Is it possible to use a WiFi router to simply scan for existing wireless-capable devices (e.g. smartphones) which have Wi-Fi enabled on scanning mode, but are not connected to anyone.
My ultimate goal is using OpenWrt on a TP-Link wireless router and scanning for mobile phone devices in the surrounding area.
So can it be done without them connecting to the device? Using wireless-tools, libiw library?
Thanks
Best Answer
What you want to do is called "passive scanning". The de-facto standard Linux utility for this is Kismet, your distribution's package manager likely has a package. Depending on your used hardware it may even work in parallel to acting as a regular router. However mose W-LAN interfaces can not operate in passive mode and master mode at the same time.