Tutorial [HOW-TO] Have a homemade Streetpass Relay

[urherenow]

Don't most wireless routers allow you to specify the wireless MAC? All of mine do. I just keep my SSID set to attwifi and manually change the MAC when I feel like it. I don't use any extra software or sripts to constantly rotate though a MAC list...

If you don't have a router that lets you change the wireless MAC, just use any router that you can put DD-WRT or TomatoUSB on.

 

[bisl]

I'm going to be setting my home street pass relay point up tonight. I will be doing this on a windows 8.1 pc. Can someone tell me what the best way to do this is?

Also regarding the tool to cycle Mac addresses what is the best and easiest method?

These are questions a lot of people seem to be asking right now.
I tried the manual setup described in Darkknigh_t's post, with no success; this is possibly because attwifi is supposed to be an open network with no security, but netsh requires you to use WPA2-PSK and set passwords. However, nzone.exe sets up a hostednetwork as well (with a preset SSID of ConsoleNintendo3DS and some password) that does work. I managed to get hits using this method. Afterwards, I tried cycling with both nzone.exe itself as well as MACycle (using the hostednetwork that nzone.exe set up), however neither worked for very long. I'm also on W8.1.

For what it's worth, it would be very valuable to find out the password that nzone.exe uses when setting up the hostednetwork, if anyone knows.

Also, to be explicit: I was never able to get results when using an ethernet adapter for the internet side and using the hostednetwork on the wi-fi adapter. Instead, only the setup configured by nzone.exe (a single wi-fi adapter as both the internet-side and the hostednetwork itself) worked for me.

In any case, definitely comb through the OP and post back here with what you try and what you find out.

 

[UsualNoise]

Have you tried putting the alternate v2 DD-WRT script in the startup script section of Tomato:

#!/bin/sh
MACS=/tmp/nzone.macs
[ -f $MACS ] || wget -q -O $MACS "http://duke-srg.dyndns.org/3ds/nzone?$1"
MACNUM=$(cat $MACS | wc -l)
[ $MACNUM != 0 ] || exit
RANDOM=$(head /dev/urandom | hexdump -d | head -n 1 | cut -c 11-15)
MACNUM=$(($RANDOM%${MACNUM}+1))
MAC=$(head -n $MACNUM $MACS | tail -n 1)
WLINT=$(nvram get wl0_ifname)
APDCNF=/tmp/${WLINT}_hostap.conf
APDPID=/var/run/${WLINT}_hostapd.pid
if [ -e $APDCNF ]; then
kill $(cat $APDPID)
sleep 3
sed -ri s/bssid=.*/bssid=$MAC/ $APDCNF
hostapd -B -P $APDPID $APDCNF
else
ifconfig $WLINT down
ifconfig $WLINT hw ether $MAC
ifconfig $WLINT up
fi

After that, set up a custom scheduled task to run the following custom command every x minutes:

/tmp/nzone 49,BASE16,GBATEMP

Just wondering, would this script still be a good option for a tomato-based router? Running 1.28 right now and am manually changing the MAC on the main wireless interface every so often. Would this script get the MAC list correctly and change the main wireless MAC periodically? Any suggested changes (it's been a while since it was posted)?

 

[NEO-BAHAMUT-]

Ok I think we need an update on the first page for all methods. I'm not. On inched it works at the moment as I've never had an issue setting it up the windows way.

 

[duke_srg]

bisl first, show maccheck.cmd output

 

[DjoeN]

Yeah, it sounds like it's working fine for people using other methods (other hardware or other setups). But some of us using the nzone.exe method are not getting anything. I just wish I had other options at the moment. The VMware method doesn't work for me either; I don't know anything about Linux to be able to figure out why.

If you have some spare cash, i would suggest the hassle free raspberry pi method (old raspberry pi model B (with 2 USB ports)) "SpilPassPi"
Have a compatible WiFi usb stick for around $10, burn image to SD and fire it up, ready to go; If you wish you can scp to the pi with winscp and edit the mac adresses you cycloe throu (put more mac's in it)
It has a basic webinterface to reboot the pi or to shut it down. For a good $35/$40 you are set (Model B pi's are cheaper now) They are working on a spillpasspi version for the pi2 also

After all the problems to setup a windows 8.1 homepass/streetpass i took my pi for it (i'll setup a new mediacentre as soon as i have a pi2)
since then i have hits almost instantly or after a few minutes whenever i put my 3DS in sleep mode.

When i remove all my ap entries on the 3DS, i even get hits while i'm playing Mii park or anything else, no need for sleep mode.
And when you stop using it as homepass/streetpass you still have a cheap mediacentre (Kodi) or linux computer to mess around with

 

[NEO-BAHAMUT-]

Ok I can't get this working. Been streetpassing all day with nzone.exe on windows 8.1... no hits.

 

[bisl]

bisl first, show maccheck.cmd output

Here are my results.

Marvell Semiconductor, Inc.,Marvell AVASTAR 350N Wireless Network Controller,USB\VID_1286&PID_2044&MI_02\6&3A5473F8&0&0002,mwlu97w8
0000001000000001
0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

I'd love to know what they mean!

 

[JRave]

FYI each time there is a 3DS firmware update (and you update with it) there will be a period of time where you get zero streetpasses. It seems the relay system either only gives streetpasses to those on the same firmware or resets the database each update. Once more people update and begin to seed the MACs everything will go back to normal.


That being said, after reading about all the issues with the nzone.exe setup.. I guess I'll stick with my current setup. For those on Windows 7 with a Realtek wifi adapter, look to see if the driver comes with the Realtek Wireless Lan Utility. If it does, you can use that to turn your adapter into a soft-ap. I have mine bridged with my lan connection and use MACPass to change my mac addresses while the realtek utility handles the soft-ap part.

 

[duke_srg]

Here are my results.

Marvell Semiconductor, Inc.,Marvell AVASTAR 350N Wireless Network Controller,USB\VID_1286&PID_2044&MI_02\6&3A5473F8&0&0002,mwlu97w8
0000001000000001
0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

I'd love to know what they mean!

First row means that only unicast locally assigned MAC addresses can be set, i.e. no multicast and more important no hardware MAC can be set. However this is only normal result in Windows. The second line with all zeroes means neither first nor last MAC octet us modified by the driver, very good for windows, you can set macs from common list. I.e. base16/256 and it will be set with no changes.
Now while running nzone.exe check periodically the BSSID value with
netsh wlan show hostednetwork

 

[bisl]

Now while running nzone.exe check periodically the BSSID value with
netsh wlan show hostednetwork

Here's a log I assembled running over night last weekend by scraping the results of netsh wlan show hostednetwork every 60 seconds, and correlating with the results of Get-NetAdapterStatistics -InterfaceDescription 'Microsoft Hosted Network Virtual Adapter' in Powershell. You can see it working for a couple of cycles, and then it seizes up for the rest of the night. The blank lines are from when the 60-second timer elapsed when the adapter was being cycled.

 

[duke_srg]

Here's a log I assembled running over night last weekend by scraping the results of netsh wlan show hostednetwork every 60 seconds, and correlating with the results of Get-NetAdapterStatistics -InterfaceDescription 'Microsoft Hosted Network Virtual Adapter' in Powershell. You can see it working for a couple of cycles, and then it seizes up for the rest of the night. The blank lines are from when the 60-second timer elapsed when the adapter was being cycled.

run
nzone.exe start BASE256
nzone.exe reload
that will force update to 256 addresses list with 2 minutes delay. Check MAC address changing untill it spots, then go to scheduled tasks and disable nzone task. Now manually run nzone.exe from administrator command prompt with no parameters, most probably you will get an error. If so. repeat all of the above with nzone.vbs, and you will get a description of the error.

 

[Super Effective Flail]

Sorry if I've asked a question answered elsewhere in this thread.

I've had no luck with the Windows method, and have been trying the router method as it seemed, on paper, simpler. I've acquired a Western Digital N600 that I'm trying to set up OpenWrt on, since there doesn't seem to be a version of DD-WRT that I can use for it to follow the main DD-WRT guide. I'm completely out of my element, having no idea what to do, and just want to get a HomePass set up after hours of stumbling around, trying to figure it out from the many guides. The internet connection didn't even work on the router after I flashed it with OpenWrt, and I reverted it to factory standard. Can someone please take me by the hand and walk me through the steps I need to take in order to get this thing set up?

 

[hamstrman]

Hi, new member... very desperate.

I tried the Android method. I managed to circumvent the restrictions on my phone's hotspot feature and got it to work, I got a connection linking to it from my 3DS, but no Nintendo Zone and certainly not StreetPass.

I tried various Windows methods... is the forum against posting links? Because I used these YouTube videos and this forum to try to get it to work:

In this one, I downloaded the VMWare Player and the Debian image... I ran the image and it failed because it couldn't find certain files... It kept making automatic Virtual Network Connections that I had a hard time getting rid of. I even bought the EXACT wireless adapter the guy in the video suggested to me and still nothing. Fail:


This video was great! I tried it before AND after I got the cheap wireless adapter and, using HIS method, I downloaded Virtual Router, TMAC and got everything working the way he said to! I was so excited! I was able to spoof my MAC address, I even got Virtual Router to recognize my 3DS!! It actively connected! But when I closed the 3DS, it lost the connection even though WiFi was still transmitting... Fail:


I'm dying to try the DD-WRT method, but my Belkin N+ Wireless Router isn't compatible! It's not IN-compatible, just not created for it yet.

So meanwhile, I failed using the Android method, 2 Windows methods and I can't do the DD-WRT method... And while my 3DS connected to VirtualRouter, I never get the glowing Nintendo Zone regardless.

I am seriously willing to pay someone here if they can hook me up and get this damn thing working! Out of my Plaza population of 200, 40 of them have over 3,000 StreetPass tags and it's killing me. Someone help!! I can NOT get this to work! And I think I'm pretty proficient with computers - maybe I'm delusional - but I don't know what I'm doing wrong!

 

[Lord Boogie]

I'm dying to try the DD-WRT method, but my Belkin N+ Wireless Router isn't compatible!

What is your router model? I have dd-wrt on my Belkin F5D8235-4 v2 that I got from the BETA section as it's not listed as supported but it works fine.

 

[hamstrman]

What is your router model? I have dd-wrt on my Belkin F5D8235-4 v2 that I got from the BETA section as it's not listed as supported but it works fine.

ERMAGERD! I have that EXACT model!! What material do I have to read or where do I find the appropriate DD-WRT for my router?? *so excited*

Edit: I've screwed this up so many times (or it just hasn't worked and I don't know why) that I'm afraid to try yet another method and have it fail... but I have nothing to lose. I'd just like to know I'm doing it correctly!

 

[Lord Boogie]

ERMAGERD! I have that EXACT model!! What material do I have to read or where do I find the appropriate DD-WRT for my router?? *so excited*

Edit: I've screwed this up so many times (or it just hasn't worked and I don't know why) that I'm afraid to try yet another method and have it fail... but I have nothing to lose. I'd just like to know I'm doing it correctly!

Full article here http://andrewpeng.net/gadgets/belkin-f5d8235-4-v2/dd-wrt-on-belkin-f5d8235-4-v2

But below is a modded version to take into account of the new FTP site and use the last stable build I used. Just keep in mind if you brick your router don't blame us, it's all at your own risk.

1. Go to ftp://ftp.dd-wrt.com/betas/2015/01-04-2015-r25760/Belkin-F5D8235-4_v2/ to get the mini-image. You need the mini-image to get a base firmware of DD-WRT on there before you can flash the full image. The Belkin firmware does not allow you to go to the full DD-WRT firmware directly. You need to pick “original-to-dd-wrt.bin”. Download that file.
2. Then download the other file, the latest build of DD-WRT. It’s in the same directory and is called “Belkin-F5D8235-4v2-webflash.bin”
3. Flash the router by logging into the Belkin interface via the web browser. Go do a firmware upgrade and use the “original-to-dd-wrt.bin” file. Try to flash it over wired ethernet, not wifi and give it lots of time to finish. The last thing you want to do is yank the power cord or force a reset in the middle of an upgrade.
4. After that file is flashed, you may need to refresh and renew your DHCP lease. Then log into the new router page via the web browser. Find your local IP address (example: 192.168.1.102) and replace the last digit (102) with 1. In this example, put “192.168.1.1” in the address bar.
5. Set your password, log in, then reflash the the router again using “Belkin-F5D8235-4v2-webflash.bin”.
6. Off you go, now enjoy your router with the power of DD-WRT!

When your done its a simple matter of setting up the router to your configuration setting the wifi as a homepass and spoofing the MAC address. Just note you can not use an automatic MAC changer for this.

 

[fathobbit]

fought all day
trying to use nzone.exe
When I ran it the first time, I got some streetpass folks. It worked.

When it tried to change the mac a second time, it wouldn't enable the Wi-Fi adapter.

If I >nzone stop, it hangs, because it cannot re-enable the adapter, but if I then manually restart the computer (after doing >nzone stop) I can get nzone to start (and change the mac) if I nzone reload first.

I really wish I could just the the latest nzone config with the ConsoleNintendo3DS SSID and auto-connection in a vbs file so that I could edit it to step by step track down my problem.

It seems like if the conditions are exactly right, it can change the mac address on my wifi adapter, but if hostednetwork is enabled or Wi-Fi is shared or the sky is blue or a car drives down the street, my wifi adapter hangs until I 1) >nzone stop, 2) manually reboot, 3)> nzone reload, 4) >nzone start (or >nzone BASE16, actually) at which point it works for a little bit.

Is nzone.exe supposed to create a scheduled task like nzone.vbs shows? I think it did once upon a time, but in an attempt to reset things, I deleted the task, expecting it to be re-created the next time it ran. It hasn't reappeared yet.

For now I'm using BASE1 so that I can get passes every 8 hours, but I'd rather have it working correctly. I *think* it's just a matter of parsing the VB to make sure that everything is completely undone. If it successfully changes the mac after a fresh reboot (and >nzone reload), it should be able to do it again if it can reset everything to the same conditions before it tries changing it again.

tried getting info using maccheck.cmd, but that disables the adapter, which causes it to hang trying to re-enable. I'll have to edit this post with the info after a reboot in case the output ends up being helpful, though if all it checks is to see if the mac can be changed, the answer will be yes, because it works at first load most of the time.

...

Broadcom,Broadcom 802.11n Network Adapter,PCI\VEN_14E4&DEV_4727&SUBSYS_0
58714E4&REV_01\4&3B35541A&0&0038,BCM43XX
0000001

...
That's as far as it gets, and then it hangs.

Before running the test. I disable sharing on the interface. After it hangs, I have to hard-reboot the computer (because the shutdown process gives a polite Windows 8 new BSOD error message about driver power state failure) and when it comes back up, the interface is disabled, with Sharing enabled again. (Dunno how helpful that info is, if at all.)

Basically, the all knowing guuglz says that I've got a bad driver, but it also says that the driver that I have is the only driver available for this hardware from this provider. With this information, I'm expecting to just have to deal with 8 hours between passes, but I'm hoping that some piece of information will offer another option, since the software can successfully change the mac and start itself and work.

 

[hamstrman]

Full article here http://andrewpeng.net/gadgets/belkin-f5d8235-4-v2/dd-wrt-on-belkin-f5d8235-4-v2

But below is a modded version to take into account of the new FTP site and use the last stable build I used. Just keep in mind if you brick your router don't blame us, it's all at your own risk.

1. Go to ftp://ftp.dd-wrt.com/betas/2015/01-04-2015-r25760/Belkin-F5D8235-4_v2/ to get the mini-image. You need the mini-image to get a base firmware of DD-WRT on there before you can flash the full image. The Belkin firmware does not allow you to go to the full DD-WRT firmware directly. You need to pick “original-to-dd-wrt.bin”. Download that file.
2. Then download the other file, the latest build of DD-WRT. It’s in the same directory and is called “Belkin-F5D8235-4v2-webflash.bin”
3. Flash the router by logging into the Belkin interface via the web browser. Go do a firmware upgrade and use the “original-to-dd-wrt.bin” file. Try to flash it over wired ethernet, not wifi and give it lots of time to finish. The last thing you want to do is yank the power cord or force a reset in the middle of an upgrade.
4. After that file is flashed, you may need to refresh and renew your DHCP lease. Then log into the new router page via the web browser. Find your local IP address (example: 192.168.1.102) and replace the last digit (102) with 1. In this example, put “192.168.1.1” in the address bar.
5. Set your password, log in, then reflash the the router again using “Belkin-F5D8235-4v2-webflash.bin”.
6. Off you go, now enjoy your router with the power of DD-WRT!

When your done its a simple matter of setting up the router to your configuration setting the wifi as a homepass and spoofing the MAC address. Just note you can not use an automatic MAC changer for this.

Thank you so much for the detailed instructions. I certainly wouldn't blame you for the outcome of this or any method. You're only leading me to a solution. Luckily, given that this was successful for at least one other person, it's not a total crap shoot.

I'll report back after I try it.

 

[Scytheri0n]

For anybody who is running OS X and is a bit afraid of Terminal, I've created a simple little script utility that will generate MAC addresses and cycle through them much like nzone.exe for Windows does.

Here are its features:

- Allows you to configure MAC cycling rate (default is every 2 minutes)
- Allows you to spoof Nintendo World MACs as well as HomePass MACs
- Allows you to set the SSID from within the utility. You can choose from the two default ones ('attwifi' or 'NZ@McD1') or select any of the 46 open SpotPass Relays listed here.
- Backs up and restores your current configuration in case you use Internet Sharing at other times (so you don't have to keep opening System Preferences and changing your Sharing settings back and forth)
- Allows you to start at a specific HomePass MAC (if you had to stop the script for some reason)
- Saves your preferences so you don't have to select them again every time you run the utility
- A quick change option at launch in case you want to change the SSID you're using or the cycle time or something.

You'll find two versions of the script here (You'll only find the xzone utility here now), https://github.com/h0bd0b1in/XZone, as well as a more involved ReadMe. The version named "xzone-v.sh" is essentially the same as "xzone.sh" but is 'verbose' in that it tells you exactly what it's doing at each step. XZone defaults to running in verbose mode (for now), but you can silence it by running "xzone -s". Run "xzone -h" to see all your options.