Build Your Own Wardriving Box

July 29th, 2005 · No Comments

Some dude has written a HOWTO on making your own small portable wardriving box with Soekris / WRAP & OpenBSD:

it’s very easy, but this is not a step by step HOWTO, only a guide to build your own box. To start, you need a small up and running OpenBSD System on an Intel based System. This Sytem can run on in VMWare or on a older PC System (i use a 500 Mhz Pentuim System with 4 GB HD and 128 MB Ram)
For installing OpenBSD download and install OpenBSD from www.openbsd.org and then RTFM (read the famous manual),

Now you need a “BOX”. There are two possibilities:

1. WRAP Box from PCENGINES
2. SOEKRIS Box from soekris
Both boxes are availible on local resellers in your country. We add a liste later here.

for our first prototype, we used a WRAP.1E-1 = 2 LAN / 2 miniPCI, 6″ x 6″ and for the second test we used a NET4801 Board from Soekris. There are some differences between this two boards, but its easy to move the installation from one to the other, In the view of the hardware, soekris (NET4801) has some benefits, like allready installed USB connector and a second serial port inside and a UltraDMA-33 interface with 44 pins connector for 2.5″ Hard Drive. The WRAP Box is smaller and cheaper, but the USB must be installed additionaly (and the is no space in the case), and WRAP box use less power, then the soekis board.
I like both boxes, but for my project to integrate the wdbox in the car, i use the soekris box, because the second serial interface for a LCD Display.

And now you need a wireles mini pci card. we have tryed out some cards, and for the begin we use the NL-2511MP Plus. In the future, we try out other cards, if we have some to test. (please send your feedback, i f you have tested a other one)
for a basic installation, you need some other hardware (remeber this, if you order a box), like a CF-Card (at minimum 64MB), a CF Card Reader (or use PXE Boot), a power supply, RS-232 Null Modem Cable, antenna , LCD Display (if desired), network cable amd some time…..

Apparantly this dude is showcasing it at What The Hack at the moment.