AIRMON-NG(8)
π airmon-ng β the manual page, but make it cute π
okay bestie, gather round. this is the airmon-ng(8) page from the System Manager's Manual and honestly? it's giving "tiny script, huge power." let's get into it.
β¨ NAME β¨
airmon-ng β a POSIX sh script designed to turn wireless cards into monitor mode. that's it, that's the whole job, and she does it beautifully. π
π¦ SYNOPSIS π¦
airmon-ng <start|stop> <interface> [channel] airmon-ng <check> [kill]
yes, that's exactly how it's written. no, i will not be fixing it. it's iconic. periodt.
πΈ DESCRIPTION πΈ
so like, airmon-ng is the script you use to enable monitor mode on wireless interfaces. main character energy fr fr. π
and when you're done being mysterious and watching packets? she can also take you back from monitor mode to managed mode. a full glow-up and a full un-glow-up.
if you just run the airmon-ng command with no parameters at all, she'll show you the interfaces status. lowkey the chillest way to vibe check your card. π
she can also list and kill programs that might interfere with your wireless card's operation. rude little programs. not on her watch. π
π OPTIONAL PARAMETERS π
start <interface> [channel]β turns on monitor mode on an interface, and you can specify a channel while you're at it. β¨ Note: Madwifi-ng is a special case βstarthas to be used on wifi interfaces andstopon ath interfaces. she's quirky like that, we love her anyway. π«Άstart <interface> [frequency]β same deal, turns on monitor mode on an interface, but this time you specify a frequency in MHz. π» Note: again, Madwifi-ng is a special case βstarthas to be used on wifi interfaces andstopon ath interfaces. no cap.stop <interface>β disables monitor mode and goes back to managed mode. the "okay i'm done being mysterious" button. π (except for madwifi-ng, where it kills the ath VAP β different beast, different ending.)check [kill]β lists every possible program that could interfere with your wireless card. π and if you throwkillin there, she'll try to kill all of them. not me being the enforcer. π--verboseβ this flag must precedestart/stop/check, and it can be combined with other parameters or used all alone. she'll crank up the verbosity to give you extra useful info that you might not need for normal operation. it's giving "tell me everything, i can handle it." π--debugβ same rules bestie: this flag must precedestart/stop/check, and it can be combined with other parameters or used alone. this one cranks verbosity all the way to debug level to help you troubleshoot errors inairmon-ng. π use this flag when you're opening a bug, but only use--verbosewhen you're requesting support in irc. different rooms, different flags, iykyk.--eliteβ WARNING: DO NOT USE π¨ okay so this flag must precedestartorstop, and it will preventairmon-ngfrom removing interfaces. WARNING: using this flag will immediately disqualify you from receiving any support from the aircrack-ng team, because this behavior is known to be broken. WARNING! π bestie i am begging you. do not. the vibes are rancid. it is not slay, it is a trap. π«
okay that last one was a lot. take a breath. hydrate. do not touch --elite. π
π§ AUTHOR π§
this manual page was written by Adam Cecile <gandalf@le-vert.net> for the Debian system (but it may be used by others π). and it was modified to fit airmon-ng by David Francos Cuartero <xayon@xayon.net>. most recently modified by Zero_Chaos to update for the airmon-zc rewrite. π οΈβ¨
permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU General Public License, Version 2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation. on Debian systems, the complete text of the GNU General Public License can be found in /usr/share/common-licenses/GPL. π
β SEE ALSO β
go read her friends, they're all iconic:
airbase-ng(8)aireplay-ng(8)airodump-ng(8)airodump-ng-oui-update(8)airserv-ng(8)airtun-ng(8)besside-ng(8)easside-ng(8)tkiptun-ng(8)wesside-ng(8)aircrack-ng(1)airdecap-ng(1)airdecloak-ng(1)airolib-ng(1)besside-ng-crawler(1)buddy-ng(1)ivstools(1)kstats(1)makeivs-ng(1)packetforge-ng(1)wpaclean(1)
and that's the whole page, bestie!! π this was Version 1.7.0, dated May 2022, and honestly? she ate. go turn some cards into monitor mode responsibly. mwah. πβ¨π¦
π¦ where this page comes from
- alpine 3.24: aircrack-ng-doc 1.7-r5 Β· GPL-2.0-or-later
- arch rolling: aircrack-ng 1.7-7 Β· GPL-2.0-only AND BSD-3-Clause AND OpenSSL
- debian bookworm: aircrack-ng 1:1.7-5 Β· GPL-2.0-or-later
- debian trixie: aircrack-ng 1:1.7+git20230807.4bf83f1a-2 Β· GPL-2.0-or-later
- fedora 43: aircrack-ng 1.7-10.fc43 Β· GPL-2.0-or-later
- fedora 43: aircrack-ng 1.7-10.fc43 Β· GPL-2.0-or-later
- fedora 44: aircrack-ng 1.7-12.fc44 Β· GPL-2.0-or-later
- fedora 44: aircrack-ng 1.7-12.fc44 Β· GPL-2.0-or-later
- nixos 26.05: aircrack-ng 1.7
- nixpkgs unstable: aircrack-ng 1.7
- ubuntu noble: aircrack-ng 1:1.7+git20230807.4bf83f1a-1build2 Β· GPL-2.0-or-later
- ubuntu questing: aircrack-ng 1:1.7+git20230807.4bf83f1a-2ubuntu1
- ubuntu resolute: aircrack-ng 1:1.7+git20230807.4bf83f1a-2ubuntu2 Β· GPL-2.0-or-later
- ubuntu stonking: aircrack-ng 1:1.7+git20230807.4bf83f1a-3build1 Β· GPL-2.0-or-later
- π girlified by deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash on : a language model's rewrite of the original, under its terms