Network Analysis Using ifconfig and iwconfig
Explore how to use the ifconfig and iwconfig tools to analyze network interfaces, monitor wireless connections, and troubleshoot network issues. Understand key details like IP addresses, interface status, and wireless signal metrics to support effective penetration testing and network management.
Introduction to networking
Understanding networks is crucial for aspiring hackers, pentesters, and web administrators. Working over a network is a requirement in many standard penetration tests. As such, this lesson (and the following lessons) will cover a number of tools that are used in analyzing and managing networks during the pentesting process.
Analyzing networks with ifconfig
The ifconfig tool is used for examining and interacting with active network interfaces. Pentesters query active networks by entering ifconfig in the Linux terminal and surveying the information presented. Let’s test out the command below and see what information it has for us:
From the terminal above, the ifconfig command displays the different interfaces that are connected to the system. The Linux system does the classification of interfaces by using the index. Since our Linux environment only has one working Ethernet interface, we see it as eth0. The eth0 ...