How to make network adapter promiscuous?

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news - 30 Dec 2005 13:41 GMT

Running a Dell Dimension 3000, with built-in LAN adapter.

When running Suse Linux 9.2 on the machine, I tell Ethereal to operate
promiscuously, and I can see all the traffic on the LAN segment.

When I run Ethereal under Win XP Pro (with all the updates), again with
promiscuous enabled, all I can see is broadcast traffic and any traffic
to/from the Dell.

So it's obvious that the network adapter is not actually running
promiscuously under Win XP, even though I enabled it in Ethereal.

Any ideas on how I can persuade Win XP to switch the NIC into
promiscuous mode?

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Ian

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Steve Winograd [MVP] - 30 Dec 2005 16:25 GMT

>Running a Dell Dimension 3000, with built-in LAN adapter.
>
[quoted text clipped - 10 lines]
>Any ideas on how I can persuade Win XP to switch the NIC into
>promiscuous mode?

Please see this Microsoft Knowledge Base article:

Bridge May Not Work With a Non-Promiscuous Mode Network Adapter
http://support.microsoft.com/Default.aspx?id=302348

To search the Knowledge Base, go to this web page:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=fh;EN-US;KBHOWTO

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Best Wishes,
Steve Winograd, MS-MVP (Windows Networking)

Please post any reply as a follow-up message in the news group
for everyone to see. I'm sorry, but I don't answer questions
addressed directly to me in E-mail or news groups.

Microsoft Most Valuable Professional Program
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com

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Kevin - 30 Dec 2005 19:35 GMT

Take it out to dinner and get it drunk. Oops, sorry, that was for women,
not Network Interface Cards. My bad.

> Running a Dell Dimension 3000, with built-in LAN adapter.
>
[quoted text clipped - 10 lines]
> Any ideas on how I can persuade Win XP to switch the NIC into promiscuous
> mode?

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Gerry Cornell - 30 Dec 2005 20:21 GMT

Kevin

Ian does have a care4free regard for use of language <g>!

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Regards.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England

Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

> Take it out to dinner and get it drunk. Oops, sorry, that was for women,
> not Network Interface Cards. My bad.
[quoted text clipped - 13 lines]
>> Any ideas on how I can persuade Win XP to switch the NIC into promiscuous
>> mode?

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Mungo Bulge - 31 Dec 2005 04:38 GMT

The key to promiscuity is the total lack of "all the updates" as Big
Brother decided that several "feature" having to do with networking
were only used by black hats and were not of use to legitimate users
so these features were locked down with SP2. Can it be done, sure, but
you are not going to do it with regedit if that is what you are
looking for.
A lot of my site survey tools had to be re-tooled because of these
fixes.

<<<<<<SNIP>>>>> When I run Ethereal under Win XP Pro (with all the
updates), again <<<<SNIP>>>>

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news - 31 Dec 2005 10:20 GMT

>The key to promiscuity is the total lack of "all the updates" as Big
>Brother decided that several "feature" having to do with networking
[quoted text clipped - 4 lines]
>A lot of my site survey tools had to be re-tooled because of these
>fixes.

Hmmm, as I suspected. Thanks Mungo. I guess I'll have to stick to Linux.

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Ian

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