Free wireless network virus protection software for linux

The Linux Wireless Extension and the Wireless Tools are an Open Source project sponsored by Hewlett Packard (through my contribution) since 1996, and build with the contribution of many Linux users all over the world.

The Wireless Extension (WE) is a generic API allowing a driver to expose to the user space configuration and statistics specific to common Wireless LANs. The beauty of it is that a single set of tool can support all the variations of Wireless LANs, regardless of their type (as long as the driver support Wireless Extension).

Another advantage is these parameters may be changed on the fly without restarting the driver (or Linux).

The Wireless Tools (WT) is a set of tools allowing to manipulate the Wireless Extensions. They use a textual interface and are rather crude, but aim to support the full Wireless Extension. There are many other tools you can use with Wireless Extensions, however Wireless Tools is the reference implementation.

iwconfig manipulate the basic wireless parameters
iwlist allow to initiate scanning and list frequencies, bit-rates, encryption keys...
iwspy allow to get per node link quality
iwpriv allow to manipulate the Wireless Extensions specific to a driver (private)
ifrename allow to name interfaces based on various static criteria

Most Linux distributions also have integrated Wireless Extensions support in their networking initialisation scripts, for easier boot-time configuration of wireless interfaces. They also include Wireless Tools as part of their standard packages.
Wireless configuration can also be done using the Hotplug scripts and distribution specific support, this enable the proper support of any removable wireless interface (Pcmcia, CardBus, USB...).

Any versions of the Pcmcia package offer the possibility to do wireless configuration of Pcmcia and Cardbus card through thefile wireless.opts. This allow to fully integrate wireless settings in the Pcmcia scheme mechansism. However, this method is now deprecated in favor of distribution specific methods.

Please note that the Wireless Tools (starting with version 19) supports fully IEEE 802.11 parameters and devices, support older style of devices and most proprietary protocols, and are prepared to handle HiperLan as well. More recent versions of course adds more 802.11 support.

But, unfortunately not all drivers support all these features...

RogueScanner project is an open-source vulnerability management tool that is used to gain greater network visibility to enable you to quickly identify and remove rogue wireless devices that may provide a back door to access your critical data and infrastructure.
Considering that rogue access points and peers represent a major threat to data integrity, RogueScanner is a valuable tool that you can start using today at no cost.
More than 300 companies manufacture access points, and there are more than 10,000 different models of network infrastructure.
Companies thus face a major challenge in maintaining a system to track and identify all potential rogue wireless devices and in continually scanning the network to identify them. To address this challenge, Network Chemistry has made an open-source product available to help organizations begin to immediately scan their networks.
RogueScanner is available for use at no charge by organizations looking for a tool focused on device identification and rogue detection. RogueScanner leverages the Collaborative Device Classification system to automatically lookup and identify the device type and its identity in real time.
Enhancements:
- Many scanning and classification improvements.
- Support has been added for parsing routes under from IOS CLI.
- Support has been added for dumping Cisco device CDP cache via both SNMP and CLI (IOS and CatOS).
- Support has been added for sniffing CDP broadcasts off the wire.
- CDP information is now submitted to the classification server and used for classification.
- FTP (21/TCP) has been added to the list of ports that are probed if open.

Ad-hoc Wireless Distribution Service (AWDS) is a Layer 2 routing protocol for wireless mesh networks. The project provides transparent Ethernet-like access to all participating nodes, thus easily allowing the employment of different higher level protocols like IP (with DHCP), IPv6, AppleTalk, ...

A Linux implementation of AWDS can be downloaded from our download section. Ports to other platforms are highly appreciated!

Viralator is a Perl script that virus scans HTTP/FTP downloads request on a UNIX server after passing through the Squid proxy server.
Even when I implemented virus protection for my network email server we still continued to get the odd virus. Most of the viruses came from people using free webmail accounts like Hotmail or Yahoo and downloading the infected attachments to their machines or through downloading junk.
Rather than block access to the users I decided to look at how we could better protect the network. I looked at a couple of different products both comercial and free but they were either too expensive or did not meet my needs.
That is how Viralator was born. Viralator Proxy Virus Scanner is licenced under the GPL.
Viralator should work in any UNIX system that uses Apache and Squid servers. We have reports about successful instalations on:
- RedHat Linux
- Mandrake Linux
- SuSe Linux
- e-Smith Linux
- Slackware Linux
- Conectiva Linux
- Debian Gnu Linux
Supported Redirectors:
- Squirm
- SquidGuard
- Jesred
Supported Virus Scanners
- AntiVir
- AVP
- RAV
- Inoculate
- Sophos Sweep
- McAfee
- Trend
- Clamav
- Bit Defender (free edition)
The original concept for Viralator came from the Viromat project. Without Viromat the Viralator project would not have had a starting point. We can also thank Ralph Meyer for badgering me into releasing the script under the GPL.
Enhancements:
- Parenthesis are included on the regular expression used to validate URLs.
- The character set checking step, which was not working before last patch released, has been fixed.

wireless-applet is an GNOME Panel applet displaying available wireless networks with the ability to add a listed network to the system configuration easily.

Brings the comfort of NetworkManager to wpa_supplicant users. Supports WEP, WPA-PSK, and open wireless networks.

About AVG Anti-Virus:

• AVG Professional Single Edition is perfectly designed to give you the maximum antivirus protection for your single home PC or workstation.
• It is simple to install and operate. No IT expertise is required and it can run in the background, providing uninterrupted protection. All file and e-mail activity is checked automatically, allowing you to get on with your work without worrying about viruses.
• It is extremely fast, reliable and light on resources, so, no matter how demanding a user you are, it will not slow down your performance.

Enhancements: Added detection of new variants of trojans SHeur2.ANNO, BackDoor.Hupigon5.LCW, SHeur2.ANOR, Downloader.Generic8.AXOI, PSW.Banker5.ONF, Generic13.BPUS.

Network Simulator (Ns) is a discrete event simulator targeted at networking research. Ns provides substantial support for simulation of TCP, routing, and multicast protocols over wired and wireless (local and satellite) networks.
Ns began as a variant of the REAL network simulator in 1989 and has evolved substantially over the past few years. In 1995 ns development was supported by DARPA through the VINT project at LBL, Xerox PARC, UCB, and USC/ISI.
Currently ns development is support through DARPA with SAMAN and through NSF with CONSER, both in collaboration with other researchers including ACIRI. Ns has always included substantal contributions from other researchers, including wireless code from the UCB Daedelus and CMU Monarch projects and Sun Microsystems.
Enhancements:
- Major updates were made to the PackMime-HTTP HTTP/1.1 and WPAN modules.
- Solaris/Sun C compilation bugs were fixed.

NetworkControl is a utility to control and monitor network interfaces, including wireless ones (for which you see a signal strength meter, as shown).

NetworkControl addresses a conspicuous lack in most Linux distributions — most tend to be short on easy-to-use network utilities, even something as trivial as a robust, informative way to log on and off a dialup connection. NetworkControl also provides the connection IP, configuration and statistics (gleaned from "ifconfig" and updated each second), and provides graphic signal levels for wireless interfaces, handy for evaluating a system of wireless devices.

NetworkControl allows you to see network activity at a glance and lets you control your network interfaces in a fast, convenient way. It is designed to be easy to use and informative.

If you have downloaded the binary, just put it in /usr/local/bin, give it executable permissions and run it like this:
networkcontrol

You can make a desktop shortcut with this as its executable target.

If you have downloaded the source package:
Put it in any convenient location.
tar -xjf networkcontrol.tar.bz2
cd networkcontrol.dist
./auto_install.sh

If you dont want the automatic installation or you want to fine-tune the process, instead of running "auto_install.sh", after the unpacking step above, do this:

make -f Makefile.cvs dist
./configure
make
sudo make install

Obviously you may want to modify some of these steps to suit your platform.