Meshtastic Sniffer For DragonOS | Hackaday

Meshtastic has gained a number of recognition over the previous couple of years due to its low barrier of entry. No licenses are wanted and the {hardware} is grime low cost, at the very least when in comparison with a number of ham radio gear. But whereas that bodily barrier is low, there’s a little bit of a studying curve. Part of that comes from the truth that there are a number of channels and modes that individuals might be speaking on, and until the consumer is aware of that info up entrance it may be exhausting to seek out the place the conversations are taking place. [cemaxecuter] observed this drawback and built a Meshtastic sniffer into his radio-forward Linux distribution, DragonOS.

The sniffing software program is in-built C and comes as a whole standalone binary and doesn’t depend on GNU Radio. With DragonOS up and working and the software program loaded, it may possibly have a look at your entire bandwidth that Meshtastic operates on and detect any visitors and decode it (so long as the secret is identified). [cemaxecuter] is utilizing a HackRF as a software-defined radio for this undertaking, which he notes doesn’t fairly have sufficient bandwidth to cowl each Meshtastic working frequency, however it may possibly get most of them. After firing up his personal node, the software program rapidly detects it and reveals its particulars within the terminal.

Software like this opens up a number of alternatives for issues that might be tedious, tough, or not possible to do with with an ordinary Meshtastic node. Besides discovering locations the place conversations are taking place extra simply, [cemaxecuter] additionally means that it might be used for wardriving and for finding or discovering different networks far more simply. For those that nonetheless haven’t tried it out, take a look at this 2023 treatise on the protocol and hardware after which dive proper in.