Compatible Wifi Adapters

[xchwarze]

Like all pineapple mk6 this one comes with some wifi drivers already installed.
These are: kmod-mt76x2u, kmod-rt2800-usb and kmod-rtl8187.
Being the only one compatible for 802.11ac/5ghz the kmod-mt76x2u which can be found in the AWUS036ACM and the EP-AC1605 V1.

Please be advised that only adapters based on RT5370/MT7612U are confirmed to work correctly in all circumstances, and other WiFi adapters may not work or have available drivers at all, or may only work partially or cause unexpected behavior like crashes, reboots, etc.
Not all WiFi cards or drivers are equal in capability or performance!

More information about a specific adapter can usually found with resources such as deviwiki

[xchwarze]

To help with the task of finding compatible adapters I made these listings with the data from deviwiki:

• Based on RT3070 (rt2800 driver) link to list
• Based on RT5370 (rt2800 driver) link to list
• Based on RTL8187 (rtl8187 driver) link to list
• Based on MT7612U (mt76x2u driver) link to list

[iceman3k]

Is anyone having trouble getting the USB wifi adapters to work? Specifically MT7612U based adapter? I see it using lsusb and in the interface, but the adapter is not assigned interfaces.

I ordered the brand Acaigel from newegg, https://www.newegg.com/p/2S7-08E2-00096?Item=9SIAX3GJFX6992
The chipset is listed as: MT7612U+Flash RAM

Would this really not be compatible even with the same chipset?

Works fine with Kali

[Rekindled1977]

Thanks for the feedback. I'm gonna give that a try. If that doesn't work, are you saying those other adapters you listed for the pineapple should be efficient and working?

[xchwarze]

Beyond the fact that it is openwrt, the reality is that there are a few models that work perfectly. Models that you can inject packages in Windows, macOS and Linux. Models that are really stable to work on this.
Those are the ones that never fail and are recommended whenever you want to play with WiFi.
Nowadays many of them are deprecated and that is why I published the deviwiki compatibility links.
If you need to buy a new one today you have the Alfa ones like the AWUS036ACM.

[Rekindled1977]

I am just going to order the AWUS036ACM. I'm assuming the drivers for it are there already and should plug and play?

[xchwarze]

Yes, all of those listed are already installed

[Rekindled1977]

Perfect, I just found that info reading through it as well. I'm very new to this pineapple stuff and wanted to go the diy route first in order to learn. Once I get a better understanding I'll be buying the mark 7 from hak5. I really appreciate all of your help!

[orleiv96]

Alfa USB Adapter AWUS036ACH? Chipset: Realtek RTL8812AU, Any chance anyone knows if this works? i got a GL slate As reccomened by yourself for £35 of ebay to make a Clone, was wondering if this would work? or just better to go for a cheaper reccomened one many thanks

[xchwarze]

As far as I remember RTL8812AU is not supported even in openwrt 23.

[orleiv96]

Thank you for your timely response, I will order one that you’ve recommended then, hope I get this project to work!

Honestly youre a Genius!!

[BAM00]

I saw the panda pau0b ac600 on the morrownr github adapters but its not recognizing mine
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NPX2X4Z/

I think this uses mt7610u chipset, anyway to get this to work?

[CriticalO]

I've had so many so called compatible WiFi adapters for so many different projects,
I purchased some cheap Chinese adapters along with two MT7612U clones, along with a few others based on supposedly supported chipsets, none of them worked. I wasted so much money that I now know the meaning of, buy cheap or buy twice, so I grabbed my self two Alfa AWUS036ACM as these support 5g as well and by the way use the MT7612U chipset which is already installed and as soon as I plugged them in they worked perfectly I even ran bully and grabbed my neighbours Access Point Pass and Key. The Chinese clones that had the same chipset did nothing, my router did not even recognise them, more money down the pan, they were £30 for the pair another tenner and I could have had one AWUS036ACM for my troubles.

Unfortunately not all WIFi adapters are made the same, some are cheap copies with cloned chipsets, so my advice is to not buy cheap get the best adapter you can afford and you will be fine, just send that one back and swap it for the Alfa AWUS036ACM and you'll be golden, alternatively you can log into your router via SSH then try installing the driver,using the OpenWRT package manager to see if you can force it to work, something like

opkg update
opkg install kmod-mt76x0u

To uninstall the driver to claim your wasted space back

opkg remove kmod-mt76x0u

Note: The kmod-rt2800-usb
kmod-rt|8187and the
kmod-mt76x2u (AWUS036ACM), are already installed, so to be honest it's one of these chipsets that you should be looking at anyway.

However if your device still doesn't work with the driver installed, you'll just have to bite the bullet and grab yourself a decent adapter, when I first started learning this stuff, everyone was banging on about the AWUS036ACH with the Realtek RTL8812AU (by the time I tried to get one they were on v2, cannot speak for v1), again, complete waste of money it is a pile of crap, just have a go at installing the drivers, that's enough to give you a headache for years, yes it can pick up signals from a long distance although you try doing anything with them and all you get is a hot adapter that's not up to it's job and does nothing of any use anyway, luckily I managed to sell it on for £37, I've had better luck with and AR9271 Clone that cost me a tenner when I shelled out £62 for that other piece of crap, the moral of this story is be very careful of what you read on the net, most of it is just copied from other sites that have no clue what they are talking about, anyway good luck...

By the way not sure why I got this message, I know nothing about anything, I wasn't there and it definitely wasn't me.