   1% /sbin/ubusd
 6909  2703 root     R     1208   1%   0% top
 6131     2 root     IW       0   0%   0% [kworker/u2:2]
 1385     1 root     S     1744   1%   0% /sbin/netifd
    1     0 root     S     1564   1%   0% /sbin/procd
 1421     1 root     S     1444   1%   0% /usr/sbin/odhcpd
 1516     1 root     S     1344   1%   0% /usr/sbin/uhttpd -f -h /www -r OpenWrt -x /cgi-bin -t 60 -T 30 -k 20 -A 1 -n 3 -N 100 -R -p
 2689  1328 root     S     1144   1%   0% /usr/sbin/dropbear -F -P /var/run/dropbear.1.pid -p 22 -K 300 -T 3
 5521     2 root     IW       0   0%   0% [kworker/0:0]
  566     2 root     DW       0   0%   0% [jbd2/sda1-8]
 1555     1 root     S     2760   2%   0% /usr/bin/bluetoothd -n
 1531     1 root     S     1508   1%   0% /usr/bin/dbus-daemon --system
 2107     1 dnsmasq  S     1344   1%   0% /usr/sbin/dnsmasq -C /var/etc/dnsmasq.conf.cfg01411c -k -x /var/run/dnsmasq/dnsmasq.cfg01411
 1517     1 root     S     1312   1%   0% /usr/sbin/uhttpd -f -h /usr/share/dump1090 -r OpenWrt -t 60 -T 30 -k 20 -A 1 -n 3 -N 100 -R
 1984     1 root     S     1264   1%   0% /bin/sh /etc/rc.common /etc/rc.d/S95done boot
 1201     1 root     S     1244   1%   0% /sbin/logd -S 64
 2509  2496 root     S     1216   1%   0% -ash
 2703  2689 root     S     1216   1%   0% -ash
 2001  1984 root     S     1208   1%   0% sh /etc/rc.local
 1642  1385 root     S     1208   1%   0% udhcpc -p /var/run/udhcpc-eth0.2.pid -s /lib/netifd/dhcp.script -f -t 0 -i eth0.2 -x hostnam
^C939  1516 root     R     1180   1%   0% {luci} /usr/bin/lua /www/cgi-bin/luci'

I think I need to keep the dhcp functionality for now because I do need to connect to the internet to update packages, install software, etc. But I'm sure some of these inits I could live without I just don't know which ones. Anyways, thank you for building and supporting such a great project!

2

Firstly, welcome

Secondly, paragraphs make reading easier

Thirdly, if I understand correctly, you want to run something on a raspberry pi 4 loaded with Openwrt? If so, then the version of what you want to run wont' be any newer than on your current openwrt devices

3

Sorry for the confusion. No, I want to run the kismet server on the pi4 and just slave the wlan0,wlan1 over to the kismet server running on the pi. The router would still be running openwrt, I just feel like there is probably a way to do the heavy work on the pi and use the router as 2 "dumb" wireless adapters

4

What heavy work are you referring to for the Pi? Will the Pi be running OpenWrt? What device will be acting as your router?

5

Ok, sorry for the lack of clarity. In linux, if I want to use an interface in monitor mode, I use the appropriate commands, airmon-ng start "interface name" . Basically I want to use the router's radios (wlan1, wlan0) with a kismet server running on the pi. I want to control those hardware interfaces on the router as though they were native to the pi, or let the output from the interfaces in monitor mode pipe to a running kismet server on the pi. Does that make more sense?

6

This would be an ordinary network, it just doesn't have a connection to the Internet. Static IP the Pi at 192.168.1.1 and the other devices .2 .3 etc using the "dumb AP" setup guide for them (they won't be APs, but they still are basically wifi to wired converters) Connect all together using the built in switch in the A7, that is plug cables from one of its LAN ports to each other device.